Morrisons completes first stage of major IT refresh

Morrisons is investing more than £300m in new IT

Supermarket chain Morrisons has completed the first phase of a multimillion-pound technology revamp aimed at improving efficiencies in business areas such as manufacturing and distribution.

Technology is a key element of the firm’s four-year optimisation plan, which was completed in January and has seen the first phase of a major systems refresh, on which the company has already spent £110m.

The refresh will continue for "a number of years" and the company expects to channel a further £200m over three years into this, which will see the replacement of store-based point of sale systems, as well as warehousing, manufacturing, supply chain and product management software.

The work already carried out has included systems design and development activity, as well as implementation in a number of areas.

The first phase of the roll out of the company’s new financial systems has been finished, and new human resources and payroll processes are currently being introduced.

Voice picking technology was also rolled out across the company’s distribution centres, and Morrison claims that this had a positive impact on the efficiency of its order fulfilment process.

Self-scan checkout units have been introduced in about 75 per cent of the company’s store network, as has queue management software. The retailer has also started a pilot of its new electronic point-of-sale (EPoS) system to replace the five separate platforms it currently operates.

Oracle is the main software supplier for the transformation, while store-based systems are supplied by Retailix and Indian IT firm Wipro is working on the systems integration.

The revamp is set to continue until 2013 and will see the rollout of the EPoS platform in the next 12 months, as well as new manufacturing systems and the start of the deployment of new warehouse management technology.

According to the company’s full-year results, investment in IT generated a 21 per cent profit increase to £767m, from £636m reported year on year.