"The team from Karabus demonstrated a deep understanding of Markdown Optimization and Merchandising. Bringing their experience to the table, Karabus helped us define new processes that leverage Markdown Optimization, shifting from chain level markdowns to targeted price zone levels. Karabus was a key contributor to the success of this project and helped us to achieve a rapid return on our investment."

Michael Rempell, SVP & CIO, American Eagle Outfitters

"A few months ago we participated in the retail industry specific Karabus Finance and Accounting benchmark study. We were initially concerned about the comparability of the information to our business, but Karabus was able to attract several best of breed retailers as participants. As a result, we learned that there were several areas of opportunity for our Accounting/Finance operation to improve efficiencies and enhance ROI. Overall, participation in the Karabus benchmark study delivered actionable results and was a very meaningful experience for AE."

Laura Weil, former CFO, American Eagle Outfitters
American Eagle is a leading casual lifestyle retailer, with more than $2 billion in annual sales.

"Karabus Management is the only consulting firm in the marketplace that has delivered tangible results through merchandizing improvements. Their proven track record and merchandising-specific experience make them a valuable resource. We could not have achieved our productivity improvements without them."

Bruce Berman, EVP and CFO, Bloomingdale's
Bloomingdale's is a division of Federated Department Stores, and operates department stores at 33 locations.

"Karabus' expertise with Markdown Optimization, coupled with their knowledge of Merchandising Operations, led us to the successful identification and prioritization of our requirements. They also worked with us in fine tuning our future markdown process, including aligning roles, key performance measurements and considering those impacts on our other processes."

Joe Sperlunto, Director, Application Development, Charming Shoppes

"Karabus has helped us fundamentally improve the way we plan our assortments. Together with our team of merchants and planners, they designed and implemented a new assortment planning process that we believe will allow us to achieve our business goals by offering our customers an improved and tailored assortment. Karabus helped us construct an actionable framework that will allow us to track and measure performance against our goals. They were instrumental in embedding the new process and mindset in our organization - they were a great contributor to our success."

Keith Spirgel, VP Financial Planning & Business Support, Charming Shoppes
Charming Shoppes operates over 2,200 specialty apparel stores across the U.S., with annual sales of $2.4 billion.

"Karabus Management has brought an important perspective to Casual Male efforts to implement best practices to its supply chain processes and inventory management, while at the same time assisting Casual Male in optimizing its latest systemic merchandising tools. Having Karabus' in-depth retail industry knowledge and experience has been an important element in making successful infrastructure improvements."

Dennis Hernreich, COO, Casual Male Retail Group
Casual Male operates over 500 specialty men's apparel stores across North America.

"We found the Karabus Retail financial benchmark to be very beneficial in highlighting areas of similarities and differences with respect to our investments in the various finance and accounting processes relative to other participating retailers. We have now leveraged the benchmark results to help us direct our improvement programs to those areas that provide the most significant opportunities. The Karabus benchmark, in contrast to other benchmarking services, was very useful as it is 100% retail-focused, therefore improving the quality of comparisons to other companies."

Ed Wilhelm, CFO, Borders Group Inc.
Borders Group operates over 1,200 Borders and Waldenbooks stores around the world, with annual sales of $3.9 billion.

"Prior to our participation [in the Retail Finance Benchmark], we had been working with Karabus on improving the efficiencies in many areas of our Finance function. The benchmarking information helped to identify the additional areas of opportunity as well as confirmed the areas we thought were performing well. I found this benchmarking data more useful than others because it was entirely composed of retail companies."

Brenda Galgano, SVP & CFO, The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P)

"Karabus worked collaboratively with our leadership group to develop an organization-wide restructuring program. Working with Karabus and their deep understanding of the Retail industry we identified over $75MM in savings to our Administrative costs. What I liked most about Karabus was the strategic view they took of our business and how they partnered with each of our Functional areas and CEO to develop the buy-in required to execute a restructuring program of this magnitude. Karabus developed and executed the majority of the restructuring program in less than 12 weeks."

Christian Haub, Executive Chairman, Great Atlantic & Pacific Team Company (A&P)

"I was looking for the right partner to help A&P in a key phase of its business turnaround. I hired Karabus because they brought experienced finance retail professionals to us. Their recommendations were always fact-based and leveraged Finance Best Practices only when they fit our business. They "rolled up" their sleeves and really understood our processes and systems. Karabus really demonstrated their bias toward implementation by working closely with IT and Merchandising to develop recommendations to improve our cost structure. Karabus did not just produce a set of PowerPoint presentations; they assisted us with implementation to make sure we achieved the desired savings."

Mitch Goldstein, Former EVP & CFO, Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P)
A&P is a $12 billion regional grocer based in Montvale, NJ.

"The [Retail Finance Benchmark] process was worthwhile as it enabled us to benchmark our costs. It was a good reality check for us on how we are doing. The study has given us a number of things to think about and highlighted some possible areas of improvement."

Stuart Auld, CFO, Canadian Tire Retail
Canadian Tire is Canada's largest hardgoods retailer, operating more than 460 stores and 250 gas stations nation-wide.

"Karabus' expertise and their ability to take on the merchants' point of view is beneficial for this important initiative. They're working closely with our team to help us prioritize and work through difficult issues, such as moving from national to zone pricing and making changes to our existing markdown processes. Establishing merchant buy-in and support early on in the project is key to realizing the benefits we seek."

Andrew Milstein, Executive Merchandise Manager, Burlington Coat Factory

"What our peers told us was very compelling: Karabus played a key role in helping them develop the new strategy, processes, organizational buy-in and practical training that ensured the markdown recommendations from the system would be actionable. It was clear from those discussions that Merchandise Optimization is about much more than the technology, it also requires working closely with the merchants to establish a new way of thinking about margin optimization. We decided Karabus' involvement would greatly assist us in this undertaking."

Brad Friedman, VP of IT, Burlington Coat Factory
Burlington Coat Factory operates over 360 department stores across the United States, with annual sales of $3.2 billion.

"We have used many consultants over the years. Karabus stands above all the others due to their knowledge of retail processes, their ability to focus on the deliverables of the project and deal with the unknowns as they develop."

Gary Charboneau, SVP Sales and Merchandising, Duane Reade, Inc.
Founded in 1960, Duane Reade is the largest drug store chain in the metropolitan New York City area.

"We recently completed a Retail Finance Benchmark survey with Karabus. Participating exclusively with other retailers in this ’apples to apples’ comparison for various finance processes proved to be a worthwhile exercise. Doing so highlighted areas where we are strong performers and reinforced my beliefs about improvement opportunities in several others. Contrasting our finance productivity measures, resource allocation and areas of emphasis with other retailers provided a meaningful scorecard. Going forward, we shall use the comparative results to influence our process and organizational related decisions. We anticipate retaking the survey at some future date to gauge our progress."

Kevin Regan, VP Finance, Big Y Foods
Based in Springfield, MA, Big Y Foods is a family owned grocery chain with 55 locations.

"What we like about Karabus Management is that they are very strategic and very ROI-focused. In addition, they know retail extremely well and don't bring in an army of people. Karabus provides practical hands-on assistance to drastically improve a company's financial performance. By analyzing our merchandize operations, shifting our focus from sales to margins and educating and training our staff we saw immediate results. They are a big part of the millions of dollars of gross margin improvement that we've had this year."

Michael Stanek, CFO, Northern Group Retail, Ltd.
Northern Group is one of Canada's largest specialty apparel chains, operating over 250 stores.

"Karabus has more knowledge about retailing operations than other consulting firms I have dealt with. They are much more effective and efficient than the big consulting firms. They came into Spencer Gifts, rolled up their sleeves and got down to work with our people."

John Hacala, Former Chairman and CEO, Spencer Gifts, Inc.
Spencer Gifts operates over 600 specialty gift stores across North America.

"The [Retail Finance Benchmark] survey confirmed a number of areas where we felt there were ‘opportunities’ for improvement, but more importantly, gave us targets to strive for. It also confirmed that some areas were performing well and don’t need heightened attention at this time."

Jim McGill, CFO, Indigo Books& Music Inc.
Indigo is Canada's largest book retailer, operating more than 250 locations under multiple banners.

"Karabus helped us to assess and prioritize requirements, set goals and devise action plans to achieve these goals. They even helped us find good people to replace our weak links. They bring strong functional knowledge to the table through consultants who are united by a desire to get it done right. We have found the firm to be true partners and would strongly recommend them to other retailers in need of any of their broad range of services."

Steven Bryce, Former CFO, The Nuance Group
The Nuance Group is the world's leading airport duty free retailer, with locations on four continents.

"I hired Karabus to help us achieve substantial reductions in our corporate administrative overhead structure shortly after I joined the company in 2001 as CEO. They reviewed all of our corporate administrative processes, roles, and related systems and were instrumental in helping us to reduce the related headcount and costs over the next year by more than 30% without hurting service delivery. The cost reductions were sustainable and have been maintained. As CEO, I had previously hired Karabus for a number of initiatives in previous companies. I would be pleased to act as a reference to any retailer considering hiring them for similar projects."

Paul Houston, CEO, Alderwoods Inc. (formerly Loewen Group)
Alderwoods is North America's second largest chain of funeral homes and cemeteries.

"Shortly after joining as CFO, I retained Karabus to assess the processes and organization structure of our Billings, Collection and Payables areas. I had worked with them at my previous company, which led me to retain them again. Despite us having an antiquated legacy system with no capital plan for replacement, Karabus creatively developed legacy modifications to support the redesigned processes. This enabled us to move from multiple accounting areas to a single Shared Service operation. In addition to reducing headcount by over 20%, we realized considerable improvement in DSOs and improved customer service. We also installed metrics-based management in that area. Karabus' solution was pragmatic, implemented quickly and, though active collaboration with staff, widely accepted. Karabus performed a detailed review of work processes and brought the whole department to best in class practices within a considerably short timeframe. I would hire them again in an instant."

Bill Ross, former CFO, Acklands Grainger Inc.
Acklands Grainger is Canada's largest distributor of maintenance, repair and operating products, with annual sales of $600 million.

"I hired Karabus to review all the business processes and organizational structure of our Finance & Administration areas at our Los Angeles and Toronto locations with the objective of both substantially reducing costs as well as enhancing effectiveness. The work was a tremendous success. We consolidated our Finance groups into a single shared service group, reduced headcount more than 50%, improved the utilization of our Lawson financial system, implemented a metrics-based reporting system relating to efficiency, effectiveness and quality measures and still get period-end statements out in less than 5 days regularly."

Philip Saville, former CFO, Deluxe North America
Deluxe is a global leader in technology and media services for the film and home entertainment industry.