Forum Sport is a sports retail chain owned by the Spanish supermarket chain Eroski. Forum Sport integrated Scandit Smart Data Capture into their in-house employee app, Kaptura Mobile, which helps store associates manage stock and inventory. With Scandit, Forum Sport has streamlined processes and improved speed and efficiency.
“Scandit Smart Data Capture is super efficient, its performance outshines any of the competition. The API integration was fast and took us only a few weeks to integrate into our native Kaptura Mobile app. We look forward to working further with the Scandit team in order to enhance the Forum Sport brand and increase our ability to service our customers and store associates in the future.”
Eneko del Castillo Rojo, Technical Manager at Forum Sports
Challenge
The Eroski Supermarket chain was established in 1969 and they launched Forum Sport in 1991. With 70 stores across Spain specializing in clothing and equipment, Forum Sport promotes the spirit of sport to make it more accessible and bring it closer to society.
Inventory management has been an ongoing challenge over a number of years and Forum Sport were keen to integrate the process into an in-house native app.
Working with their technology partners On4U, Forum Sport developed a proprietary app to help manage in-store processes. They required a barcode scanning solution that offered unmatched speed and accuracy to help enhance operational efficiency. It had to be easy to integrate and allow for the business to consolidate processes such as inventory management while removing the reliance on the costly, shared, single-use handheld devices.
The ability to consolidate the number of devices used would not only reduce costs but would allow for the business to scale up and provide all employees with a familiar smart device to increase speed and efficiency across their business.
Solution
Forum Sport worked with On4U and together they selected Scandit within their Kaptura Mobile app. Scandit Barcode Scanner SDK is compatible with a wide range of smart devices and with a company wide upgrade to employee smartphones – the Samsung Galaxy XCover – was rolled out across their stores.
The feedback from store associates has been that the app “performs with such speed and efficiency it has transformed the process of inventory management” which frees up their time to allow for other important store tasks. Store associates are able to utilize further capabilities within the app from managing stock, supplying up to date product information to generating posters and labels. The Scandit-enabled app on smartphones has also allowed the business to integrate other online systems across the business for increased visibility into inventory levels.
“Scandit has helped us to connect our in-store stock management and inventory control with such speed and accuracy it has superpowered our business operations,” said Eneko del Castillo Rojo, Technical Manager at Forum Sports.
With the ability to consolidate devices and deploy Scandit Smart Data Capture on smartphones, Forum Sport has been able to double the number of devices available to staff in stores with over 300 now in use. This has enabled Forum Sports to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of their hardware. There has also been positive feedback on the smaller form factor of the smartphones compared to the previous handheld devices.
Store associates feel more empowered and the improvement of the in-store processes has allowed for a frictionless experience for all. With the alleviation of manual processes they have been able to reduce human error and increase their overall operational efficiencies.
Results
Forum Sport has been using Scandit since September 2020, doubling the number of users in less than two years with plans to keep growing as the brand presence grows across the Eroski family.
The most significant saving to Forum Sport has been in time and business operational efficiencies. Eneko del Castillo Rojo says, “By switching from a single-use hardware operation to company-wide smartphones that utilizes Scandit Smart Data Capture, our business operational efficiencies have increased, we lowered our TCO and enabled cost savings which we can reinvest into further development. We save so much time on the shop floor managing the stock and we no longer have to manually process our inventory. It has revolutionized the business, cutting minutes off the daily tasks and leaving more time for our staff to invest in servicing our customers.”
Eneko continues, “Scandit is super efficient and its performance outshines any of the competition. The API integration was fast and took us only a few weeks to integrate into our native Kaptura Mobile app. We look forward to working further with the Scandit team in order to enhance the Forum Sport brand and increase our ability to service our customers and store associates in the future.”