Bed Bath & Beyond Kicks off First Deployment of Its $250M Technology Investment Plan
Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. has kicked off its first deployment of a three-year technology investment plan.
The retailer, which has said it will invest about $250 million over the next three years to modernize its technology landscape to the cloud, is adding a new ERP system, a product lifecycle management solution to support its own brand initiative, and an inventory management capability to improve inventory productivity this year.
To start, it has selected Oracle as its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) technology provider. Oracle Cloud will provide real-time financial, supply chain and merchandising solutions, replacing its legacy suite of technology systems and delivering new data, insights and planning capabilities.
“We are building authority in Home, Baby, Beauty and Wellness with a digital-first, omni-always and customer-inspired approach,” said John Hartmann, Bed Bath & Beyond’s chief operating officer and president of buybuy BABY. “Oracle’s proven leadership and state-of-the-art technologies will allow us to better serve customers and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our business. Additionally, the agile partnership will enable continual innovation and improvement as our enterprise evolves.”
The ERP deployment is the first key component in the company’s technology investment roadmap to deploy solutions that enhance the customer experience and drive efficiencies across the enterprise. These technology investments will enable the use of analytics and automation to support improvements in merchandising and inventory management, product life cycle management, retail space planning and optimization, the launch of an array of owned brands, and real-time tracking of merchandise fulfillment within the supply chain.
Oracle Cloud ERP will provide real-time financial and operational insight to support strategic planning decisions. Running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Bed Bath & Beyond will use Oracle Retail Merchandising Cloud Service, Oracle Retail Store Inventory Operations Cloud Service, and the Oracle Retail Science Platform to ensure the accuracy of item data and see real-time inventory availability no matter where a product is sitting.
This will help the company support continued omnichannel growth. Bed Bath & Beyond gained 2.2 million new online customers last quarter, bringing its total new online customers year to date to 7 million. Its Website return rates are also increasing, driven by growth in buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS).
“Having the right retail technology in place is fundamental to Bed Bath & Beyond’s transformation strategy and Oracle is proud to be supporting them in this journey,” said Mike Webster, SVP and general manager, Oracle Retail. “By adopting Oracle Cloud, Bed Bath & Beyond will be better able to manage its continually evolving inventory, plan margins, and improve sales forecasting in a digital-first shopping environment.”
