Software AG > Case Studies > Building the New Era of Luxury Retail with IT Portfolio Management in the Cloud

Building the New Era of Luxury Retail with IT Portfolio Management in the Cloud

Software AG Logo
Customer Company Size
Large Corporate
Region
  • America
Country
  • United States
Product
  • Alfabet
  • Microsoft Access
  • Visio
  • PowerPoint
  • SAP Fashion Management solution
Tech Stack
  • Cloud Computing
  • Enterprise Architecture
  • IT Planning and Portfolio Management
Implementation Scale
  • Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
  • Cost Savings
  • Productivity Improvements
  • Digital Expertise
Technology Category
  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
  • Retail
  • Consumer Goods
Applicable Functions
  • Business Operation
  • Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
  • Inventory Management
  • Supply Chain Visibility
  • Retail Store Automation
Services
  • Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
  • Software Design & Engineering Services
  • System Integration
About The Customer
The customer is a multinational luxury fashion company that started from humble beginnings. It was founded by six leatherworkers in a New York City loft in 1941. Over the years, the company has grown into an international powerhouse through several major acquisitions worth more than $3 billion. The company has seen sales thrive for its high-end fashion products, attaining billions in global sales revenue. The company has grown rapidly and faced major acquisitions, global competition, and growing cost pressure. The company's IT leadership team wanted the Information Systems (IS) teams to have visibility into their portfolios to develop project plans and future IT strategies to support the company's ambitious business transformation goals.
The Challenge
The multinational luxury fashion company, which started from humble beginnings, has grown into an international powerhouse through several major acquisitions worth more than $3 billion. These acquisitions posed a risky prospect in the luxury fashion business, where competition is fierce. The company's IT leadership team wanted the Information Systems (IS) teams to have visibility into their portfolios to develop project plans and future IT strategies to support the company's ambitious business transformation goals. The existing process involved manual updates to a Microsoft® Access® database, visualization in the Visio® modeling tool, and PowerPoint® for presentations. This process was updated twice a year, which was not sufficient for the rapid decision-making required in the company's dynamic environment. The company needed a centralized platform for IS and Enterprise Architecture (EA) to collaboratively collect the information necessary for planning IT support for business goals and strategies.
The Solution
In 2014, the luxury fashion group turned to Alfabet, the only comprehensive solution in the industry for managing IT planning and enterprise architecture. With acquisitions on the horizon, the company asked for help from Software AG Global Consulting Services to achieve faster gain with less pain and harness Alfabet as an agile, cloud-based platform for all that would follow. Alfabet outperformed other solutions in a series of pilot programs and was chosen for its product functionality, scalability, and true cloud solution. Alfabet is now the company’s gateway to next-generation planning, system transparency, omni-channel consumer experience, and supply chain optimizations. Alfabet is also at the heart of the luxury fashion group’s initiative to save $100 million in IT costs in just three years.
Operational Impact
  • The company was able to surmount accessibility and scalability hurdles, improve collaboration across brands, and achieve better transparency, foresight, and agility in planning IT expenditures.
  • The company now has strategic alignment between business and IT and a delivery structure to ensure appropriate cost measures and processes.
  • The company has a reliable, secure, and scalable operating environment.
  • The company is ready for broad-reaching future initiatives and has extended its license through at least 2020.
Quantitative Benefit
  • The company plans to save $100 million in IT costs in just three years.
  • The company is planning for a roll out of a single-company SAP implementation across its various brands in just 18 months, the fastest ever for an SAP Fashion Management solution.

Case Study missing?

Start adding your own!

Register with your work email and create a new case study profile for your business.

Add New Record

Related Case Studies.

Contact us

Let's talk!
* Required
* Required
* Required
* Invalid email address
By submitting this form, you agree that IoT ONE may contact you with insights and marketing messaging.
No thanks, I don't want to receive any marketing emails from IoT ONE.
Submit

Thank you for your message!
We will contact you soon.