Sportswear manufacturer turns to advanced reporting tools to aid global expansion

Sportswear manufacturer Umbro has implemented new business intelligence (BI) software to support future international growth and expand its product range.

The football-related brand needed greater business insight to further its expansion plans, but its previous system did not provide interactive information or analysis.

The firm lhas introduced aunched a single standard BI tool across the UK, US and Hong Kong that provides performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis, and enterprise information management on one platform.

‘Umbro has aggressive plans to grow the business in specific global markets, especially the US,’ said project manager Sarah Dodd. ‘Furthermore, while football has always been the core of our brand, new collaborations will underpin product diversification.

‘We decided to use Business Objects software to deliver a single, self-service source of information for the entire global organisation.’

Umbro wanted improved access and analysis of data stored in its data warehouse, which holds information on product sales that could provide insight into trends in collections, sample and bulk orders.

The firm also wanted to improve monitoring of its external supply chain via its international ecommerce site, including its network of 47 global licensees across 90 countries.

Umbro migrated the information from its existing software to Business Objects in just two weeks.

‘Exception reporting will provide early alerts of sales trends, which will be essential to monitor performance, especially in target growth markets,’ said Dodd.

Umbro has already gained significant benefits, including improved reporting to support prime sales opportunities such as the World Cup, up-to-date information, measurement of key performance indicators and analysis of delivery.