Success Story - Scarpa Schuhe

Fits Scarpa like a glove: Sales analysis with Qlik Sense

„Delivering information has become much more efficient and comprehensive with Qlik Sense. In addition, a uniform database is available, we are all talking about the same numbers and have the same basis for discussion.“

Jonas Gerhäusser, Sales Manager, Scarpa Schuhe AG

About the customer

The Italian family firm Scarpa has been producing comfortable and sturdy shoes for use in rugged conditions since 1938. Scarpa specialises in hiking and trekking, mountain sports, climbing and skiing. Headquartered in Riehen, Switzerland, the 20-strong Scarpa Schuhe AG team is responsible for sales, marketing and customer relationship management in the German market and the Benelux countries.

Solution overview

Sector: Manufacturing
Departments: Management, Sales and Distribution
Region: Riehen, Switzerland
Source systems: Texdata Diamod (industry ERP solution)
Implemented technology: Qlik Sense
Project duration: 6 weeks from the development of the data model to the implementation of the first applications

Initial situation

The Scarpa AG sales team looks after over 480 dealers in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. In order to increase transparency in its cooperation with trading partners, the shoe manufacturer wanted to make better use of the information potential of the data from the Texdata Diamod industry ERP system. "Its native analysis features offered only statical evaluations, and we lacked the complete overview of precisely what data we actually had in our statistics," explains Jonas Gerhäusser, Sales Manager, Scarpa Schuhe AG.

The aim was to provide key figures such as sales revenues and volumes in various dimensions (shoe model, size, colour, material, sales representative, dealer, region, over time, etc.) in order to optimise order planning, manage sales representatives and provide them with customer information. .

Qlik Sense

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Solution

The requirements for an analysis and reporting software included a high degree of user-friendliness both in application development and in use, as well as mobile usability and flexibility in terms of the data sources and analyses to be integrated.

The self-service data analysis solution Qlik Sense was the perfect fit. Gerhäusser was impressed with the wide variety of functions and yet the simplicity of the software: "We have employees of all ages and with different IT affinities. This means that if I want all the colleagues to work with data, the solution in the foreground must be as simple and clear as possible, but flexible and powerful in the background. That's exactly what Qlik Sense can do."

The implementation partner Informatec, a Swiss IT service provider focussed on consultation and implementation of comprehensive BI solutions, was also the right fit. "We work with a lot of IT service providers. However, the professionalism of Informatec was exceptional. They very quickly understood and implemented what we wanted. And their people are also a good fit."

The Qlik Elite Solution Provider built the data model together with Gerhäusser within six weeks, integrated the ERP system and developed the first application. "I found the project duration very quick," says the Sales Manager. "I'm not an IT expert, and I took part in the project almost as a sideline. Even so, after just a few weeks I was able to make applications available for my colleagues to use."

Application areas and usage

Development has always been closely oriented to the needs and expectations of employees. A main concern of Gerhäusser was to ensure that the solution would be used by as many employees as possible.

Everything went according to plan: "Qlik Sense has been very well received among colleagues. They often to look into the data to prepare for customer appointments, and above all enjoy doing so. This increases data competence and data-driven decisions become more natural."

Around 20 dashboards are available, through which the management and the sales force in the field can access information on various sales aspects to varying degrees of detail – from sales revenues and volumes from a bird's eye view to outstanding seasonal orders from trading partners up to their pre- or post-order quota.

An authorisation control ensures that sales representatives can call up exactly the customer information that is relevant to their area of responsibility.

Prior to using Qlik Sense, sales representatives were provided with sales and customer statistics in Excel or PDF format once a week. These documents were neither clear nor interactive. "Now they can quickly and flexibly retrieve up-to-date data on their customers according to their individual information needs and at any time," says Gerhäusser. "You can see at a glance which model categories and models your customer usually orders, how order behaviour has developed over the season or over years, and so on. And they can easily go deeper if more detailed information is needed."

A map view can also be used to locate customers and sales geographically. "In the past that would only have been possible for us with considerable effort." The sales and management teams are able to get an overview of the performance of the Scarpa sales team, down to the individual employee level.

For more precise shoe orders at the parent company in Italy, detailed information such as size splits of previous sales seasons is available. In addition, Gerhäusser uses Qlik Sense to fulfil its reporting obligations to the parent company. "I can easily adjust the statistics as and when I need them or Scarpa Italy asks for them. For example, we have different article numbers from those in Italy. We simply imported this information into the system and I can deliver numbers at the touch of a button. This dynamic is very valuable to me."

Data Literacy

Data-driven corporate culture needs data competence

The Data Literacy topic is multifaceted and companies still have little experience in dealing with the challenge of promoting it. Hence companies should seek professional advice to ensure they are using the right setup (structure, organisation and tools) and in order to create acceptance for the added value of Data Literacy.

Discover more about Data Literacy as a Factor for Success

Future

Further applications are being planned, for example for the ad hoc availability of inventories. In addition, it is planned to map the budget and destination management, sales planning and forecasting for the field service providers via a corresponding extension in Qlik Sense