Pologarage

Levent Özçoban 

“We increase our productivity with Nebim.”

Levent Özçoban, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Pologarage, talked about their collaboration with Nebim that has been continuing for many years, and all the phases of change during this collaboration. Özçoban emphasized that the parametric and integrated infrastructure of Nebim has always provided them with user-friendliness and speed.

Could you tell us about the history of Polo?

The history of Pologarage started in an 80 m² flat in Osmanbey in 1977. At that time, we entered the ready-to-wear apparel industry for women and men under the name “Polo”. We reached 200 points of sale by 1988 and in the same year we opened our first retail store in Nişantaşı under the name Pologarage. The name of the brand derives from that store in Nişantaşı. The upper floor of our store used to be a car garage, and this influenced the creation of our brand name. Since then, our customers have accepted us as Pologarage. Our first store abroad was opened in Kiew in 1994. At the moment, we have 24 retail stores abroad, and 55 retail stores within Turkey, and we serve our customers with a staff of 1000 persons.

How did the collaboration with Nebim start?

When we wanted to establish a strong infrastructure, we met Nebim whose experience in the industry we trusted in. In order to increase the productivity of our company and to better monitor our inventory, we started collaborating with Nebim in 1994.

In which phases of your business do you use Nebim? Can you please talk about the benefits that Nebim provides for Polo?

We use Nebim in nearly all phases in our company. We actively use Finance-Accounting, Inventory and Orders, Retail and Production. We can keep track of all our process with this strong and parametric infrastructure in our chain stores. With Nebim, we can monitor minimum inventory and achieve a sustainable productivity growth.

We use the Supply and Production Management application actively. Thus, we can observe our production instantly, and we can carry out and control all our purchasing processes, planning, deliveries, contract manufacturing and manufacturing phases in an integrated manner. We can plan and manage time efficiently with the work order process monitoring screens in Nebim Supply and Production Management. According to the parameters that we define in the software, we can create our macro plans through work order process monitoring, and we can see the ones that have been carried out, and so manage our processes efficiently.

Also, we can accept products in an integrated manner using barcode systems for in-house production and ready-made purchases. This lets us enter products quickly and without errors. In short, thanks to the application by Nebim, all steps from anticipated costs to deliveries are carried out in a detailed, accurate and efficient way. During our collaboration, Nebim has always provided us at Pologarage with user-friendliness and speed thanks to its parametric and integrated structure.

Recently, we started implementing Nebim’s Product Transfer between Stores Planner in order to prevent unavailability of products and to increase customer satisfaction. With this application, we can transfer our products between stores according to product supply and customer demand.

We can create various scenarios according to the needs of our company, everything can be recorded and be made active at any given time. According to the recorded data, we can make faster planning decisions and implement them. Another application that we actively use is the Nebim Online Store, with which we can include our stores in the product management process and keep track of our products faster and in a more accurate way.

With this application, the authorized persons in our stores can analyze the products with a high sales performance that are decreasing in the inventory so that necessary products can immediately be ordered after checking the warehouse inventory at the headquarters.

With this application developed by Nebim, we can maximize the order integration of all our points of sale. All the products needed by the stores can be ordered online. The so ordered products are listed in the headquarters and the deliveries are carried out according to this information. Thanks to this Nebim application, our stores are active in the product management process and we can therefore keep track of our products more accurately. The order integration of all our points of sale is provided on the macro level with Nebim.

Another productivity-enhancing application that we have recently started to use at our company is the Nebim Halogen Corporate software. Thanks to the ready-made reports in this application, the users in all our departments benefit from Nebim’s know-how. The biggest benefit that Halogen Corporate provides for our company is that all these reports and analyses are updated automatically and sent to the related users and managers via e-mail.

We think that getting to know the needs of the customers, analyze them and quickly respond to them is even more important at times of intense competition. In this regard, we actively use Nebim Customer Relations Management (CRM) in our company in order to increase customer satisfaction and the service quality. Thanks to this application, the permanent campaigns at our stores and customer-specific price discounts are managed in a more favorable way. We can measure and evaluate implemented campaigns and come to decisions regarding towards which campaigns we should be tending.

Could you give us some information about your growth plans at Polo, both within Turkey and abroad?

We have made our growth plans by targeting the completion of the software integration as well as the creation and training of the necessary team so that the system functions correctly and completely. During the crisis period, we opened 6 stores in Turkey, and one store abroad. In 2010, we plan to open 12 stores in Turkey, 5 of them are completely planned through, and 7 are in the planning.

In 2011, we will evaluate offers from various other countries to open Pologarage stores, especially in the Chinese market.

Thank you.