Sterling Commerce (Australia) Pty Ltd, an AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) subsidiary, today announced that it has won a contract, in conjunction with HCL, a Sterling Commerce alliance partner, to supply True Alliance with its Sterling Multi-Channel™ Selling Solution.  True Alliance is one of the largest distributors of footwear and apparel brands in Australia and New Zealand.  The solution will enable True Alliance to migrate its entire sales order capture processes to an automated, online e-commerce platform across the company’s global supply chain.

 Headquartered in Sydney, True Alliance is home to some of the world’s most famous "must have" brands including Reebok, Rockport, Royal Elastics, Ben Sherman, Lacoste apparel and footwear, The North Face, Speedo, Simple, Teva , Ugg, Chantelle and Passionata. The company chose to partner with Sterling Commerce and HCL in a strategy designed to build supply chain efficiency, improve customer service and enhance supplier relationships while reducing its carbon footprint by reducing company travel, distribution of paper catalogues and reliance on paper-based transactions.

“Sterling Commerce has proven market solutions, leading technology and a rich heritage of delivering on time and on budget.  They were a natural choice to be our partner and their experience shows that they can scale with any organisation’s business requirements,” said Anne Kremer, Business Technology Manager, True Alliance.

Once implemented, Sterling Multi-Channel Selling Solution will provide True Alliance with robust multi-channel, electronic sales order functionality that can intelligently broker orders for all customers (via Call Centre, Sales Representative or Store) and provide a global view of all inventory held within their back-end systems.

The Sterling Commerce solution will provide True Alliance’s prospects, customers and partners with a unique cross-channel buying experience by offering personalised merchandising, marketing and retention programs via the company’s web portal.  This will result in customers being able to easily locate, order and purchase the products that meet their needs.  It also will improve the management of the returns process through pre-defined business process flows which will ensure that returned products can be consistently handled and all inventory utilised optimally.

True Alliance handles thousands of business-to-business B2B orders each month across three main channels: Call Centre, Sales Reps and Store Orders, and is keen to eliminate hundreds of thousands of printed catalogue pages per annum. The solution will assist the company in reducing its carbon footprint through the deletion of physical paperwork, paper catalogues and the requirement to physically deliver documentation.

“Sterling Commerce brings a powerful combination of best-of-breed solutions and industry expertise to help companies like True Alliance address the challenges they face in accomplishing their e-commerce objectives.  We look forward to delivering a solution that will drive profitable growth for True Alliance while at the same time optimising the consumer and partner experience,” said Michael Vulcan, Regional Director, Sterling Commerce (Australia) Pty Ltd.

Sterling Multi-Channel™ Selling Solution will be implemented over the coming months by HCL, one of Sterling Commerce’s global consulting and systems integration alliance partners.

 http://www.sterlingcommerce.com.au