“DataSelf BI has helped us save around $250,000 in discounts on over-stocked inventory. That alone has made the small investment in this enterprise-class software a miracle.” Read more…
Kevin Cunningham, IT Director at Scorpion Sports, Inc.
Scorpion Sports, Inc. is a leading designer and manufacturer of motorcycle helmet and protective gear. The company tracks an array of product attributes, such as model, style, color, and size — all driven by season, fashion and function.
Challenge
Scorpion Sports faced a common challenge among fast growing businesses: the make-or-break ability to connect the moving dots. Access to timely and accurate product sales, inventory on hand and inventory procurement are essential for making up-to-the minute decisions.
Just one stray “dot” could mean huge losses from overstocks and shortages.
Inventory procurement was a nightmare, with delivery from Asian suppliers requiring a three-month lead time. Inevitably, managers sometimes guessed incorrectly and later took delivery of the wrong product mix at the wrong time.
Reports were either not available or took a long time to generate. Many reports took 10 to 20 hours per week — and only one staff member had been trained for the task. Worse, a few reports could only run overnight to avoid dragging down Scorpion’s transaction system.
Even when managers had up-to-date reports, each report covered just one aspect of the operation, making it difficult for managers to grasp operations at a glance.
Solution
Recommended by Sage business partner Blytheco, LLC, DataSelf BI was deployed on time and on budget — an unusual feat in the software industry.
For the first time, users were able to easily report on data from sales, inventory and procurement requirements combined.
The integration of user-defined fields (UDFs) provided finer granularity to track color, size and style. One manager said, “UDFs opened a door we had only dreamed of.”
DataSelf provided efficient, timely and accurate forecasting. Sales analysis was a snap. Producing reports, which once took half of one person’s work week, now took just a few minutes. Drill-down and timely reports let managers monitor trends and inventory.
DataSelf BI allowed reports to run as needed instead of waiting overnight.
Benefits
Faster than eating a donut? Scorpion staff found that building reports was actually faster than eating a cookie. “The smile on people’s faces is amazing.”
Now it’s easy to connect the dots. The Scorpion sales team sees at a glance which products are gaining sales and which are losing — all the way down to color, size, and style. Such detailed and up-to-the-minute data lets them sell smarter.
The Scorpion sales team already boosted revenue by 10%. They now know what to promote and when to promote it for the greatest profit. “DataSelf BI has helped us save around $250,000 in discounts on over-stocked inventory. That alone has made the small investment in this enterprise-class software a miracle,” said Kevin Cunningham, IT director.
The sales team was also able to save declining accounts. With one of DataSelf BI’s 2000-plus predefined reports, salespeople spotted once-active customers whose orders had trailed off and reversed their decline.
The three-month lead time remains for orders to Asia, but fast reporting has eliminated the nightmare, now that managers track inbound and outbound items with confidence.
Reports can run anytime, freeing IT from the task. Report production has gone from 10 to 20 hours a week to just a few minutes.
The only thing IT hears from the sales team now is, “Why didn’t we get this software sooner?”
