The company initially used a merchandising system from STS as a basic reporting tool. The system wasn't well suited to the needs of the company. It was able to compile sales figures for athletic gear and clothing, but it wasn't able to analyze how a specific item, such as a Wilson Tennis n4 racquet, was performing regionally or in a particular store. Instead, it automatically aggregated information from all stores and combined it into a single report. Retrieving data from the database was a long, inefficient process, sometimes taking over an hour to complete, and wasn't satisfactory for answer- ing questions requiring complex analysis.