Como es sabido, Gartner es una de las mayores empresas mundiales de investigación en tecnologías.  Sus estudios y predicciones son seguidos y consultados por responsables de TI y negocio de todo tipo de industrias, usados como referencia para la definición o validación de sus estrategias.

Entre sus muchos informes, Gartner produce los conocidos informes “Cool Vendor”. Dichos informes ofrecen una visión de soluciones consideradas “cool”, o innovadoras, a través de una variedad de industrias y disciplinas.

Los líderes de TI que buscan la innovación deben considerar la forma en que estos proveedores pueden ayudar a proporcionar la diferenciación de sus respectivas compañías.

En el caso de Openbravo, tras ser considerados como “Cool Vendor” para España ⁽¹⁾ en abril de este año,  Openbravo fue de nuevo considerado como “Cool Vendor” para India ⁽²⁾   el pasado mes de julio.

En ambos informes, Gartner presenta a Openbravo como un “Cool Vendor” gracias a nuestra solución para el sector minorista, la Suite de Comercio, destacando la flexibilidad en valor y de adopción que ofrece a minoristas especializados de tamaño medio y grande,  que buscan una nueva solución de tienda que se integre perfectamente con sus sistemas actuales o un ERP Retail todo-en-uno para la completa gestión del negocio.

La consideración en estos dos países supone para nosotros una importante confirmación a nuestra estrategia. En primer lugar tratándose de España, nuestro mercado local. Y en segundo lugar tratándose de India, uno de nuestros mercados principales, que sirve como claro ejemplo del valor que Openbravo puede ofrecer a países de rápido crecimiento o emergentes en los que la tecnología debe ayudar a los minoristas a enfrentarse a retos totalmente nuevos, como pudimos ver en uno de nuestros recientes webinars.

¿Quiere saber más sobre las capacidades que han hecho a Gartner considerar a Openbravo como “Cool Vendor” para España e India en 2016 y cómo dichas capacidades podrían ayudar a su negocio en 2017?  No espere más y contáctenos aquí.

Gartner Disclaimer

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner Reports

(1) Gartner, “Cool Vendor in Spain, 2016“ “, Luis Anavitarte | Federico De Silva | Monica Basso | Angela McIntyre | Lawrence Pingree | Adam Preset, 26 April 2016

(2) Gartner, “Cool Vendors in Asia/Pacific, 2016”, Denise Ganly, 27 July 2016

Ya bien entrado el 2017, es hora de hablar sobre algunas nuevas características ofrecidas dentro de la arquitectura de la Suite de Comercio de Openbravo: el componente Openbravo Store Server. En realidad empezamos a entregar partes del mismo ya en 2016, pero ahora es el momento de darlo a conocer.

El objetivo principal del Openbravo Store Server es ayudar especialmente a minoristas de tamaño medio a grande a implementar una solución flexible en la nube que permita desplegar Openbravo de forma centralizada cuando sea posible y/o localmente en cada tienda cuando sea necesario.

La solución en la nube de Openbravo para minoristas, Openbravo Commerce Cloud,  ofrece muchos beneficios, como una integración externa más fácil, un menor coste de propiedad y, en general, una operación más segura.

Sin embargo, en casos específicos el despliegue centralizado no es posible y un servidor local en las tiendas es necesario. Esto es especialmente relevante en entornos con conectividad de red y ancho de banda intermitentes y variables, combinados con altos volúmenes de datos maestros y transaccionales.

El componente Openbravo Store Server tiene dos objetivos principales:

• Solución de punto de venta ininterrumpida mediante operaciones completas fuera de línea y sincronizaciones transparentes con el servidor central.
• Alta disponibilidad y alto rendimiento durante eventos de alta actividad transaccional como el Black Friday.

La instalación de Openbravo Store Server localmente en una tienda proporciona varios beneficios:

• Soporta altos volúmenes de datos maestros en combinación con situaciones sin conexión
• Rendimiento y robustez en caso de conexiones intermitentes o de menor ancho de banda a la tienda.
• Muchos terminales Openbravo Web POS en una tienda: cuando hay muchos terminales en una tienda (cientos o más), un servidor local de tienda puede ayudar a equilibrar la carga entre varios servidores de la red.

La solución actual admite la siguiente arquitectura:

• Una instancia de servidor central
• Una o varias instancias de servidor de tienda

El componente Openbravo Store Server es flexible en tanto que permite ser instalado en tiendas específicos, mientras que otras tiendas trabajan directamente contra el servidor central, dando lugar a escenarios híbridos de despliegue que ofrecen mayor flexibilidad a los minoristas.

El componente Openbravo Store Server incorpora también otras funciones de mejora de la robustez de la solución:

• La solución de punto de venta, Openbravo Web POS, soporta ahora volúmenes de datos maestros mucho más grandes.
• Un nuevo servicio permite ahora al cliente de Openbravo WebPOS operar con varios servidores y cambiar automáticamente y de forma transparente de un servidor a otro si un servidor no está disponible.

Openbravo Store Server es un paso hacia una arquitectura distribuida soportada por un enfoque de micro-servicios.

El componente Openbravo Store Server ofrece grandes beneficios, especialmente para nuestros clientes minoristas más grandes y muestra cómo Openbravo se sitúa a la vanguardia de los fabricantes de soluciones para la industria, con una arquitectura altamente innovadora.

El próximo 28 de marzo presentamos un nuevo webinar Oportunidad para CIOs en Retail: Mayor flexibilidad en la nube con Openbravo. Explicaremos cómo usar Openbravo Commerce Cloud y el componente Openbravo Store Server para implementar una estrategia de migración a la nube gradual y flexible para minoristas especializados. ¡No te lo pierdas!

El constante cambio al que se enfrenta el sector minorista de hoy hace que sea difícil predecir exactamente qué dirección tomará el futuro de la moda. Sin embargo, esto es lo que se debatirá en la sexta edición de la  Barcelona Fashion Summit organizado por Modaes, que tendrá lugar el próximo 1 de febrero en Barcelona, con el tema central este año Fashion 2030: A Brave New World.

En su sexto año, el Barcelona Fashion Summit se ha convertido en uno de los eventos más importantes del sector en España, con la asistencia de casi 800 profesionales de la industria el año pasado. Una cita imprescindible para profesionales y empresas como Openbravo interesados en conocer más sobre los últimos retos de la industria a través de la voz de los propios expertos. La agenda este año incluye presentaciones y mesas redondas con oradores de empresas como Inditex, Mango, Grupo Cortefiel o Adolfo Domínguez.

Papel clave de la tecnología en la transformación de la industria de la moda

Sin duda uno de los temas clave en las presentaciones o conversaciones a lo largo del día del que conoceremos experiencias y previsiones de los expertos será el papel de la tecnología y cómo esta ayuda a afrontar con éxito los retos actuales. Entre ellos claramente cómo responder a las cada vez más exigentes expectativas de los compradores.

Hoy todos esperamos mayor variedad en los productos, con más y más frecuentes lanzamientos, mayor conveniencia en la forma que compramos, pagamos o devolvemos, punto este último que supone un verdadero dolor de cabeza para los minoristas. Con el aumento de las compras online los compradores han aprendido que pueden pedir 2,3 o 4 tallas de un mismo producto para luego quedarse sólo una de ellas. Unas tasas de devolución entre el 25 y el 40% son a menudo la norma, lo que supone un verdadero problema a nivel de gestión y costes logísticos.  Temas que seguramente se hablarán en la sesión Vectores Tecnológicos de la Transformación en la Moda: de Omnicanalidad a Unicanalidad.

¿Nos vemos en Barcelona?

Tras no poder asistir el año pasado, este año no voy a perderme la cita y el próximo miércoles viajo a Barcelona para estar puntual en la sesión de apertura.

Sin duda este tipo de eventos son también una gran oportunidad de networking que ofrecen la posibilidad de conocer y compartir experiencias. Si planeas asistir al evento y estás interesado en conversar sobre el papel transformador de la tecnología y entender cómo Openbravo puede ayudar en ese proceso para tu negocio, ¡conozcámonos!  Envíame un mensaje a mi perfil de LinkedIn o directamente a mi correo moncho.aguinaga@openbravo.com y estaré encantado de conocernos y charlar de moda y tecnología!

Barcelona and New Delhi - July 15th, 2015 JK Technosoft (JKT), a global IT services and software solutions company and Openbravo, the provider of the preferred Commerce Suite and Business Suite, today announced a strategic partnership to help midsize organizations to succeed in today's rapidly changing business environment. This strategic alliance combines JKT's experience from two decades of providing commerce and logistics solutions to its global clients, with Openbravo's cutting-edge technology to deliver world-class web-based solutions that meet the needs of midsize companies across varied industries. This collaboration will allow Openbravo to strengthen its presence globally and especially in India and the Asia Pacific region to distribute its successful Openbravo Commerce Suite and Openbravo Business Suite solutions. The Openbravo Commerce Suite is a state-of-the-art multichannel retail solution that allows retailers to transform their physical store channel to progress in their omnichannel strategies. The Openbravo Business Suite is a global management solution especially suited to support the most specific business requirements. Both solutions are built on top of a highly flexible and extendible platform that allows companies to achieve a higher level of operational agility. "JKT is excited about this partnership. We are confident about creating more opportunities and achieving great success together.", says Arun Sikri, Strategic Practice Head, JKT. "Being an Openbravo partner will enable us to efficiently provide value added web-based Commerce and ERP services to our customers." "Our partnership with JKTech, which is already a provider of recognized business applications in the mid-market segment allows Openbravo to realize its growth strategy in targeting larger organizations that look forward to implementing a bimodal organization based on a two tier ERP and Business application strategy. These types of organizations, which are often very large multinational corporations, tend to run their "core" head office operations upon a proven ERP system while seeking more agility for their fast moving operations, like integrating subsidiaries, retail distributors, new acquisitions with lower TCO and easy to deploy solutions. We see plenty of these opportunities in the markets covered by JKTech, a recognized client's IT service partner of choice, and it is a great chance for Openbravo together with JKTech to help our customers to compete in a rapidly changing environment in order to excel in their business operations.", says Francesco Leto, COO of Openbravo.

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Barcelona, Spain & Bengaluru, India, August 27th 2015 Openbravo, the provider of the preferred Commerce Suite and Business Suite, today, announced a strategic partnership with Happiest Minds Technologies, a next generation Digital Transformation, Infrastructure & Security and Product Engineering Services Company. "Openbravo welcomes the strategic partnership with Happiest Minds and both organizations are engaging in a great working relationship to bring cutting-edge technological advancements to Openbravo's retail offerings. Our global presence plus the importance and international reach of the Openbravo Commerce Suite clients in the retail space makes us uniquely positioned to work together with a partner with the stature of Happiest Minds. We believe that Retail Customers, several of which are true market leaders, can benefit greatly from this alliance", said Marco de Vries, CEO, Openbravo. "We were looking for the right partner to build a unique proposition for retailers to help them rapidly improve their customer buying experience within an OmniChannel framework. With Openbravo, we found the right solution at a competitive price and flexibility to extend it to provide a differentiated offering to our Retail Customers ", said Salil Godika, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer and Retail Industry Group Head of Happiest Minds. "Happiest Minds and Openbravo are focused on the OmniChannel framework where the idea is to enhance the overall performance of a retailer and help its Retailer Customers bring the consumer back into their stores by providing a unique experience. We are working together in areas such as OmniChannel Fulfillment, Retail IoT and Advanced Analytics" - Said Sunando Banerjee, Channel Business Manager at Openbravo. The Openbravo Commerce Suite is a multichannel retail business solution built on top of a truly modular, mobile-enabled and cloud-ready technology platform. The platform allows retailers to transform their physical store channel and do more and faster, with lower risks.   About Openbravo Openbravo is a world leader in the commercial open source software space helping midsize to large organizations in 60+ countries around the globe successfully manage continuous change and innovation by providing business management solutions that deliver a high degree of agility, responsiveness and usability, including a state-of-the-art multichannel retail solution, the Openbravo Commerce Suite, and a global management solution, the Openbravo Business Suite, both built on top of a highly flexible and extendible platform that allows companies a greater focus on differentiation and innovation. Openbravo solutions are exclusively distributed through a network of Official Openbravo Partners. Openbravo has offices in India, France, Mexico and Spain. About Happiest Minds Technologies Happiest Minds enables Digital Transformation for enterprises and technology providers by delivering seamless customer experience, business efficiency and actionable insights through an integrated set of disruptive technologies: Big Data Analytics, Internet of Things, Mobility, Cloud, Security, Unified Communications, etc. Happiest Minds offers domain centric solutions applying skills, IPs and functional expertise in IT Services, Product Engineering, Infrastructure Management and Security. These services have applicability across industry sectors such as retail, consumer packaged goods, e-commerce, banking, insurance, hi-tech, engineering R&D, manufacturing, automotive and travel/transportation/hospitality. Headquartered in Bangalore, India, Happiest Minds has operations in the US, UK, Singapore, Australia and has secured $ 52.5 million Series-A funding. Its investors are JPMorgan Private Equity Group, Intel Capital and Ashok Soota.

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Paris, France, September 21st 2015 France is the first European country (plus HQs in Spain) in which Openbravo opens offices, which undoubtedly speaks of the importance of this country in the growth of Openbravo. "We've made great progress with customers like BUT that allows us to strengthen our ´Retail First´ strategy. We want to be closer to our partners and work with them on new opportunities that we have to strengthen our position in the French market in the same way as we have done in markets like Mexico or India where our offices have been a turning point in the relationship with our partners and customers. Certainly we expect at least the same in France", said CEO Marco de Vries. The team will consist initially of a representation of 3 people with a business and technical profile, along with Channel Business Manager for Europe, Xavier Anaya, who added: "We intend to generate new business that will positively impact our partners. In addition, we want to support the sales processes and existing projects. Therefore, as always, we place our partners at the center of our strategy, supporting them from all sides." In addition, Openbravo announces its presence as exhibitor in DIGITAL(in)STORE by Equipmag that will be held from the 21st of September to the 23rd at the Paris expo Porte de Versailles in co-location with the E-COMMERCE PARIS trade show, as part of PARIS RETAIL WEEK, the new event which gathers the community of retail and e-commerce. Openbravo and its Gold Partner Phidias will be presenting the Openbravo Commerce Suite in the booth #Q025.

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Pamplona, Spain, November 4th, 2015 Openbravo, the world leader in the commercial open source software space, has inaugurated its new headquarters in Pamplona to accommodate the expected development within its strategy in the retail sector and its growth in Europe that today accounts for 41% of its turnover. The new offices will allow for the expected growth of the company in the retail sector. The Openbravo solution, the Commerce Suite, is a reference solution for specialized international retailers requiring a store solution that responds to today's omnichannel challenges. The new facilities will also help to provide a higher quality service to a growing number of international distributors and customers in this sector. The offices, which have been up and running since October and stand out for providing greater space which virtually doubles the previous size, already have 61 workers with the intention of reaching 80 next year. To do this, the company will select professionals with experience in the retail sector both in software development and consulting services. The new facilities incorporate best practices in interior design, to allow a high degree of collaboration and productivity of the different teams. They also have entertainment areas integrated into the workspaces, offering a better working environment for employees. In particular, they are modern and elegant offices similar in style to those of global technology leaders such as Facebook, Twitter and other technological world leading companies headquartered in Silicon Valley. With this move Openbravo strengthens its position and commitment to Pamplona (Navarra) being at the core of its origins, and Spain as a key market for the company, also driving growth in the rest of Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. In the words of Marco de Vries, Chief Executive Officer of Openbravo, "our growth and greater collaboration with partners and international customers who visit our headquarters more often required a change and modernization of our facilities. We are pleased that occurred in Pamplona, where the company started and where we will continue to invest in creating high-level jobs.".

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Barcelona (Spain), Bengaluru (India), 15th December 2015 Openbravo and TCG Digital have recently become partners. This strategic partnership aims to bring both companies together to work on building solutions based on Openbravo products, and collaborate on generating new business opportunities and joint products. "Openbravo has a solution that is truly aligned with our objectives to be flexible, modular and shares the spirit that we also have to actually deliver solutions. The modular design helps build upon a comprehensive set of available functionalities to deliver strategic applications exactly tailored to our customer needs in chosen segments. Both the Commerce Suite and the Business Suite are built on a truly flexible platform with very powerful integration, customization and extension capabilities. We are convinced that Openbravo can become a major software vendor to deliver solutions in the areas where we as TCG Digital have great presence, enter the world of Enterprise Solutions, and continue to make progress on the 'Go Digital' strategy" says Debjyoti Gupta, VP at TCG Digital. Francesco Leto, COO at Openbravo, notes that: "We are convinced that this strategic partnership with a reference IT company like TCG Digital will allow us to deliver customized solutions to effectively tackle true business challenges that companies face every day and everywhere, based on Openbravo´s platform for large companies from different sectors and with a wide variety of needs." Even though the strategic partnership is recent, TCG has already closed an important deal with Travel Systems Ltd to integrate Openbravo into their front-end portal for air/road travel and hotel booking, to serve the back office functionality of purchase, sales and financial management & controlling, and reporting. Sunando Banerjee, Channel Business Manager for APAC countries, comments that "this is just the beginning of a profitable partnership that we are sure is going to bring us a lot more projects for both partners."

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Pamplona, Spain, January 29th, 2016 Openbravo, the world leader in the commercial open source software space, today announced its results for the full year ending December 31, 2015. Openbravo experienced exceptional momentum in its Retail business in 2015 with a very impressive three-digit growth in its Retail subscription bookings. Retail subscription bookings growth, the key measure for Openbravo's commercial success, increased by a stunning 141% during 2015. Customer adoption of the Openbravo Commerce Suite continues to accelerate sharply, especially with mid-sized and larger specialty retailers with a physical stores network who are in need of a modern mobile store solution that can be seamlessly integrated with their legacy back-office systems to progress in their omnichannel strategies and strengthen competitiveness against the rapidly upcoming ecommerce retailers. The last quarter of 2015 was especially impressive and confirmed the strategic relevance of the Openbravo Commerce Suite for today's retailers, with the sign-up of a new subscription for a multinational Fortune 500 wholesale and retail pharmacy group that selected Openbravo to equip hundreds of stores within its opticians business unit with Openbravo's state-of-the-art cloud and mobile Point-of-Sale. 2015 has also been a key year for our channel operations with the incorporation of a new COO and large partners such as Happiest Minds, TCG Digital, JK Technosoft and Grupo Taurus joining our partner program. "Openbravo has done a great job in the channel this year.", said Francesco Leto, COO at Openbravo. "We have improved the profile of our partners and now we count with larger companies that will help us to accelerate our growth and effectively service larger retailers. This is key to driving the scale and adoption of the Openbravo solutions worldwide. We expect this positive trend to continue in 2016 ". International expansion was also improved with the opening of a new office in France that will help Openbravo better serve its French partners and rapidly growing customer base in the country, with companies like BUT, the leading home furnishings French retailer, that has more than 300 stores using Openbravo solutions. Openbravo also opened a new headquarters in Spain to be able to continue the growth of its team and accommodate the expected development within its strategy in the retail sector and its growth in Europe. "After a successful 2015 we are in an excellent position to continue on the path indicated by our strategic shift to become a leading company in the retail software space. Our completeness of vision in specialty retail gives us tremendous confidence in our business in 2016 and beyond. Also, our new cloud offering due for launch in a few weeks time will for sure help us to further accelerate retail cloud sales growth that will quickly translate into significantly more revenue and profits for Openbravo and, very importantly, for our Official Partners. 2016 is also very special for us, since in the course of this year we will be celebrating 10 years in the market, so we can all expect very exciting news in the coming months." said Marco de Vries, CEO of Openbravo.

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Barcelona, February 23rd, 2016 The Openbravo Commerce Cloud, combines the powerful Openbravo Commerce Suite with Openbravo Cloud, a single-tenant Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) option that enables specialty retailers to deploy Openbravo products on virtual servers in AWS. The Openbravo Commerce Cloud frees retailers from the high costs and complexities of managing hardware, which can be scaled up or down based on growth or changing business needs. By combining the Openbravo Commerce Cloud with the services provided locally by an Authorized Openbravo Partner, retailers will enjoy a fully managed state-of-the-art retail solution in the cloud. The Openbravo Commerce Cloud can be adopted under a variety of business scenarios, ranging from being used exclusively as a next generation mobile store solution to the deployment of a complete retail management system, built on top of Openbravo's highly flexible and easily extendable commerce technology platform that enables retailers to focus on business innovation for more competitiveness. Specialty retailers will gain superior agility to rapidly adapt to their continuously changing business needs, such as the opening of new stores, international expansion, roll-out of new store concepts, or simply to more effectively manage recurring challenges like peak demand during weekends or the holiday season. The unique combination of the flexibility of the Openbravo Commerce Suite itself with the agility provided by AWS and the services delivered by Openbravo Cloud Operations, including 24/7 support and a strong disaster recovery strategy, are key enablers for retailers to achieve this superior agility. The Openbravo Commerce Cloud is priced with a transparent model, which clearly splits software costs, based on POS terminals and back-office concurrent users, and the cloud infrastructure costs, based on the provisioned AWS and support resources, to optimize total cost and so ensure a perfect fit with retailers' requirements. "The Openbravo Commerce Cloud provides specialty retailers with the opportunity to adopt a solution that meets three critical operating standards: lower capital expense, variable cost of operations on the basis of the pay-for-what-you-use principle, and a very scalable computing platform. The combination of these three standards results in a highly competitive TCO, something that will be much valued by Retail CIOs who are forced to re-evaluate how their IT spending is allocated in order to keep up with the pace of new IT initiatives to support the rapidly evolving retail business model", said Ismael Ciordia, CTO at Openbravo. To celebrate this important announcement, Openbravo has announced a special launch offer for all Openbravo Commerce Cloud new contracts closed before 30th June 2016. For more information visit www.openbravo.com/commerce-cloud

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Barcelona (Spain) and Delhi (India), June 9th, 2016 M&B Footwear has selected the Openbravo Commerce Suite for its upcoming Lee Cooper Shoes EBO (Exclusive Brand Outlet) Stores to gain greater visibility across its vast distribution network spread across India comprising of more than 80 distributors. The company, the only one in India which has a portfolio of several national and international Footwear brands including, amongst others, the worldwide leader Lee Cooper, needed a new system to replace its current legacy store solution that would help the business to support future growth plans and position it better to efficiently address today's footwear industry challenges. The new solution will make it possible to significantly reduce the IT investment on each store and the preparation time for new openings as well as seamless integration of the online channel, so supporting the company's omnichannel strategy and future expansion plans more efficiently. Thanks to its unique architecture, M&B Footwear will also gain real-time centralized inventory visibility across locations while also achieving greater business agility for the faster introduction of new brands, styles, collections, prices and promotions, that can be made available transparently and rapidly on each store and terminal, so allowing the company to keep up with fast changing consumer tastes and footwear fashion trends. M&B Footwear distributors will also gain access to a modern solution that will allow them to increase the efficiency of their overall retail operations, and seamlessly integrate with M&B Footwear, so helping to boost the overall distribution network performance through improved operational coordination and greater end-to-end visibility. Detailed daily sales information will be available at headquarters level within hours of closing the last retail outlet thanks to a centralized system that will provide greater insights into inventory and sales performance across different distribution channels and the whole business portfolio. And thanks to being a very easy to integrate solution, it opens the door to future integration with the corporate SAP system for real time control and monitoring of the business from the headquarters and the option to easily reconcile information at any time with the information provided by SAP. Lastly, M&B Footwear also particularly valued the fact that Openbravo provides a fully responsive web and mobile point of sale, which opens up new possibilities to provide improved shopping experiences to employees and customers in the future and guarantees full IT freedom to select the mobile devices of their choice. According to Shishir Kumar, M&B Footwear's Head of IT, "After a thorough analysis of the existing alternatives on the market, we chose the Openbravo Commerce Suite thanks to its light architecture that simplifies deployment and maintenance of our retail outlets, the possibility to use mobile POS enabling us to provide an enhanced in-store shopping experience as well as centralized real-time inventory visibility across locations and Openbravo's superior capacity to seamlessly integrate with existing systems. These capacities will allow us to ensure our store opening plan, deliver new services and a more specialized in-store assisted sale as well as support our omnichannel strategy through easier integration with our online channel and adopt a new solution for our distributors that will provide us with greater visibility across our vast country-wide distribution network. And all this whilst being well aligned with our budget." Exceloid, a specialized consulting firm offering Technical Consulting, Web Application Development and Mobile App Development, Digital Signage and Infrastructure Services, will be Openbravo's Official Partner in charge of the project implementation.   About M&B Footwear M&B Footwear is one of the fastest growing companies in the Shoe business of India. Within a short span of just over a decade, M&B Footwear has grown multifold, and is probably the only company in India which has a portfolio of several national and international brands. The company is spearheaded by Bhai Ajinder Singh, who holds an MBA from North Eastern University, Boston (USA), with specialization in Marketing & Finance and Inder Dev S. Musafir, a footwear technologist from South Fields College, Leicester (U.K). The vertically integrated structure of M&B provides the support and strength to face the toughest market competition. Each department in the vertical format of M&B is a growth engine in itself, and its uniqueness lies in its structure.

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With these enhancements, Openbravo further improves the value proposition of its flagship Commerce Suite solution for specialized retailers, particularly those with a sizable network of physical establishments, and perhaps also an online sales channel, which demand more complex supply chain management capabilities. This enhanced solution also makes the most of the benefits of mobile and cloud technologies, thus improving all retail operations. According to Marco de Vries, CEO of Openbravo, "Supply chain management is now, more than ever, a fundamental strategic function for retailers. For this reason, we have expanded and enhanced the Commerce Suite capabilities to enable retailers to effectively manage the supply chain using a single, mobile solution in the Cloud". The new capabilities include improvements in usability and functionality when using mobile devices. New capabilities in demand forecasting, inventory planning, advanced warehouse management and distribution have been added to complement the applications already available in areas such as inventory management, purchasing and manufacturing, so offering retailers a complete suite for the management of their supply chain in the cloud. According to Maarten Tromp, Director of Product Management for the company, "Omnichannel is a goal for many retail companies nowadays, but it is not possible to achieve without advanced supply chain management. A partner like Openbravo can help retailers meet this challenge with a functionally-rich solution that stands out from others in the market". Commerce Suite now incorporates a set of pre-configured cloud infrastructure packages, and more advanced options for multi-server and high-availability scenarios that provide greater degrees of flexibility. In summary, Openbravo has significantly improved and expanded the functional capabilities of its offering, so reinforcing its position as reference solution for retailers. With this evolution, the company aims to further strengthen its global expansion, which already sees Openbravo present in markets such as France, India and Mexico, and the Spanish market in particular. The Openbravo Commerce Suite is already trusted by international companies such as Decathlon India as well as Spanish companies including Depique, Patadon, Deporvillage, Bassols, Ranking or Sivasdescalzo. To learn more, visit this link.

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Barcelona (Spain) and Zaventem (Belgium), November 10th, 2016 Openbravo and frePPLe today announced a strategic partnership to help retailers optimize the execution of their retail operations with advanced planning capabilities. The effective integration of Openbravo and frePPLe solutions will generate new and exciting business opportunities for both companies. "We are confident this partnership will bring us many opportunities and create a lot of value to Openbravo customers. A successful integration between execution and planning is a big driver for value creation. Our shared open source roots make Openbravo the perfect partner for us." says Johan De Taeye, founder and CEO of frePPLe. "We are convinced that this strategic partnership will allow us to deliver solutions which effectively tackle real planning challenges that companies face every day in today's volatile and demanding markets." says Hicham Lahlou, managing partner at frePPLe. "The partnership with frePPLe is strategic for us." says Maarten Tromp, Director of Product Management at Openbravo. "FrePPLe's planning capabilities represent an important addition to our product offering for retailers in the areas of sales forecasting, inventory management and replenishment, and one that is fully in line with Openbravo's philosophy of great functionality delivered through a simple user-interface. We look forward to going to market jointly and have no doubts of a rapid and vast acceptance." . To celebrate this strategic partnership, Openbravo and frePPLe will conduct two webinars in December related to the topic of Forecasting and Planning for Retailers:   December 1st: "Demand Forecasting and Inventory Planning in Omnichannel Retail: Ready for the Challenge?". Register here: English / Spanish. December 15th:"Hands-on Demo for Omnichannel Retailers: Demand Forecasting and Inventory Planning with Openbravo and frePPLe". Register here: English / Spanish.

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Strenghtened team with former Cylande and Mi9 Retail senior managers "We are thrilled to welcome Bruno, Flora and Christophe, three highly experienced leaders with a strong retail background and track records of success in guiding organizations through change and driving growth. Attracting people like them into the Openbravo business is a great endorsement of our strategy and ambition, and we look forward to benefiting from their valuable experiences and perspectives to accelerate business growth in France, which is today one of our most strategic markets." said Marco de Vries, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Bruno Menteaux is the former Chief Operating Officer of Cylande, a role he held from 2012 onwards. He has more than 20 years of experience in the retail software space with a proven track record of driving organizations and growth to achieve a step change in business performance. From his new position as General Manager for France & Northern Europe Mr.Menteaux will be in charge of leading the growth of Openbravo in France and facilitating expansion into other countries in Northern Europe. Ms. Flora Wengerow joins also from Cylande, where she gained extensive experience during more than 10 years on managing key accounts and complex retail projects in international environments from sales to execution. From her new position as Services and Pre-sales Director France & Northern Europe she will be in charge of the team of consultants and technical resources that will support Openbravo sales and delivery activities in these regions. Mr. Christophe Dubois also brings more than 20 years of experience in software sales with strong knowledge in areas like retail and supply chain acquired working with leading retailers when he was with companies like Oracle Micros and Mi9 Retail. From his new position as Sales Director France he will be in charge of growing the Openbravo customer base with new key retail accounts in the country. Mr. Menteaux said: "We are very excited to be joining Openbravo and look forward to its growth. Based on our extensive experience in IT services for retail, we firmly believe that with its 100% cloud and mobile solutions, Openbravo responds to retailers' needs for their evolution towards omnichannel and their digital transformation. The fact that major French retailers such as BUT or Decathlon already trust Openbravo demonstrates the huge potential of the solution. After a thorough technical and business analysis of the software suite, I can say that Openbravo will respond to the current and future challenges of retailers, including modularity, simplicity of implementation, functional richness and the modernity of our products that allow to support customer demands, at the heart of the digital and the omnichannel." New office in Lille, the European retail place "The decision to expand our presence in France with a new office in Lille was a logical step in our retail business growth strategy. With over 70 retailers headquartered in Lille, including major names such as Decathlon, Leroy Merlin, Castorama, Kiabi, Camaieu or La Redoute , and located at the crossroads of three European capital cities, Paris, London and Brussels, it is clearly a place where we wanted to be.", continued Marco de Vries. The new office in Lille, based in the EuraTechnologies Parc where a lot of innovative IT companies have their offices, and of which many of them work for retailers, will support the company's growth strategy in France and Northern Europe, adding to the other office in France (Paris), and the international offices India, Mexico, Spain and the soon to open office in Dubai.  

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A strong relationship which began in India today extends into a fast-growing list of countries Following a partnership that started over 5 years ago in India to support Decathlon's ambitious growth plan in that country, Openbravo is used today in all 81 Decathlon stores across India. Aside from India, Decathlon today uses Openbravo POS to manage store operations in Australia, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippine and Vietnam, and the list continues to grow. The Openbravo solution was quickly and easily deployed and adapted to support different country-specific needs, from fiscal regulations to integrations and innovative technologies like RFID, mobile payments, or a self-checkout solution, which was launched in less than 3 months. Openbravo mobile POS capabilities opened up additional possibilities for enhanced customer service. According to Tim Liu, IT Manager at Decathlon International and responsible for the POS project in Asia "With the efficient integration to Decathlon systems and new technologies like RFID or mobile payments, Openbravo helps our store staff in terms of check-out process efficiency and reduces time spent on training. We believe this innovative solution will help us with the digital transformation of our business." Simplified multi-store IT management and cloud readiness Being web-native and deployed on the Openbravo Cloud has also helped Decathlon to dramatically simplify store IT infrastructure, enabling faster preparation for new openings and reducing the total effort and cost for daily store maintenance. It also allows Decathlon to move forward in its transition to the cloud, which is another strategic objective for the company. "Thanks to Openbravo, we were able to lighten our infrastructure in stores by eliminating the need of local servers. We are now able to roll out changes in a way that saves much time and cost. Furthermore, we moved to a cloud solution which will fit our cloud strategy and will generate more benefits in terms of cost and deployment, from a long-term perspective," Mr. Liu added. About Decathlon Decathlon is today one of the world's leading sporting goods retailers. Founded in Lille, France, Decathlon sells products catering to more than 100 sports. For more information visit corporate.decathlon.com/en.

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The SAP Integration and Certification Center has certified that Openbravo Commerce Suite 3.0 integrates with SAP applications to exchange POS information with instances of SAP IS Retail, including master data, sales and physical inventory information. "We are really excited to announce this certification, which becomes for us a strategic asset now that more and more larger retailers that run SAP applications are approaching Openbravo to transform their businesses by deploying our omnichannel retail solution", said Marco de Vries, CEO at Openbravo. "The combination of SAP applications and other complementary solutions that can be easily integrated with Openbravo helps strengthen our value proposition and will result in ever greater benefits for our existing and future customers." As a result of the certified integration, Openbravo Commerce Suite provides businesses that use SAP solutions the capacity to deliver an enhanced in-store shopping experience through a broad set of assisted sale capabilities, RFID, and mobile payments at POS, to name a few. It enables a variety of omnichannel scenarios and dramatically simplifies store operations with the central management of all stores and POS terminals from a single point, which brings the capacity to provide faster sales information at the headquarter level and to update master data (products, pricing, promotions) across all stores in near real-time. To learn more about this integration visit our integrations page.     About Openbravo Openbravo is a global omnichannel software vendor for agile and innovative retailing. The Openbravo Commerce Suite is a cloud-ready retail software solution providing comprehensive omnichannel and supply chain capabilities. It is built on top of a highly flexible mobile-enabled technology platform, which allows retailers to innovate more and faster and to manage change more efficiently. With customers in more than 60 countries and over 16,000 back office users and 20,000 point of sales currently using its solutions, Openbravo offers the most flexible omnichannel solution on the market. Openbravo has offices in France, Dubai, India, Mexico, and Spain. To learn more visit www.openbravo.com. ***************** Openbravo as well as its logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of OPENBRAVO SLU in Spain and other countries. Please visit http://www.openbravo.com/es/trademark-use-guidelines/ for further information. SAP and SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. See http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx for additional trademark information and notices.All other product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. For more information, please contact: Xavier Places CanoMarketing Directorxavier.places@openbravo.com+34607676568  

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Middle East, a strategic region "For Openbravo the Middle East represents a huge growth opportunity thanks to the recent market changes stemming from increased competition and new economic policies. These changes compel retailers in the region to renovate their retail management systems to meet the requirements of business digitalization, innovation and omnichannel transformation, as well as to gain agility for increased responsiveness to future market changes. Openbravo helps retailers to address effectively the pressures they are facing." said Marco de Vries, Chief Executive Officer. The new Dubai office is led by Mike Nasreddin, who brings broad experience in IT and software sales in the region working with companies including Oracle. From his new position as Sales Director MEA, Mr. Nasreddin will be leading growth in Dubai and facilitating expansion into other MEA countries. The new office is a welcome addition our other offices in France, India, Mexico and Spain. Exhibiting at Middle East Retail Forum To celebrate this new office opening, Openbravo will be participating this year for the first time in the Middle East Retail Forum which will take place in Dubai on October 8-9. Visitors at Booth #12 will have the opportunity to meet Openbravo experts and learn about the latest product innovations through various live demos.  

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The strategic partnership will enable Toys "R" Us Iberia to execute its new business strategy after its recent acquisition by Green Swan, with the transformation of the shopping experience in all physical stores through the adoption of Openbravo's POS solution in the Cloud. “We are pleased to have signed this contract with Openbravo,” said Paulo Sousa Marquez, CEO, Toys “R” Us Iberia. “We value Openbravo’s modern technology, which will enable us to accelerate the store transformations, and the agility that comes from being web-native and mobile-ready.” Through the adoption of Openbravo POS, a key component of the Openbravo Commerce Cloud solution, Toys “R” Us stores will gain access to a broad set of assisted sales capabilities that will enable greater customer focus and a faster, more convenient checkout experience while also supporting its omnichannel strategy. The cloud deployment will ensure central management for all stores and terminals, which will dramatically reduce total IT and maintenance costs. "Toys ‘R’ Us is an emblematic brand with which many of us share an emotional bond. This is why we are very proud to collaborate with the company to help the team achieve their business goals in this new growth stage," said Marco de Vries, CEO, Openbravo. "For Openbravo, this important agreement confirms our strategic success and further strengthens our market position as a reference retail software vendor. This partnership will be instrumental in further accelerating business growth in Spain and beyond."   About Toys “R” Us Iberia Toys “R” Us Iberia opened its first store in Barcelona in 1991. Today, it comprises 51 stores in Spain and 10 in Portugal, as well as online stores www.toysrus.es and www.toysrus.pt, and has approximately 1,300 employees. Now in its 27th year, the company’s mission is to bring happiness to families with experiential stores and the best range of products for babies and kids.   About Openbravo Openbravo is a global omnichannel software vendor for agile and innovative retailing. The Openbravo Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based retail software solution providing comprehensive omnichannel and supply chain capabilities. It is built on a highly flexible, mobile-enabled technology platform, which allows retailers to innovate more and faster, and to manage change more efficiently. With customers in more than 60 countries and over 16,000 back-office users and 20,000 points of sale currently using its solutions, Openbravo offers the most flexible omnichannel solution on the market. Openbravo has offices in France, Dubai, India, Mexico, and Spain. Learn more at www.openbravo.com.

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The use of Openbravo software will enable Cirque du Soleil to continue innovating at the point of sale with the introduction of new capabilities aimed at delivering an improved customer experience in all its merchandising stores and shows, as well as to progress with its omnichannel strategy. "We are pleased to continue our relationship with Openbravo as they have amply demonstrated that they are strongly committed to our business objectives." said Pierre-Luc Bisaillon, CIO, Cirque du Soleil. "With this new contract, we expect to accelerate the transformation of the shopping experience in our merchandising stores and shows, while continue to benefit from improvements in efficiency and cost savings that come with Openbravo's comprehensive functional coverage." "We are very excited to have the opportunity to continue strengthening our partnership with such a highly respected market leader like Cirque du Soleil." said Marco de Vries, CEO, Openbravo. "This new 5-year partnership represents for us an important vote of confidence in Openbravo. It builds on an existing and excellent business relationship developed over the past few years and demonstrates the conviction of our respective teams regarding the value Openbravo can bring to Cirque du Soleil to help achieve its business and growth objectives." Read complete story here.   About Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group Originally composed of 20 street performers in 1984, Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group completely reinvented circus arts and went on to become a world leader in live entertainment. Established in Montreal, the Canadian organization has brought wonder and delight to over 190 million spectators with productions presented in close to 450 cities in 60 countries. Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group currently has over 4,000 employees, including 1,400 artists, from nearly 70 countries. Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group creates content for a broad range of audacious projects. On top of producing world-renowned shows, the organization has extended its creative approach to a large variety of entertainment forms such as multimedia productions, immersive experiences, theme parks and special events. Going beyond its various creations, Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group aims to make a positive impact on people, communities and the planet with its most important tools: creativity and art. For more information about Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, please visit www.cdsentertainmentgroup.com   About Openbravo Openbravo is a global retail software solution vendor for agile and innovative retailing that provides comprehensive omnichannel and supply chain capabilities. It is built on a highly flexible, mobile-enabled technology platform, which allows retailers to innovate more and faster, and to manage change more efficiently. With customers in more than 60 countries and over 16,000 back-office users and 25,000 points of sale currently using its solutions, Openbravo offers the most flexible omnichannel solution on the market. Openbravo has offices in France, Dubai, India, Mexico, and Spain. Visit www.openbravo.com to learn more.

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Strong growth driven by Openbravo Cloud Openbravo achieved solid growth across all revenue lines, led principally by its main client group of mid-sized and larger specialty retailers as well as the market traction that the Openbravo Cloud offering has generated with new and existing customers alike. Openbravo confirmed important new projects and strengthened its strategic partnerships with key long-time clients like Decathlon and Cirque du Soleil. The year has been also very positive in terms of new customer wins including iconic new names such as Toys “R” Us, which selected Openbravo for the revamp of its 61 stores in Spain & Portugal. Another good example is Groupe Rand of France which selected Openbravo to replace Columbus, its legacy system, with the aim of improving the customer experience across its 43 stores in France, Spain and Italy belonging to its renowned Lollipops and Balaboosté brands.   Growing interest from large retailers running SAP Openbravo also detected growing and strong interest in its retail solution from large retailers running SAP enterprise software, specially after achieving the official certified integration of the Openbravo Commerce Suite with SAP Applications. The integration of the two platforms allows larger retailers to continue to use SAP as their back-office system while enjoying the benefits of Openbravo’s best-of-breed retail platform, which provides comprehensive end-to-end mobile-enabled and cloud-ready omnichannel capabilities for retailers seeking faster innovation and greater business agility.   Acceleration of the international expansion 2018 was also important for international growth of the company with two new office openings. First, Openbravo inaugurated an office in Lille, France in June, led by a highly experienced team that came from Cylande and Raymark. Their objective is to reinforce Openbravo’s position in the French market and facilitate the expansion into Northern European countries. Second, Openbravo opened an office in Dubai, UAE in September, to support company growth in the Middle East and offer enhanced service to existing retail customers in the region - like Sharaf DG and Organic Foods & Café - which are already using Openbravo's omnichannel solution. "This excellent performance in 2018 consolidates our positioning and illustrates our determination to become a market leader in the retail software space. The completeness and flexibility of our omnichannel platform give us a tremendous competitive advantage over other software vendors and thanks to new functional enhancements, such as the certified integration with SAP, we are becoming more and more the preferred option for larger companies to transform their retail operations. Openbravo Cloud is key to our future as it enables us to continue to accelerate sales and so achieve significantly more revenue and profits, and it is instrumental in keeping client satisfaction high." said Marco de Vries, CEO of Openbravo.   And in 2019 In addition to building on the strong results in 2018, company focus for the current year will be on maintaining exceptional client satisfaction and putting more emphasis on accelerating growth, both by continuing to win new names in existing markets as well as with selective office openings to further support its increasingly global business footprint.   About Openbravo Openbravo is a global omnichannel platform vendor for agile and innovative retailing. The Openbravo Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based omnichannel platform providing comprehensive omnichannel capabilities. It is built on a highly flexible, mobile-enabled technology platform, which allows retailers to innovate more and faster, and to manage change more efficiently. With customers in more than 60 countries and over 16,000 back-office users and 25,000 points of sale currently using its solutions, Openbravo offers the most flexible omnichannel platform on the market. Openbravo has offices in France, Dubai, India, Mexico, and Spain.   Visit www.openbravo.com to learn more.

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