Case Study
UST helped global fashion brand automate inventory and allocation management with SAP apparel solution
OUR CLIENT
Founded more than 150 years ago as a dry goods business, this company has evolved to become one of the most iconic apparel brands in the world. With multiple clothing categories and approximately 450 stores around the globe, the company generates well over $5 billion annually.
THE CHALLENGE
Streamlining cumbersome, manual demand planning processes
Our client was struggling with its inventory management and product allocation processes. The company relied on time-consuming, error-prone, complex spreadsheets and fragmented, transaction-based demand planning processes. It failed to meet retailer product demands since the methodologies weren't strategy-driven or rooted in analytics, business goals, and predictable seasonal fluctuations.
Business leaders wanted to streamline and automate their inventory management and product allocation processes to improve demand planning across sales channels, reduce supply chain costs and lead times, and increase satisfaction among their retail customers.
THE TRANSFORMATION
Implementing a cohesive SAP apparel and fashion management solution
As the manufacturer’s long-standing SAP implementation and innovation partner, UST implemented SAP’s end-to-end omnichannel merchandise planning and inventory management solution, which included SAP Apparel and Footwear (SAP AFS), SAP S/4HANA Fashion Management, and SAP Analytics Cloud, as well as SAP BW/4HANA, SAP Process Integration (SAP PI) and Plural Technology’s FlexPLM enterprise integrations. The apparel industry solution enabled the company to:
- Create frictionless order processing - with intuitive dashboards, insightful analytics, and sales order visibility.
- Avoid excess stock and downstream markdowns - using intelligent, rules-based calculations to reserve products based on factors like aggregated demand forecasts, retailer POs, and available to projected product supplies.
- Increase on-time PO deliveries - with integrated vendor collaboration, supplier-managed inventory, and PO-to-supply visibility.
- Reduce delivery lead times and handling costs - with a direct-ship process that bypasses typical warehouse and cross-dock process points.
- Utilize late-stage postponement planning models - to speed inventory allocation decisions when supplies are low by prioritizing retailers based on region, margin, profitability, etc.
THE IMPACT
Building customer trust with reliable, data-driven inventory management processes
With the SAP inventory and demand planning solution in place, the company can:
- Better manage inventory working capital - thanks to the insights, visibility, accelerated decision-making, and automated process from the new, integrated SAP apparel industry solution.
- Boost customer service levels - because retailers can count on supply and delivery commitments from this manufacturer thanks to the improved inventory management and product allocation processes.
- Increase market penetration - by strategically managing supply constraints and sharing inventory across key retailer customers.
- Rapidly address changing market conditions - by using real-time analytics and interactive inventory management capabilities to adjust order allocations when necessary.