Outdoor apparel brand deploys a single instance of Microsoft Dynamics across three continents with Sunrise industry experts
Founded in 1972 to succeed a small company that provided climbing tools, Patagonia has grown into a globally recognized outdoor brand. The company designs, produces, and distributes clothing and gear for sports like trail running, skiing, mountain climbing, surfing, and snowboarding. Headquartered in Ventura, California, Patagonia has a strong presence across the Americas, Europe, and Japan. The company serves its markets through multiple channels, including international distributors, wholesalers, retail stores, catalog sales, and eCommerce.
Dynamics 365: The Next Step in Patagonia's Digital Transformation Journey
Patagonia, a long-time apparel customer of Sunrise Technologies, is live on Dynamics 365. When it came time for the company to move from Dynamics AX 2009, the legacy on-premise version of the software, the executive team decided that the cloud Dynamics 365 platform would further streamline operations, provide additional cost and time savings, and position the company for future growth.
The Power to Pivot
Patagonia implemented curbside pickup, buy online - pick up in store, and distributed order management (DOM) capabilities, turning stores into mini warehouses and ensuring customers could get what they needed quickly and safely. Hear from Patagonia team members on how Dynamics 365 not only enables their IT goals, but aligns with their company values.
Digital Transformation with a Modern, Tier 1 Platform
Working with Sunrise Technologies as the apparel industry Microsoft Partner, Patagonia was able to achieve:
- Unified finance, operations, and business analytics on one, scalable, global platform
- Smoother operations with apparel and retail industry solutions provided by Sunrise 365 Supply Chain and Retail Replenishment
- Advanced omni-channel commerce solution for call center, retail and DOM
Furthering Patagonia's Mission with Modern Technology
For Patagonia, putting its brand and resources to work on behalf of the environment is as important as providing the best possible outdoor products...and Dynamics 365 has helped the company achieve this mission through less waste, improved efficiency, and reduced costs.
Global Omni-channel Growth with Microsoft Dynamics 365
The development, design, and production of many Patagonia products involve long lead times of a year or more. Many of the apparel products are technically complex, featuring hundreds of lines in the bill-of-materials. Critical functions, such as Patagonia’s forecasting, demand planning, and inventory management, sufficiently enable the company to react to market changes in a timely manner. With one global ERP, the company is positioned for additional growth in wholesale, retail, and eCommerce channels. Today, the company is well into its cloud digital transformation journey, fully live on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, Operations, and Commerce.
Digital Transformation Without the Cost and Complexity of SAP
Over a decade ago, after narrowing its choices to SAP and Microsoft Dynamics, Patagonia selected Microsoft for its scalability, flexibility, and extensive roadmap, and selected Sunrise for its proven, apparel industry solution and deep understanding of its business.
At the time, Patagonia’s business systems were decades old and heavily modified. Only a couple of longtime employees understood the extent of customization in the largely homegrown business systems, exposing the company to risk if those employees were to leave. Through a multi-phased, initial deployment and additional phases and upgrades, Sunrise has helped Patagonia extend the full functionality of the solution to all business operations worldwide.
*** UPDATE: This original case study video is for Dynamics AX. Patagonia has since deployed Dynamics 365 with Sunrise ***
“Without question, when I consider the costs of implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX and what we will get out of it in terms of future scalability and profitability, I realize the more good we can do for the environment. We now have a platform to expand our mission. We furnished the company with a level of scalability we did not have before. After years of growth in the single digits, we are now achieving double-digit, top-line growth.”
Rose Marcario — CEO, Patagonia (ret.)
CHALLENGES
- Lack of supply chain visibility across the global sourcing network
- Challenging multi-channel inventory optimization problem
- Time consuming and manual fabric management
- Lack of flexibility to run the growing international business
- Multiple unreliable custom legacy ERP solutions that could not scale
SOLUTION
- Microsoft Dynamics AX offered an integrated financial and supply chain solution within a single platform
- Consolidated multiple legal entities on a single instance of Microsoft Dynamics AX
- Microsoft Dynamics AX offered a strong road map to the cloud with Dynamics 365
- Sunrise offered a strong blend of product expertise and apparel industry solutions that would maximize value
BENEFITS
- A global experience, with one system across all locations
- Reduced IT costs from consolidating multiple business applications under a single global ERP platform
- Improved inter-company operations with full financials and supply chain run in one platform across more than 50 legal entities around the world
- Boosted inventory turns from 20% to 30% and increased fill rates from 5% to 10% with an intuitive multi-channel inventory planning solution
- Realized double-digit growth for the first time in history