LS Retail Offers Cloud-Based Boutique Fashion Solution Based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Iceland-based LS Retail has released LS Fashion Express, the company’s first cloud-based management software for boutique fashion retailers. LS Fashion Express is a more compact, cloud-based version of the company’s LS Nav, built on Microsoft Dynamics NAV. It makes use of the Dynamics NAV Small Business Role Center, which is designed for small businesses that don’t require the broader functionality of Dynamics NAV.

“We tried to focus on features that fashion retailers do need and remove those that they don’t use,” says CMO Eloise Freygang, such as features related to hospitality, scale and fuel pump integrations. LS Fashion Express purportedly includes everything fashion retailers need (and nothing they don’t), from financials to the Point of Sale.

LS Retail already offers LS Nav, used by retailers like Boots, Weber and IDEA. But, “LS Fashion Express is aimed at smaller fashion retailers, not the enterprise type retailers running hundreds of stores like LS Nav is serving,” says Freygang. “The focus is on rapid implementation, streamlined business processes, all running in the cloud with monthly updates.”

So, all of the features found in LS Fashion Express exist in LS Nav with some processes and features stripped away. But LS Fashion Express is also an early adopter of the Dynamics NAV Managed Services (PaaS) platform from Microsoft. That approach means the solutions will include monthly updates, something they are not offering with their LS Nav solution at the moment, says Freygang.

LS Retail is a Microsoft Presidents Club and Inner Circle member, and made channel news at this year’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), where it was named ISV of the year Western Europe, ISV of the year US and Global ISV of the year.  The company claims its solutions are used by more than 55,000 stores operating 130,000 POS terminals worldwide, and works with 200+ certified Microsoft and LS Retail partners in over 70 countries.

In the future, LS Retail plans to release more industry-specific cloud-based versions of LS Nav, but started with apparel and fashion which is the company’s largest retail market. “Besides, the fashion industry fits perfectly with the way we see the cloud moving forward,” said CTO Dadi Karason in a statement. “But we plan to add more industries in the future”.

LS Fashion Express will initially be available for customers in the UK and US, and the company will showcase its solutions at Convergence 2015 EMEA in Barcelona, Spain.