IIS GIVES A GLOBAL BEAUTY ANDFASHION COMPANY AN IT MAKE-OVER

CASE STUDY:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

IIS is a long-time trusted resource to one of the world’s most successful beauty and fashion companies, one built on the introduction of a single innovative product 60 years ago. From that modest beginning, their flagship company has grown into a worldwide enterprise with $7 billion in revenues.

After launching more than a dozen successful brands in-house, our client went public in the ‘90s and began an aggressive acquisition initiative that has created a truly global beauty and fashion conglomerate with 25 companies operating in 130 countries. IIS exclusively partnered with HP, from the time it was brought into the company to run its first project in 1999 and has continued to architect systems and solutions to accommodate our client’s phenomenal growth. Today, the company owns cosmetic and hair care products companies, luxury salons and spas as well as designer labels geared to both men and women. They have also successfully leveraged the popularity of select celebrities in licensed fragrance and clothing brands.

While these strategic acquisitions complemented the core companies, they came with legacy IT systems that may have been effective within the limits of their own operations, but, performed as an inefficient patchwork of systems overall. Financial oversight was limited by an arduous numbers game as the company grew and became increasingly difficult to share and consolidate information. In a company where it is critical to understand what it costs to manufacture, ship and sell product, sophisticated data has to move around the world in real time. Data collection was a slow process and the data often lacked critical intelligence or proved redundant.

IIS GIVES A GLOBAL BEAUTY AND FASHION COMPANY AN IT MAKE-OVER

WE ARE KNOWN FOR

OUR STRONG PLANNING

SKILLS TO PROVIDE A

SCALABLE SOLUTION

FOR YOUR LONG-TERM

NEEDS.

Further, there was no provisioning in this older software to leverage modern technologies. A process manufacturer would normally rely on advances such as radio frequency identification to manage the inventory and assets of the various business units, from tracking millions of barrels of chemicals to identifying the position of thousands of desktop computers scattered throughout the world. All manner of advanced functionality could not be utilized with the out-dated legacy systems.

The challenge of creating a truly modern global enterprise

Our client had evolved from a company doing business internationally to a truly global corporation with significant international growth. As such, it needed true enterprise management planning that allowed two-dozen business divisions to share the most efficient and effective. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to support their individual business needs while offering senior corporate finance officers a consolidated consistent “single global instance” of the position of the entire company at any given time.

The board committed to a Strategic Modernization Initiative (SMI) to create a worldwide application set for all business operations across the various brands. The SMI mandate was to review and choose best practices to maximize performance, profitability and improve financial oversight, auditing and reporting.

Included Were:

-Procurement procedures

-Accounting systems

-Inventory management

-Manufacturing and supply chain management

-Customer relationship management

It was not an opportunity to systematize global operations but to improve business processes and create a truly modern and agile organization with the tools to compete in competitive marketplaces in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

FROM THE DRAWING BOARD

IIS is the perfect partner for a complex strategic modernization initiative because its project participants offer more than a deep understanding of the necessary software and hardware solutions. They know their clients’ business processes and culture because IIS is continually investing in understanding the bigger picture of current business problems, future challenges, the growth opportunities and what these mean in terms of the actual workflows of system users and training requirements. IIS understands not only the need for effective change management in a company’s evolution and survival, but also how to transition an organization to a new system environment with minimal disruption.

“In IIS there is an intense focus on really achieving customer’s objectives that is rarely seen in this industry.”

In 2002, IIS and its partner HP began the process of helping the client select the software application suite appropriate to the mission. While, also, analyzing which product workflows would be the most familiar to existing users, so that the massive organizational changes leveraged as much of their current investment and experience as possible. This two-year phase involved significant application and business process review as well as consideration of organizational alignments and funding issues. Both Oracle and SAP were thoroughly evaluated on both HP hardware and that of competitors.

DEEP AND EFFECTIVE PARTNERSHIP TO AFFECT CHANGE MANAGEMENT ON A GLOBAL BASIS

“IN IIS THERE IS AN

INTENSE FOCUS ON

REALLY ACHIEVING

CUSTOMER’S

OBJECTIVES THAT IS

RARELY SEEN IN THIS

INDUSTRY.”

10 WAYS TO MAKE YOUR DATACENTER MORE EFFICIENT 10 WAYS TO MAKE YOURIn this assessment phase, IIS played a key role by looking at every

conceivable scenario of corporate growth for its client over the next decade for trending and capacity planning. Hundreds of man hours were invested as IIS meticulously looked at the variables of the current and future state, what markets might be entered over the next decade and the growth projections of those markets. They received accolades for their detailed projections and support documents, and also for their ability to create cogent executive summaries of the key differentials. In order to give the client a crisp view of how the various scenarios would affect the software and the hardware specifications and budgeting over the next decade.

“IIS is amazingly agile, with an ability to figure it out, no matter how big or small the challenge.”

The goal was to maximize the new system over ten years, knowing that period covered at least two generations of technology advances. IIS had a responsibility to the board of directors to finalize a budget for their approval that was both accurate and responsible over a long horizon. Any percentage variance in a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars is significant so maximum flexibility in the system architecture was critical going forward given that no company can accurately predict its future opportunities.

A RESPONSIVE AND CLOSE RELATIONSHIP

“IIS IS AMAZINGLY

AGILE, WITH AN

ABILITY TO FIGURE

IT OUT, NO MATTER

HOW BIG OR SMALL

THE CHALLENGE.”

Ultimately a decision was reached in the fall of 2004 and the SAP software application suite was chosen by the SMI’s various stakeholders throughout the business divisions. The hardware went through an equally rigorous review process with extensive testing of capacity and scalability and HP was formally chosen in the fall of 2005. IIS architected a full system based on HP’s Unix-based Integrity Superdomes, along with smaller rx8640 servers that allow enterprise application integrations to connect legacy software applications to the SAP applications. The system also made extensive use of HP xp 12,000 storage arrays to facilitate the transfer of data processing results between applications for additional processing.

Not unusually, the client’s ability to begin the actual deployment went past the original start date, but the deadline stayed firm. IIS earned its reputation for agility, working virtually 24 hours a day to deliver and install the system architecture in two main sites near Boston and Phoenix while customizing software throughout. The systems were integrated, thoroughly tested and benchmarked, certified and documented in only 40 days, less than half the time provided in the original schedule. What truly differentiates IIS from other resellers is its ability to achieve results in a very short period of time without sacrificing any of the key deliverables, over and over again.

Initiating the deployment schedule across three continents

IIS helped identify a representative business unit for initial system deployment in the spring of 2007 as the optimum indicator of how this system would be rolled out and integrated into the rest of the company. In its combination of production and manufacturing processes and high degree of consumer interaction at retail and online, it had the most common attributes in terms of business needs. Further the software modules could remain very consistent across workflow and processes internationally where systems users entered, fulfilled and delivered orders consistently in different countries.

Working closely with the client, IIS developed the current deployment schedule through 2010 based on groupings of business brands in some phases and different functional groups in others. Development for the next rollout of 2,500 users involves IIS’s same high levels of integration testing followed by extensive functional testing to ensure that each deployment is as successful as the previous one.

GUARANTEEING THE RIGHT SOLUTION OFFER MAXIMUM CAPACITY AND PERFORMANCE

The result is a complete IT make-over for a global conglomerate that IIS and its partner HP guarantee contractually will be fully deployed on budget and on time. As the company grows through domestic and international acquisitions, each new business division will be rolled into the system with an ongoing ability for management to see a single global instance of the entire organization, something previously impossible in a network of legacy systems.

The first division to go on-line represents the first 500 out of a projected 10,000 users. The experience has been so successful that new divisions are lobbying to be moved up in the schedule and our client is considering escalating the schedule from its projected four years based on the results of the initial deployment. Regardless of the schedule, IIS will be there when the last user in the last business unit goes online.

1. For corporate governance, risk management and financial decision-making

it was arduous to reach an overview in an organization internally lacking a

true single-view accounting system. Now a snapshot of the company’s global

position can be accessed in close-to-real time allowing better financial planning

and more responsive decision-making.

2. It was previously impossible to report timely financial results. As a public

company, our client can now improve its Wall Street relationships with everyone

from industry analysts to investment banks to investors to the SEC.

3. Beyond the coordinated components of the ERP program, IIS is helping our

client benefit from technical innovation by sharing intellectual property that

saves investment in research and development, engineering and deployment

costs. For example, working with the facial recognition programs HP sells to

government agencies such as the National Security Association (NSA) and the

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), we have provided our client with new tools

to develop strong, personal relationships with their customers, such as offering

an innovative personal cosmetic assistant in the form of a Personal Digital

Assistant (PDA) that wirelessly sends new color palettes and product updates

based on the customer’s buying patterns and allows product testing online.

IIS differentiates itself not only through exceptional project management but in

presenting new and exciting ideas to help their overall business by creating a

one-to-one relationship with their end consumers. “It is all about responsiveness, IIS is always there for you.”

4. Finally, the successful execution of the SMI with the right partners means that

our system architecture will significantly scale to support our client’s business

growth and profitability in an environment readily embraces technical innovation.

“IN IIS WE WORK WITH

A PARTNER WHO IS

THERE FOR US IN

THE LONG HAUL AND

WATCHING OUR BACK

THE ENTIRE TIME.”

SUCCESSFUL CHANGE MANAGEMENT THROUGH THE RIGHT PARTNERS AND THE RIGHT SOLUTIONS