Client profile The client is a well-known US footwear company that offers sportswear and lifestyle brand footwear.

Opportunity After setting ambitious goals to double sales and expand into new markets, the company needed a scalable enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform to provide appropriate controls for enterprise risk and compliance requirements across its global supply chain and within finance. The new platform would also need to support new businesses as they came online. The company chose SAP Apparel and Footwear Solution (AFS) as its new platform for its industry-specific solution and recognized that Accenture would help ensure that the complex transition went smoothly and met an aggressive time schedule.

Solution The Accenture team included specialists from the Products industry group, Accenture Digital and the Accenture Global Delivery Network. This highly skilled group addressed the company’s global requirements and local market considerations. Collaborating closely

with the client, the team led the implementation of SAP AFS ERP 6.6 for 16 countries within 18 months from early planning stages through testing, deployment and employee training. Accenture also drew upon relevant SAP experience to incorporate SAP HANA and SAP HANA Live into the platform to provide more efficient and nimble analytics-driven business intelligence in real time. This was the first implementation of SAP AFS to incorporate HANA and HANA Live, marking this as not only an extremely innovative undertaking but a noteworthy one as well.

As the primary integrator, Accenture utilized Accenture Advanced Enterprise Solutions for Fashion, a set of fashion industry solutions to accelerate project work and gain efficiencies during the analysis, design and build phases of the ERP by:

•Usingpre-developedmaterialandre-usable deliverables based upon industry leading standards.

•Providingearlyaccessandvisibilityto the system and materials so the client could preview the solution.

US Footwear Company: Innovative SAP ERP Solution for Apparel and Footwear

•Utilizinganacceleratedapproachwith focused efforts on the client’s distinctive processes, helping the acceleration of the Design and Build phases.

•Establishingastartingpointusingcommon industry configurations.

Additionally, to further accelerate the project completion, Accenture utilized its Global Delivery Center in Bangalore, India to perform approximately 50 percent of the work. Once the implementation is complete, Accenture will train the new system’s users to use SAP and transition the knowledge to allow them to use and support the new system and thus reap its benefits

Results Once fully in place, the new ERP platform will strengthen and evolve the company’s operations by giving it complete control over its supply chain (including supply planning, financial operations and inventory). The company will have real-time and reliable visibility into product cost, upcharges and variances at the component level, which will be essential to analyzing costs and identifying new opportunities for savings and growth. The platform’s standardized and automated business processes will drive opportunities to further reduce costs and also redeploy employee focus to strategic priorities. Furthermore, the new platform will improve data reporting with both speed and quality to enable better business decision-making. A well-designed technology platform in conjunction with excellent data will allow the company to leverage integrated global information that will help business-driven actions, including improvements in accounts receivable, reduced accounts payables and more efficient inventory utilization. Additionally, the platform will establish the base for near term expansion goals into additional technology projects such as advanced supply chain planning and omni-channel eCommerce. As a result of these gains, the company will be more efficient and profitable when entering new markets and benefit from a lower total cost of ownership in maintaining its new global ERP platform.

About Accenture Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 323,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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