Founded in 1973 in the Southern California beach community of Santa Barbara as a manufacturer of durable, slip-resistant sandals for surfers, Deckers Outdoor Corp. today designs and markets a full line of footwear for outdoor activities and everyday casual lifestyle use. Among its popular and well-known brands are UGG® Australia boots, Teva® sandals, Simple® eco-friendly shoes, TSUBO® sport and casual footwear and Deckers® brand flip flops.
Now firmly positioned as a global category leader of high performance footwear, Deckers is driven to offer consumers the industry's most innovative, functional and fashion-oriented sandals, shoes and boots. Central to the company mission is to serve its customer and retail partners with the highest quality products and most responsive service possible.
Based on requirements developed by Deckers IT Director Kurt Sowa, the IT team envisioned a customized web-based application called Deckers Almanac. Among the vendors requested to submit proposals was Visus LLC, an enterprise software development company that specializes in developing B2B and B2C e-commerce sites. Deckers' management team was already familiar with Visus' capabilities from prior consulting engagements and was impressed with their expertise in architecting and deploying enterprise-caliber, user-friendly web applications for intranets and the Internet.
"The Visus team is exceptional at developing and architecting intuitive user interfaces," says Kevin Gates, Manager of Deckers' applications development team. "I really wanted a UI that was well laid out and easy to use so that our customers can pick it up and run with it without any training."
Deckers selected Visus over a larger public consulting firm because of their proficiency with the Microsoft .NET platform, solid backend database expertise and strong focus on building useful and intuitive user interfaces.
"We have an exceptionally effective process that involves spending a lot of time up front to fully understand the customer's vision and fully meet their expectations," says Michael Daoud, CEO of Visus LLC. "We're especially known for our ability to design a user interface from a user's point of view rather than a programmer's. The upfront analysis minimizes changes during development, which allows for a faster turnaround. The UI ensures that the application will be quickly accepted and used right after deployment."
Visus creates software applications that increase revenue, reduce operating costs, and boost efficiency. Much more than a team of programmers, they are also thorough thinkers and planners that analyze the entire landscape of a project to make sure no stone is left unturned.
"Upfront thinking and analysis requires experience and the know-how to ask the right questions," says Daoud. "Execution is easy and problems minimized when that has been done properly."
Gates concurs with this assessment. "Visus spent the time necessary to make sure they thoroughly understood our vision and requirements," he says. "We felt confident we would end up with a system that truly meets our users' needs."
Crucial to the success of the initiative was that the order entry system be easy for retailers to use and capable of offering up-to-the minute pricing and availability information for the thousands of SKUs that represent the enormous selection of styles, colors and sizes of the Deckers' lines.
"In our environment, our order entry requirements are somewhat unique," comments Mr. Gates. "Because we are a footwear company, our product line is in a matrix style supporting the reality that we offer several sizes for the same style of shoe. So we couldn't use an out-of-the-box order entry system because it just wouldn't fit our needs."
Previously, Deckers used an Oracle-based order entry system from Oracle E-Business Suite, in conjunction with Oracle Database 10g. However, Gates says the Oracle order entry system was cumbersome to use and incapable of handling Deckers' wide spectrum of products.
For example, although the Oracle ERP system could handle sales orders from larger accounts using the EDI protocol, sales representatives had to manually enter orders for smaller retailers.
The Visus team was charged with the task of developing a web-based tool that would give retailers an intuitive, easy to use dashboard to place orders directly into the Deckers MRP application.
"We wanted our retailers to have a familiar, e-commerce-type shopping experience," states Mr. Gates. "We also wanted to ensure that our internal brand management departments would have the ability to manage the items that are available, so that retailers could fill their shopping carts, select their preferred shipping methods at checkout and quickly submit their orders for approval."
After thoroughly discussing the parameters of the project with Deckers' management, Visus devised a detailed plan that laid out the functionality of a fully customized, web based B2B e-commerce system. In addition to the order entry capability, retailers would have access to reporting tools for checking order status and the ability to capture every aspect of their transactions including shipping, account overviews and the printing of invoices.
"This was more than just an order entry system; we needed an information management portal for the sales and marketing departments," Mr. Sowa says. "By also streaming news and information about regional and national promotions, Visus created a system that educates the customer and keeps them up-to-date about which new products are coming out and which footwear is being promoted in their area and nationally. Deckers Almanac also allows our sales personnel to communicate directly with their customers and review their orders."
In addition to building the new application, Visus created a level of integration between Deckers Almanac and other existing Oracle applications. Because the web application was running off of a stand-alone Oracle database, Visus created an interface to transfer data from the ERP system to populate the order entry system. The front end of Deckers Almanac was programmed using the Microsoft .NET platform. Invoice printing, order acknowledgements and other reports were developed with Data Dynamics' Active Reports.
"Visus did an exceptional job of keeping me informed," says Gates. "I felt like there was much more of a personal touch than with a bigger vendor, who you usually have to chase down for information."
With representatives dedicated to individual footwear brands and a specific geographic region, the Deckers sales force comprises some 75 personnel in the field, each servicing up to a hundred accounts or more.
"It was important to us that our sales reps remain involved during the customer order and approval process, so they don't lose control of their accounts," Gates adds. "Although Deckers Almanac enables our customers to interact with us on a self-serve basis, we still wanted to make sure that the retailers could interact with our reps on a personal level through Deckers Almanac."
Following an aggressive four-month timeline from approval to delivery, Deckers unveiled the new application in September 2007. To date, buyers at 900 stores are using Deckers Almanac. Approximately 3,000 retailers will use it once it is fully deployed.
Based on a preliminary analysis of account activity and a review of order processing metrics, Deckers management has determined that Deckers Almanac saves time for sales reps and allows them to pursue new accounts. It also greatly streamlines the placing of orders and has opened up a new conduit between the company, field personnel and their customers.
Feedback from the sales force has been very positive. "Deckers Almanac is a great resource and our customers really like it," says one salesperson. The system "closes the loop" on all transactions, ensuring a rapid and accurate ordering process.
For example, order-tracking information is available at any time, complete with a hyperlink to the parcel carrier from the Deckers Almanac page.
"This new system has made Deckers' collaboration with its customers more efficient," states Mr. Sowa. "It has also empowered our retailers with a platform that is available 24/7. This helps them to manage their orders more effectively and be more self-sufficient, which improves the overall experience for Deckers' customers."
"We gave them an aggressive timeline, and they really came through," Mr. Gates says. "They did whatever it took to complete the application on schedule. Performance and scalability have been excellent and the adoption rate has been significant."
In the month of December 2008 alone, the system processed more than 4,000 log-ins. "Visus created a workable system that is also extensible, so we've been able to add on and tailor it to our needs," adds Mr. Gates."
Deckers Outdoor Corporation strives to be a premier lifestyle marketer that builds niche brands into global market leaders by designing and marketing innovative, functional and fashion-oriented footwear developed for both high performance outdoor activities and everyday casual lifestyle use. UGG® Australia, Teva®, Simple® Shoes, TSUBO®, and Deckers® Brand are registered trademarks of Deckers Outdoor Corporation.
Visus LLC is a results-oriented enterprise software development company with a focus on web applications for B2B and B2C e-commerce platforms. With expertise in developing databases and productivity applications, Visus also creates web applications to manage information coupled with business intelligence and reporting. The firm specializes in creating elegant, scalable applications that provide great value to increase revenue or cost savings to its customers including the public sector. For more information, visit: visusllc.com
"The most valuable outcomes of Visus's service were their ability to deliver on time, obtain customer buy in and, most importantly, to provide me with peace of mind so that I did not have to worry about meeting our deadline." - Sally Nagy, CIO, County of Santa Barbara