Profit Magazine - August 2011

Minding the Shop Floor

In 2009, Skechers was the first Oracle customer to implement Oracle’s PeopleSoft Real Estate Management, a solution that integrates with Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise financial management and supply chain management applications to ensure that leases are managed according to terms. The software captures cost and space utilization data to support management and enforces compliance with companywide financial processes and controls.

Skechers rolled out the solution for its 291 stores in the U.S. and abroad. The company worked closely with the Oracle product team to provide development insight.

Previously Skechers management relied on a standalone client/ server–based application that was not scalable. As a result, rent payments to landlords had to be manually drawn.

Payments were difficult to track and were often either missed or sent twice. Reporting for the retail construction department was laborious and took weeks.

After implementing PeopleSoft’s Real Estate Management tool, Skechers executives were able to see data that had been integrated with other financial applications in the company.

“It was extremely crucial to work
with the Oracle product team during the
implementation of the real estate mod-
ule because there was no reference or
standard process to follow,” says Mainak
Sarkar, director of financial systems at
Skechers. “We were the first customer,
and we had to establish the base.”
Sarkar says Skechers can now pro-
cess rents for more than 250 stores
in less than an hour, and can regularly
generate store reports that include data
from multiple sources such as general
ledger, real estate, accounts payable,
and asset management applications.
Previously, such a report could be gen-
erated only once a year.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, the licensing department has been motivated to seek out more business.

“Our licensing department has gone from the Stone Age to
the modern age by using Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise
Edition as its tool to determine how well our licensee fees are
doing,” says Weinberg. “The dashboard is so helpful that they’re
excited to sign up more licensees, because now we have visibil-
ity into the business.”
Skechers also implemented Oracle’s regulatory compli-
ance auditing tool, Oracle governance, risk, and compliance
(GRC) applications. These solutions, implemented in just three
months, have already helped Skechers in managing its internal
audit across all of its domestic and international business units,
including joint ventures.

“Oracle’s GRC applications allow us to implement a standard set of business policies and controls across the global enterprise. The solution also gives us the ability to identify any issues and opportunities to improve our operations,” says Ashwat Panchal, director of internal audit at Skechers. GRC applications are also integrated with Skechers’ other Oracle solutions, resulting in streamlined data that can flow through the different applications.

THE NEXT STEPS

Skechers’ new IT footprint gives business leadership full trans-
parency into the fast-paced operations that the company’s
growth is demanding. Skechers management is looking forward
to creating new Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
dashboards that can crunch more numbers in the business. The
company also plans to roll out PeopleSoft functionality, includ-
ing accounts receivable, billing, and inventory solutions, to all
18 countries.