Business and IT Challenges
Under Armour was facing several business challenges due to
its extensive product line, global distribution, and ambitious
growth strategy, as well as the fierce competition in the athletic
apparel and gear industry. The company’s key technology and
business challenges and needs were:
• ISs did not provide sufficient agility to outpace competitors
and enable the company to reinvent itself every six
months—a goal important to top management. • ISs with multicurrency and multicompany processing capabilities
were needed to support international expansion.
• Software applications could not support growth of the product
lines or the company’s expansion into several other
countries.
The company had sharp spikes in orders during seasonal
product shifts and promotional pushes. To improve its brand
and channel management, the company needed to replace
its time-consuming manual allocation processes with dependable
available-to-promise (ATP) capabilities. ATP is a business
function that provides data about resource availability
and delivery dates to keep customers informed of their orders’
status. ATP also supports order fulfillment in order to manage
demand and match it to production plans. The software takes
a lot of work out of the order fulfillment process—and less
effort means lower cost and fewer errors.