Abercrombie & Fitch has entered into a strategic partnership with Oracle(R) Retail to create a multi-year deployment plan to enable its strategy for long-term business growth and continued retail leadership, Oracle announced today. As part of the agreement, Abercrombie & Fitch has purchased Oracle Retail's best-in-class merchandising, planning, supply chain and stores solutions while also licensing Oracle technology and back office capabilities.
  
The retailer's historical approach to information systems relied heavily on legacy systems with the selective deployment of best-of-breed point solutions to address specific needs. Abercrombie & Fitch's executive leadership recognized that in order to sustain and build on the company's market leadership an enterprise approach to its retail systems was required.
   
"We see a tremendous opportunity to use innovative technology for unlocking value from within our business to better manage growth and enhance overall business performance," said Michael Kramer, Chief Financial Officer at Abercrombie & Fitch. "Oracle Retail's partnership and solutions will help improve our operational capabilities and allow us to maintain our
commitment to fashion and providing customers with a world-class shopping experience in our stores."
   
Abercrombie & Fitch's first objective with the partnership is to improve access to its foundational data to enable more efficient core merchandising capabilities across the business. From there, additional functionality will be layered in the supply chain and in its more than 900
stores.
   
"We challenged Oracle Retail to provide us with solutions and technology across our entire retail footprint within an integrated framework," said Kristen Blum, CIO at Abercrombie & Fitch. "In the end, there was no one else in the market close to delivering the broad range of
solutions that Oracle could for our business. They made it an easy decision for us to partner with them."
   
"Our strategic partnership with Abercrombie & Fitch marks a significant milestone for Oracle Retail and sends a strong message that we have a winning strategy for delivering measurable business value to retailers," said Duncan Angove, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Oracle Retail. "We have clearly seized momentum and are well-positioned to pull
even further ahead of the competition as we continue to build on our #1 position in retail."
   
About Oracle Retail
   
Oracle is the number one provider of innovative and comprehensive industry software solutions for retailers -- enabling organizations to serve their customers better by applying insight into daily business decisions for more profitable results. With software that provides supply chain, operations, merchandising, store systems, optimization and information technology solutions, Oracle partners with the world's leading retail companies, including 17 of the top 20 retailers worldwide, to transform the economics of their businesses.
    
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