Background

The client grew through acquisition leaving each brand to use their legacy systems. The only combined system was for corporate financial reporting, in most cases having to manually load financial data from the brand systems. The goal of the project was to deliver a shared services model, getting all brands on the same systems with similar processes.

Approach

The first step was to document current state, what systems are involved for each brand and how do they interact. From there we identified a path forward for what could be re-used and what would need to be purchased. Identifying all of the puzzle pieces and how they would fit together.

How the data fits together was also a key piece, some of the brands sold the same part though they have their own SKU associated to it. Between the shared services model and wanting to move some processes such as purchasing to the corporate level, the data has to track across brands.

Challenges

The biggest challenges were resistance to change and right sizing the scope. Each brand wanted to keep their processes down to how they audit and pack product in the warehouse differently from each other. Further defining whether a new corporate wide tax solution was part of the scope or not and where customer service fell was a challenge, trying to manage the budget while also providing a unified architecture to all brands.

Outcomes & Actions

Summit led the RFP process for an ERP, OMS, and WMS along with selection of SIs for the implementation of each product. We also helped further scope the project providing a road map for the customer to follow along with providing project governance.