Left to right: Konstantin Butrimovich and Alxsey Gordin (BS/2), Raphael Potvin and Piotr Jelinovski (Symphony EYC), Idrakas Dadašovas (The Penki kontinentai Group), Daniel Fukson (BS/2), Janusz Moroz (Symphony EYC), Jurij Mikuckij and Emil Musayev (BS/2).

The Symphony EYC managers visited the Penki kontinentai group of companies in Vilnius recently. For over three decades Symphony EYC has developed modern multi-channel solutions for analytical research on the customers‘ behavior, data processing and authentication and increasing customers‘ loyalty.

Earlier this year, Symphony EYC and BS/2 signed a cooperation agreement under which the latter becomes a Symphony EYC software distributor for the Baltic, CIS, and a number of countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

We talk with the Symphony EYC CEE manager Janusz Moroz on the importance of such cooperation as well as the innovations offered by the company.

- What are the main Symphony EYC activities?

- Our company specializes in retail solutions. We create solutions for trade and industry business processes optimization aimed at improving the customer service quality. Our client base has over 1,000 enterprises. We serve more than 25 thousand shopping centers in the Americas, Europe and Asia – and strive to be a specialized company in order to better understand our customers‘ needs and develop our solutions even more professionally.

Our offices are scattered around the globe, the main one is in Paris where half of the entire development is made and some 70 of 150 R&D people are employed. We also have offices in London (UK), Atlanta (USA), Moscow (Russia), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Casablanca (Morocco) and Bangalore (India). We cooperate with 42 partners all over the world, and we are happy BS/2 is one of them.

 - What exactly do you offer for the retail market?

- One of the main products we offer is Symphony GOLD. That‘s a complex consisting of three parts: a loyalty program, merchandising and category management and supply chain management.

Loyalty program means not only loyalty cards for regular customers. This is an individual approach to every customer – as well as the analysis of when, where, how and what he or she buys. We help retailers attract their customers, effectively synchronize the strategy, analyze customer information in order to offer them the most suitable shopping channel, way, time and place.

Merchandising and category management includes the categorization of goods sold – as well as deciding, where, on what shelf, at what height this or that particular product could attract the customers‘ attention most of all. Often manufacturers who bring their goods to the retailer, want to buy out a certain place for them, which, as they believe, will provide the greatest demand. This is wrong. It‘s the retailer who decides on the location of the product, as he knows the customers' preferences better than anybody else.

Supply chain management involves the warehousing of goods and their distribution to stores. It‘s especially important to plan everything so that the goods are not kept in warehouses, that they don‘t spoil – and are constantly renewed. Here, different rules apply to different product categories (for fresh goods, for example). Two solutions are possible here: an employee physically distributes the goods, issues orders, and when those orders are done automatically. Say, the information about a particular product shortage comes to the warehouse via a smartphone. At the same time, it is possible to remotely monitor what goods are most demanded, what ones are sold poorly, where the highest demand is observed, etc. You can connect to the statistical system and compare the certain product data for several years.

Another service that‘s gaining popularity is the Symphony Retail Cloud, that is, the "cloud" services for the retail sector that helps retailers and manufacturers save their time and cut their costs. We expect that at least 2 per cent of the profit can be additionally received through the use of such "cloud“ services.

- What does cooperation with the Lithuanian BS/2 mean for you?

- Symphony EYC works mainly in the Western European countries - and the Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and the CIS are much less known to us. With this regard we hold BS/2 a strategic partner with an extensive experience in both information technologies and retail trade; furthermore, you have a wonderful record in exactly those countries which are of interest to us. For this reason, we are interested in mutually beneficial cooperation – and we‘ll make every effort to ensure that your employees know as much as possible about our technologies. We‘ll hold training courses for them and meet our new customers in the months to come.

- Thanks for the interview. We wish you success in your business.

During the visit, the guests held a training seminar for the BS/2 specialists on Symphony GOLD product, its purpose and work principles, as well as the retail trends and long-range cooperation plans were discussed.