The athletic footwear company selects software that will give real-time inventory reports for better control over production, sales
Chicago — March 28, 2005 — PUMA North America Inc., a leading producer of athletic footwear, apparel and accessories, said it is using SPSS predictive analytics software to manage its inventory real-time across its domestic retail operations.
PUMA relies on more than 70 independent sales consultants to make important business decisions daily based on data regarding orders, shipments and product availability. PUMA's use of the ShowCase Suite from SPSS, a business intelligence and data mining solution for organizations using the IBM eServer iSeries (AS/400) computing platform, enables its sales consultants to create inventory reports in real-time to track retail sales and identify which products and sizes are selling.
The ShowCase reports also track individual store performance on an hourly, monthly or yearly basis and measure how stores compare with one another. If sales of a particular shoe model increase, PUMA can ramp up production of that shoe; likewise, it can shift inventory or close a store if performance is lagging.
"With SPSS, PUMA has completely replaced 80 percent of its [enterprise resource planning (ERP)] system reports, which were highly inflexible and required us to contact the vendor for simple template changes," said Karen King, a database analyst for PUMA North America. "Previously, it would take a day or more to create a report. Now, PUMA can obtain reports in less than an hour, and sometimes in as little as 10 to 20 minutes."
