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SAP Customer Success Story Retail TRADE UNION INTERNATIONAL MULTIDIVISION COMPANY ENHANCES OPERATIONS WITH SAP® BUSINESS ONE QUICK FACTS “SAP Business One has already made Company SAP® Solutions and Services • Name: Trade Union International Inc. SAP® Business One application us a better company. We’re excited • Headquarters: Montclair, California Implementation Highlights at how well we’re now positioned to • Industry: Retail • Products and services: Automotive • Staged rollout and use of implementation operate more efficiently and grow our supplies and parts, and licensed sports best practices • Company-wide use of new software business internationally.” merchandise • Revenue: US$100 million Why SAP Mei Lein Chang, Vice President and Cofounder, • Employees: Approximately 560 • Support for core business processes Trade Union International Inc. • Web site: www.tradeunion.com • User-friendly interface • Implementation partner: Vision33 Inc. • Proven software • Software solution partners: Accellos Inc. and Valogix LLC Benefits • 50% improvement in inventory accuracy Challenges and Opportunities • 70% reduction in planning cycles • Strengthen operations by enabling all • 20% reduction in inventory areas of the business to share information • 60% reduction in order fulfillment time more easily • 90% reduction in shipping errors • Increase operational efficiency by replacing • High cycle count accuracy (over 95%) outdated and unreliable software • Savings of thousands of dollars per year • Enhance profitability by gaining control on physical inventory over inventory • Access to accurate and up-to-date Objectives information across the company for • Implement comprehensive enterprise informed decision making resource planning (ERP) software to • Higher customer satisfaction through standardize business processes and accurate, on-time order fulfillment consolidate information Existing Environment • Establish a scalable and flexible IT Legacy ERP software foundation to support international business and future business expansion • Simplify daily task management for employees Operating a fast-growing business is challenging enough. Now com- inventory or carry too much. Further- more, because the sales team was pound that by managing a second division offering a completely dif- accessing inaccurate stock counts and ferent product line. That’s the daily reality for Trade Union International incorrect anticipated delivery dates, it often overpromised amounts and delivery Inc., a company running one business that markets aftermarket auto dates to customers. “We either couldn’t and truck wheels and another – Duck House Products – that distrib- fulfill orders or were spending too much money on inventory,” says Bill Boiler, utes licensed sports merchandise. Unfortunately, its legacy enterprise warehouse manager at Trade Union. resource planning (ERP) solution wasn’t keeping up with the company’s Struggling with Data Issues needs as both divisions grew. “We had stretched our 20-year-old ERP software to its limits,” explains Mei Lein Chang, vice president Trade Union and Duck House were unable to capture all attributes related and cofounder of Trade Union International. to their product lines. Without clear product descriptions and a centralized view into bin locations, warehouse To ensure the highest levels of customer Lack of Integration Stymies workers wandered the aisles, traveling satisfaction and expand business, Trade Growth from bin to bin to fulfill orders from Union and Duck House need to fulfill paper tickets. “We spent an inordinate orders as quickly as possible and with- While Trade Union and Duck House had amount of time manually consolidating out fail. This requires both divisions to managed to run their businesses on data about our inventory and fulfilling optimize key processes across sales, legacy ERP software for years, operations orders,” says Boiler. procurement, financials, and warehouse and processes were less than optimal. management. The key to achieving this The disconnects between the front office Because the legacy ERP software could objective was to replace outdated ERP and the warehouse led to a reliance on not calculate data in real time, employ- software with the SAP® Business One inaccurate, outdated information, which ees were forced to post all transactions application, along with Accellos One caused a ripple effect throughout the manually at day’s end. If a problem Warehouse, a multimodule warehouse business. “Our company was extremely occurred with the software while sales management solution that integrates compartmentalized, largely due to soft- orders and invoices were being recorded with SAP Business One. ware inadequacies,” explains Gary Chang, in the general ledger, everyone would marketing manager at Trade Union. have to exit the system. “We wasted so Founded in 1981, Trade Union finished much time entering the data – and wait- 2008 with US$100 million in annual rev- The software’s limitations hindered ing for system resets,” explains Gary enue. The company maintains a manu- efforts to satisfy customer requirements. Chang. facturing facility near Shanghai, China, The company struggled to derive an and a 100,000-square-foot warehouse accurate sense of product on hand at To compound matters, the legacy soft- in California. Trade Union distributes any given time, as it was unable to make ware’s built-in report functionality was the products of its two divisions domes- provisions for safety stock, calculate fill difficult to use. Plus, it was impossible tically and internationally and employs rates, or determine consumption history. to export data from the software into nearly 560 people across its operations. As a result, it would either run out of a spreadsheet for reporting purposes. “SAP Business One enables us to run our business 20% more efficiently, which ultimately leads to greater profitability.” Bill Boiler, Warehouse Manager, Trade Union International Inc. As a result, Trade Union was continually supported by an implementation partner Improving Business Through hiring consultants to develop special with expertise in our industry,” explains Tighter Operations reports, an expensive proposition that Mei Lein Chang. frequently left the company waiting for With fully integrated business process critical insights. Trade Union selected Vision33 Inc., an and warehouse management software SAP channel partner and reseller of SAP in place, Trade Union’s operations While Trade Union had managed to cus- Business One based in Irvine, California, have improved dramatically. Integration tomize its legacy ERP software over the as its enterprise software partner. between the warehouse and the rest of years to fit its needs, the company finally Vision33 in turn recommended that the the business improves accuracy, insight, stretched the software beyond its limits. company evaluate Accellos One Ware- and planning. “All our customization eventually desta- house for its warehouse management bilized the software, leading to frequent system. Trade Union looked at and con- The company has been able to stan- crashes. We needed to find a solution sidered several warehouse management dardize processes across both divisions that could reliably support our core pro- platforms but chose the Accellos solution due to the range of functionality in SAP cesses if we wanted to continue growing based on the strength of its integration Business One. Now any employee from the business,” explains Gary Chang. with SAP Business One. either division can enter a sales or pur- chase order or even pull an order – for Finding a Solid Foundation for an To minimize disruptions across the com- either Trade Union or Duck House. “SAP Evolving Business pany, Trade Union chose to roll out the Business One has empowered our em- new software in stages. Working with ployees to handle more processes and Trade Union started looking for ERP Vision33, it started the implementation tasks, an important capability in a small software that could support its core with Duck House, the smaller of the two company,” explains Gary Chang. processes and international operations, divisions. Within two months of going enable standardized processes across live with Duck House, Vision33 and All information entered into the applica- tion appears in real time, enabling every- one company-wide to view sales orders, “SAP Business One has empowered our employees to handle more processes inventory, and other critical data as need- and tasks, an important capability in a small company.” ed. Whereas managers had to manually create reports in the past, they can now Gary Chang, Marketing Manager, Trade Union International Inc. easily generate standard reports and export data to a spreadsheet. With a clear view into inventory on hand and multiple divisions, and offer a user- Trade Union rolled out the software on order, the sales team can be certain friendly interface. Ultimately, it chose across Trade Union. “The second imple- of satisfying – and warehouse workers SAP Business One. “We knew of the mentation went relatively smoothly can easily fulfill – customer orders. In SAP brand and its reputation. The soft- because we involved all our employees fact, the company has reduced order ware met all our needs. Besides, it from the outset and were able to apply fulfillment time by 60% and shipping was clear that implementation would best practices learned during the first errors by 90%. As a result, customer be harder with the other software solu- stage,” explains Gary Chang.

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