Buoyant growth drives Kathmandu's upgrade

By ADAM GIFFORD

Christchurch-based outdoor clothing and equipment chain Kathmandu has bought Movex software from Swedish company Intentia to enable it to cope better with the growth of its business in Australasia.

The Movex system is being installed alongside a new Enabler point of sale system from ISL Australia and should be live next year.

Finance manager Mark Todd said Kathmandu had more than doubled its number of stores over the past three years and its sales now topped $80 million.

"We're competing in a growing market, as more people travel," he said.

"The [New Zealand-built] Intech system we had came from a time we were more manufacturing-focused than we are now.

"The critical issues now are a system which can cope with our retail front end, our distribution and supply chain management."

The system has to be able to handle the peaks of Kathmandu's three sales at Christmas, Easter and spring, when transaction volumes are pushed to supermarket levels.

Most product is sourced from manufacturers overseas and it needs to be put in the 22 stores in good time.

Mr Todd said the company was talking with service companies about outsourcing management of the Movex system, which runs on an IBM AS400 server. Kathmandu's two IT staff mainly take care of retail network support and installations.