Braving The Competition

Alliston Ackerman, News Editor

4/1/2005

The family-owned and family-run Sportif USA has provided quality sportswear to the outdoorsy, adventurous type for the past 40 years. In 1965, Sportif began as a small business in southern California and quickly broke ground by introducing clothing built with the durability and functionality necessary for outdoor life. As outdoor activities continue to be taken to the extreme, the now Nevada-based Sportif strives to satisfy heightened demand for its products through multiple sales channels, including wholesale distribution, direct-to-consumer catalogue and e-commerce.

"Being a vertical, multi-channel company in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets, we need to leverage best-of-breed systems," says Mike Youngblood, VP of IT Systems for Sportif USA. "We have invested a lot in IT over the last five years considering the smaller size of our company in order to be capable of responding to the demands of large specialty retailers as well as provide direct customer service to the smaller specialty retailers of the world."

Rich in Functionality
To stay on top of customer demand and optimize delivery of available merchandise, Sportif successfully completed in June 2001 an information technology overhaul within its supply chain. Using Oracle as a central hub, Sportif conquered the following IT projects simultaneously:

The implementation of the Essentus (recently acquired by Jesta I.S.) sourcing and demand solution.
The adoption of, for the first time, a warehouse management system from Manhattan Associates.
The implementation of Oracle Financials.

In harmony with great strides taken by all three technology providers to stay current with the latest and greatest technology functionality, Sportif in March 2004 completed upgrades of all three systems. Youngblood acknowledges both Jesta's and Manhattan Associates' dedication to maintaining the highest levels of technology functionality as a key driver for their selection as technology partners. "Our goal was to take advantage of these best practices and state-of-the-art technologies that make our company more productive and efficient," says Youngblood. "Ultimately, it will improve our bottom line."

Enhanced Visibility
Sportif upgraded from Essentus' sourcing and demand product to Jesta's Vision Sourcing and Demand Management version 7.2. In 2003, Jesta acquired all of the intellectual property and assets of Essentus Inc. "Before the acquisition, Essentus didn't really adhere to a smaller, more nimble company that has to deal with multiple specialty retailers and delivery dates," says Youngblood. "Jesta has brought a lot of research and product enhancements to the Essentus products. It has been an excellent acquisition for us."

With the upgrade in place, Sportif can take advantage of an improved sourcing management system with enhancements in allocation and inventory, as well as extended visibility for the production of its goods. "We can now create allocations in the Jesta system that are sales order matched, so we can tell customers immediately what we have available to ship them today," says Youngblood. "We weren't able to do that without running some external processes in the past,
so this is a huge improvement."

Not only does Sportif gain added functionality with the modules, but new report capabilities will also allow the company to further analyze company data. "In our wholesale business, it has always been a blind order entry system," says Youngblood. "But when you're dealing with small specialty stores, you've got to quickly tell them what you've got while they are on the phone. Jesta offers reporting capabilities right through the front end -- real time availability at the point of entry."

Inside the Warehouse
In the warehouse, Sportif used what Youngblood dubs a "soup-to-nuts" solution to create pick tickets, but the company had no true warehouse management process in place before adopting a Manhattan Associates solution in June 2001. Today, Sportif has allowed Manhattan Associates to take command of the entire warehouse, manning such capabilities as direct to put away, pick verification, scanning and order entry, etc. "Anything and everything we need to create for fulfillment services comes out of Manhattan Associates' warehouse management system," says Youngblood. Sportif now benefits from a faster and more efficient flow of goods through the distribution center, optimization of its facility and increased productivity of its workforce, not to mention the ability to exceed customer expectations.

Customer Appreciation
The enhancements to Sportif's IT capabilities are just now starting to hit the pavement with the fulfillment of Sportif's spring season -- the company usually plans a year to 18 months out. "Our customers are going to realize a difference once we begin to fill orders in time and we don't have to call them time and time again with changes in information that we couldn't manage as easily before," says Youngblood. Sportif will ultimately see an improvement in its bottom line as customers -- small and large alike -- see its renewed ability to deliver the right product at the right time at the best price.