For the second consecutive time, CRM vendor NSB Group has been ranked as the number one supplier of POS software to the top specialty softgoods retailers, according to the IHL Consulting Group in their recent report, "A Retailer's Guide: POS Software for Softgoods Retailers."

The research report evaluated vendors of POS software installed among the top 250 North American retailers in the specialty softgoods space, and ranked the top 5 according to such criteria as "total number of vendor accounts among the leading 250 softgoods retailers" and "estimated number of POS systems running the vendor's software based on store count and lanes per store data."

Greg Buzek, President of IHL, noted NSB's "customer base, years of retail experience, multiple implementation models, and close Microsoft (News - Alert) partnership."

David Henning, CEO for the NSB Group, said his company has been working with retailers in this space for 35 years.

The Connected Retailer Store Solution is a store automation system with multichannel retailing capabilities, touting "improved employee productivity, and increased levels of customer service." The product is billed as a tool to help retailer "respond rapidly to changing business needs without jeopardizing the upgrade path to future releases, ensuring a long-term favorable cost of ownership."

Last fall lingerie and apparel retailer La Senza went live with Connected Retailer Merchandising 3.0 and Replenishment, integrated with La Senza's other NSB products, including Sales Audit, Warehouse Management and Sourcing and Product Development.

The initiative began with the implementation of Connected Retailer products at the La Senza Girl chain and was completed with the rollout at its parent company. The project was fully customized to meet La Senza's specific business measurements, lifting certain processes.

La Senza noticed a return on their investment the same week they went live, company officials say, explaining that the ROI came from "better integration with the sourcing application, streamlined processes, and reduced overhead and data manipulation when allocating goods."

NSB has something for the fashion industry, in 2005 they announced the successful implementation of NSB's Connected Retailer Store 6.0 and Merchandising 3.0 at Donna Karan, a fashion design houses and a longtime NSB client.

Donna Karan originally chose to "evolve their business" with Connected Retailer products because they wanted "an enterprise system that could give them one consolidated view of all of their full-price and outlet stores," according to NSB officials.

"We have worked with NSB for many years and felt that their specialty apparel retail expertise and thorough understanding of our business made them the perfect choice for a retail technology partner with whom to grow," says Doreen Vandewater, Donna Karan's Vice President of Retail Systems.

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David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.