SmartWool was founded in 1994 and is now part of the Timberland Company. SmartWool makes a range of outdoor performance apparel made of specially treated merino wool, which is sold direct and through retailers such as REI, Zappos, and Big 5.

Challenge

Smartwool was faced with the immediate need to address a company-wide business intelligence deficiency, including lack of analytical flexibility and the inability to produce interactive "what-if" scenario reports. The company needed reporting capabilities for both internal employees and an external sales force, as well as the ability to provide these users with a "single version of the truth".

Solution

SmartWool's IT Director Ken Lotz did not want SmartWool to be constrained by preaggregated data cubes - so traditional business intelligence (BI) technology was not an option - and he wanted a solution that would empower users across the company to easily run on-demand ad hoc queries. The PivotLink solution met these requirements.

Results

Immediately following implementation, SmartWool began to see measurable benefits:

• Ability to generate customized reports, without IT oversight
• Easily manipulated sales data that represents a single version of the truth
• Increased effectiveness of the sales organization
• Improved internal inventory management processes
• Superior ability to identify key reports to measure organization effectiveness

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