Ryohin Keikaku Expands HiQube Deployment Throughout Japanese Retail Store Chain

MUJI brand manufacturer and retailer goes live with HiQube analytics countrywide.

Altair Engineering, Inc. announced today that Ryohin Keikaku, manufacturer and retailer of the popular MUJI brand, has expanded its deployment of Altair’s HiQube® simulation-driven business intelligence and data analytics solution throughout all 268 MUJI retail stores (as of August, 2011) in Japan, as well as its head office. The HiQube expansion reduces reporting time by 50 percent and shares tailored, Web-based analytics of all stores across the entire organization, speeding communication and decision-making.

MUJI, which started as a private brand of The Seiyu, Ltd. in December 1980 with only 40 products, has grown and now offers more than 7,000 products. Ryohin Keikaku was spun off from Seiyu in 1989 and became a manufacturer/retailer for the planning, development, production, distribution and sale of MUJI products, which include diverse necessities such as clothes, household articles and food. Today with more than 4,900 direct employees and more than $2.1 billion in annual sales, Ryohin Keikaku has been steadily developing its design concept and the popularity of its products sold under the MUJI brand is spreading worldwide.

”The growth and continued success of the MUJI brand relies in our ability to act on free ideas founded on accurate, timely information throughout our corporate and retail stores and continuous activities for improvement,” says Kenji Takeuchi, general manager of accounting and finance at Ryohin Keikaku. “HiQube has allowed us to accelerate our enterprise aggregations and reporting while providing the ability to deliver on-demand, store-specific views through its interactive web client.”

Ryohin Keikaku is firmly committed to world-class information systems with enthusiasm for new challenges. HiQube’s addition to their software stack now allows Ryohin Keikaku to aggregate pertinent data, most notably their management accounting data, residing in various business systems to automate reporting activities and analyze their business at a much higher levels of granularity.

“Our previous reporting process was manually intensive and required the management of complex spreadsheets and email distribution of static PDF reports to each store,” said Takeuchi. “With HiQube, we have improved reporting accuracy and cut month end reporting by more than 50 percent. Moreover, with data management on routine basis, we reduce the annual reporting from one month to one day.”

“Since our first deployment in 2009, it’s been a very rewarding experience to have had the opportunity to work side by side with a dynamic, leading retailer like Ryohin Keikaku to support its reporting and analytics needs,” say Tsunaki Kawamoto, HiQube sales and partner manager for Japan. “The multi-dimensional nature and enormity of the data they are dealing with, exceeding the capabilities of Excel, was a perfect application for HiQube. We greatly appreciate Ryohin’s selection of HiQube and look forward to continuing our support now and into the future.”