The headquarters of Samsonite Europe were established in Oudenaarde (Belgium) back in 1966. Samsonite rationalised its European distribution system as early as 1975, which somehow prefigured the European single market in the particular area of its operations. Oudenaarde served as the hub of the cross-border value-adding network of Samsonite in Europe, as it assumed not only the ‘core’ production activities of hard-side luggage and took care of the logistics and warehousing for the Pan-European distribution system, but also did all of the research and development activities in Europe. Managing the flow of goods had become an exact and exacting exercise, justifying the investment Samsonite made in its computer systems needed to manage the supply chain and to track and trace consignments en route or in the warehouse.