Samsonite Optimizes Inventory Levels & Improves Reporting
COMPANY: Samsonite
WEBSITE: www.Samsonite.com
INDUSTRY: Consumer Products
PUBLIC: HKG:1910
JOHN GALT SOLUTION: Atlas Planning Suite
Results
- Reduced inventory levels while improving customer service levels
- Improved reporting and ease of access to granular data
- Automated planning process to minimize manual intervention and human error
Company
Headquartered in Luxembourg, Samsonite is the global leader in travel bags, luggage and accessories. Their products are sold in over 100 countries across the globe through a variety of wholesale distribution channels, company-operated retail stores and e-commerce. Samsonite owns and operates a range of sub-brands such as High Sierra, Speck, and Tumi.
Challenge
Like many organizations, Samsonite relied heavily on an Excel-based process for supply and demand planning prior to partnering with John Galt Solutions. In order for the planners to provide customers and management with accurate information, they were forced to dig through various spreadsheets and tabs to find it. On top of that, keeping track of spreadsheet revisions made it a challenge to confirm that the data was up to date.
Sales forecasts, pricing and inventory levels were not readily available making it tedious and time-consuming to manage the global supply chain efficiently. The manual processes also made it difficult to collaborate internally, and uploading the latest data to the ERP system and other business systems was arduous.
One of the most pressing challenges facing Samsonite was inventory optimization. The company dealt with frequent stock-outs on high value SKUs and often found themselves with excess stock of under-performing SKUs. The result was lost revenue and excess capital tied up in inventory.
Solution
The Atlas Planning Platform was implemented to address inventory and planning challenges. The implementation took a phased approach to ensure the most critical issues were addressed quickly. The demand management engine was implemented first, giving Samsonite visibility to customer demand and increasing forecast accuracy. After addressing inventory optimization issues, and therefore eliminating Samsonite’s major threats to profitability, the focus shifted to building a sustainable planning process centered around business goals and overall supply chain performance.
Benefit
Samsonite automated the majority of the time-consuming and manual planning tasks, allowing planners to focus their attention on value-adding activities. The added structure allowed the company to segment their products and manage forecasts by exception when needed, while allowing Atlas to apply statistical forecasts for other products.
Using Atlas, Samsonite is now carrying the right amount of inventory to meet their customer service goals without tying up excessive capital in inventory, which in turn improved customer satisfaction and retention.
Atlas also allowed for easy integration with other business processes. The new demand plan automatically syncs with the ERP-system and sales portal to provide real-time visibility to business performance. Samsonite now has the ability to run and provide reports for the executive team as needed, paving the road for a strong S&OP process into the future.
“I would recommend John Galt Solutions to others because of the personal commitment of the John Galt team and their focus on what we need.”
Patrick Dochety, Samsonite
