Case Study

Global Sports Brand Modernizes with SAP S/4HANA® Fashion

Headquartered in Switzerland, this company is a global leader in the sports industry and is renowned for its cutting-edge products in cycling, winter sports, running, and motorsports. Continuing to push the limits of innovation, the company realized enhancing customer centricity was key to meet the new demands of its consumers, but they lacked the right technological foundation to support this shift.

Key Objectives

Support digital
transformation aspirations​

Gain operational
excellence

Enhance customer
centricity

The Challenges

This company has always taken pride in its speed and efficiency. However, as the company grew, they recognized new opportunities to enhance efficiency –  particularly within an outdated legacy system used across their global operations. Transitioning to SAP S/4HANA would enable them to address inconsistencies in stock management, customer service, and core processes.

Adding another patchwork solution wasn’t the answer – this effort required an end-to-end transformation. To do that, they had to rethink everything from the technology they relied on to how they operated across borders.

  • Outdated and Fragmented Processes: The company’s processes, designed years ago to accommodate the legacy system, were outdated and inefficient.
  • Poor Omnichannel Capabilities: With outdated processes operating in different parts of the world, inventory levels weren’t visible to omnichannel processes.
  • Lack of Harmonization: Bespoke process variations across geographies and business channels prevented the company from creating a customer-centric enterprise.

Overall Strategy of the SAP S/4HANA Fashion Project

To become more agile and more responsive to its customers, the company decided to implement SAP S/4HANA for Fashion as the foundation for their core processes. SAP S/4HANA is a future-ready platform able to provide real-time data, enable end-to-end processes, and serve as the backbone of their business.

The project covered business processes across key areas including Omnichannel, Wholesale, Master Data, Finance, Order To Cash, Procure To Pay, and Warehouse Integration.

Boot Camp

To educate key stakeholders on SAP S/4HANA capabilities, Rizing conducted a series of workshops with the goals of fostering a deeper understanding of how the new system could drive business transformation and facilitating early acceptance of the new solution.

Target Operating Model

The company lacked a clear vision for their future operations, especially when transitioning to new systems like SAP. We helped develop a “target operating model” that leveraged SAP’s capabilities for business transformation, rather than simply digitizing existing workflows.

Global Template

Rizing built a unified global template to ensure harmonization across the company’s global operations. This simplified operations across regions and allowed rapid expansion into new markets and business models. We built the global template using our proven accelerator, using a ‘why not’ approach.

Highlights of the SAP S/4HANA Fashion Solution

End to End Implementation

  • SAP S/4HANA for Fashion Go-live planned for 2025 across retail and wholesale operations with e-commerce integration (with SAP C/4HANA).
  • The implementation spans across three continents and all time zones.
  • The implementation covers GTS (Global Trade Solution) and EWM (distributed Warehouse).

Global Template

  • Developed a global template using Rizing’s practice-proven SAP S/4HANA Fashion Accelerator

Benefits of SAP S/4HANA Fashion

Standardized Processes

This project consolidated multiple processes into a single global template, improving efficiency and reducing complexity across local and global operations.

Expansion to Different Markets

By using a global SAP S/4HANA template, the company can now expand into new markets and adopt new business models more efficiently.

Enhanced Analytics for Deeper Insights

With SAP S/4HANA’s powerful analytics, the company had access to real-time insights of key business operations. This data provides a deeper understanding into trends, customer behavior, and operational performance.

Omnichannel Business Processes

With real-time data visibility and improved omnichannel capabilities, the company is now capable of making fast and accurate decisions. This helps the company be more responsive with smarter and more agile operations.

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