THE BEL GROUP: LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO SUCCESS

The Bel Group is a global producer and distributor of cheese. Headquartered in Paris, it is best
known for its small-portion cheese snacks packaged in branded packets. Born in Leon Bel’s
French cheese plant in 1921, The Laughing Cow is one of the Bel group’s core brands together
with Mini Babybel, Kiri, Leerdammer, and Boursin. The Group operates through numerous
subsidiaries in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Turkey, and Africa, including a subsidiary in Egypt.
As a multinational leader in the production of branded cheeses with a specialization in
miniaturization, the group’s strategy is to double in size by 2025.

How does information technology improve operations and decision making at the Bel
Group?

The ability to make a proper response as well as manage multinational relationshipsrequires an

efficient and effective customer relationship management (CRM) system. Customers now have
instant access to the Internet via mobile technology, and companies must be able to adapt and
provide new levels of responsiveness. CRM is not merely about managing existing customers’
expectations, but also about acquiring new customers and building brand loyalty across a range
of contact points. The Bel Group identified the need for a single CRM system to coordinate sales
and marketing teams across both the new and the more mature marketplaces. Each operating unit
and sales office has specific market needs, but coordination is required to ensure market agility
while enabling effective management of the diverse multilingual and cultural aspects of the
business.

How would the company’s new CRM system facilitate its business strategy?

The Sales force system can be customized, allowing for market developments, diverse
negotiation, and sales promotion needs, with knowledge and expertise quickly shared across the
Group, enabling faster communication. The system provides updates on progress toward its
target, helps to measure the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns, and helps convert
the data collected via the numerous data streams.
Why is it important to incorporate the impact of a social media presence as a measurement
tool?

In a mobile-enhanced world, speed of communication and customization across diverse contact

points become essential. The company identified the need for a scalable, easy-to-use system that
would provide an effective measurement tool for different marketing campaigns in order to meet
the varying needs of its target audiences.
 INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS INDIAN E-COMMERCE:
OBSTACLES TO OPPORTUNITY

Describe the technical, cultural, and organizational obstacles to e-commerce growth in

India.

faces some hefty challenges. For example, a government initiative to lay fiberoptic cable and
connect hundreds of thousands of villages to the national Internet backbone formulated in 2011
has stalled due to inaccessibility of remote areas, unwillingness of the large telecoms to invest
(even with government financing) in non-lucrative sparsely populated areas, and red tape
engendered by overlapping authority between governmental bodies in India’s seven union
territories, 29 states, and numerous districts and smaller administrative divisions. Because
standard infrastructure in India is primitive—including poor and even nonexistent roads and
bridges—less than 5 percent of the planned million miles of cable had been completed by the end
of 2015.

How do these factors hamper companies from doing business in India or setting up Indian
e-commerce sites?

The key to this success was appreciating the unique nature of Indian consumers and tailoring the
shopping experience and transaction flow to satisfy their needs. . Less than 2 percent of Indian
consumers own credit cards, so most e-commerce sites must offer a cash-on-delivery (COD)
payment option.

Will non-Indian companies like Amazon.com and eBay flourish in India? Explain.

It could be. Amazon is following an unconventional path in India with Junglee.com , a

transaction facilitator site that connects buyers and sellers while providing product and price
comparison services, making it unambiguously a direct competitor to eBay India. eBay India was
a pioneer, setting up shop in 2005.
 INTERACTIVE SESSION: MANAGEMENT STEELCASE DESIGNS GOES FOR
GLOBAL TALENT MANAGEMENT

Why are human resources and talent management so important at Steelcase?

Steelcase tries to similarly nurture its own employees, realizing that the company’s continuing
innovation and success depend on their skills and insights. Employees are its greatest asset. Until
a few years ago, management felt this asset was underutilized, especially on the global level.
Management questioned whether the company’s information systems were supporting company
goals of promoting innovation, global integration, and attracting and retaining world-class
employees in all of the company’s locations around the globe. In addition to maintaining
accurate job information on a worker, Steelcase wanted to keep track of future career
opportunities and ensure proper planning from a worker engagement and budgetary perspective.

Identify the problem described in this case. What management, organization and
technology factors contributed to this problem? What role did globalization play?

Steelcase had been using SAP’s ERP HCM (Human Capital Management) software, but it was
too out of date and required workarounds for the talent management functionality that it needed.
The old system was not able to define jobs in enough detail to address the level of workforce
planning and development management desired. Fortunately, Steelcase did not have to discard
its SAP system entirely.

Describe the capabilities of the SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors systems that were
helpful to Steelcase. How did these systems improve global operations and decision
making?

The SAP ERP HCM software enables Steelcase to create an enterprise-wide talent profile, which
maintains data for each employee on external job experience as well as their work within
Steelcase; showcases their achievements from one job to the next; and notes aspirations and
future career goals. Managers can use the system to review assessments, qualification skill sets,
and training demands. Steelcase’s HR team can now assign the company’s high potential talent
to a specific talent group and create a learning and development curriculum for them. Without
these capabilities, Steelcase had difficulty showcasing the skills of its workforce. Steelcase
recently contracted with Success Factors, an SAP company, to implement SAP Success Factors
Performance & Goals and take succession planning to the cloud.
 CROCS CLAMBERS TO GLOBAL EFFICIENCY

What management problems typical of global systems was Crocs experiencing? What
management, organization, and technology factors were responsible for those problems?

Sometime in and around 2002 and 2003, a large footwear company known as Crocs sold its first
pair of shoes. From Crocs' website, today, Crocs is a world leader Crocs, Inc. is a world leader in
innovative casual footwear for men, women and children. Crocs offer a broad portfolio of all-
season products, while remaining true to its core molded footwear heritage. All Crocs shoes
feature Crocs lite material, a proprietary, revolutionary technology that gives each pair of shoes
the soft, comfortable, lightweight, non-marking and odor-resistant qualities that Crocs fans have
known and love. Crocs celebrate the fun of being a little different and encourage fans to “Find
Your Fun” in every colorful pair of shoes. Since its inception in 2002, Crocs has sold more than
300 million pairs of shoes in more than 90 countries around the world. The company's products
can be purchased in 90 countries. The company has retail locations in 30 countries that includes:
Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and
the Netherlands. 300 four-season styles including boots, wedges, flip-flops, sandals, loafers,
slippers, rain boots and sneakers are what Crocs is responsible for producing for consumption by
consumers. Crocs experienced rampant growth due to the fact the company purchased footwear
companies Ocean Minded and Bite Footwear, Dutch messenger bag company Tagger, South
African third party distributor Tidal Trade and Jibbitz, a manufacturer of the product feature
which snaps into the holes of some of the first designs of their clogs.

Problems with Crocs global systems began locally first. Crocs had purchased best of breed
systems in multiple areas for the purposes of order management, warehouse management, retail
merchandising and reporting, and Electronic Data Interchange functions. This approach worked
well with its dedicated systems locally but the lack of an integrated system cause enterprise-wide
connectivity to be compromised as well as a need for maintenance to be exacerbated. Local
customization of its process evolved to attempt for and realize the integration of functions. All of
this led to the fact that integration of systems across regions would be very difficult if not
impossible to achieve. Even basic business structures were even difficult to maintain and or
carryout in situations like closing the books. Closing the books for the company is a process that
requires collating and reconciling spreadsheets from multiple countries and regions by hand.
This process also includes making numerous phones calls and sending numerous emails to
acquire missing and erroneously formatted data. Orders began locally however these orders had
to proceed through several systems before the order was actually placed. So by 2011 it was clear
that changes with Crocs systems were not sustainable and must be fixed by management and
other staff. There were also other factors that led to the need for improvements with the
company's systems. Their cross currency and multi-language orders were not consistent. The
company's local or country-specific business regulations had to manage by hand. So in response
to such problems the company decided to undertake the task of implementing the company wide
level information technology project known as Sunlight.

How did Crocs's new systems and use of SAP Apparel and Footwear support its business
strategy? How effective was the solution chosen by the company?

Management began searching for a solution to their problems to implement the standardized
processes identified by its staff. This led to SAP Apparel and Footwear being chosen as the
solution to its problems. The main goal of choosing such an application was to avoid having to
customize systems from top to bottom. SAP Apparel and Footwear further supported Crocs
business strategy due to the fact it provided a three way size for footwear sellers. According to
Dennis Sheldon, the company's Senior Vice President the grid function in SAP Apparel and
Footwear became instrumental in excising the surfeit of SKUs that been driving the numerous
system customizations at the regional level, shackling global integration.

How did Croc's new systems improve operations and management decision making?

From the case study, Crocs now administers the automation of purchasing, delivery tracking,
inventory segmentation, chargebacks, and nearly every other aspect of the design, manufacture,
and distribution of its footwear in SAP Apparel and Footwear. With business processes
streamlined, sales are now outstanding for fewer days, and the fill, or demand satisfaction rate-
percent of orders satisfied from inventory on hand- has significantly improved. Freight costs,
nonproduction selling expenses, and SG& A (selling, general, and administrative) expenditures,
which combine salaries, commissions, and travel expenses for executives and sales people,
advertising costs and payroll expenses, have all be substantially reduced. Any time a corporation
as large as Crocs can cut costs by way of switching to a system that includes SAP Footwear and
Apparel the company will experience growth, boosts in revenue and sales, and lower rates of
employee turnover as well as higher rates of retention. The problems most companies unlike
Crocs is the adaptability and affordability to make such a substantial change in how they operate.
With its new systems Crocs can now increase the medium order quantity to industry standards
enterprise wide with relative ease. The company was able to realize such gains in productivity
due to its management's forward thinking abilities.

Another major change in how management made decisions from the case study is as follows.
Crocs decided to bring its value added services more in line with industry standards to make it
easier to package orders and move them through distribution centers made possible by the fact
the company now has an integrated global system. Order location, order status, and inventory
availability are all now easily obtainable, making global supply chain management easier. Crocs
also made changes to its management team by adding leaders from several key areas to ensure
that information technology investment was used to its fullest. All of these factors ensure that
Sunlight will remain productive from now on into the future.

What influence does the global business environment have on Crocs, and how does that
affect its choice of systems?

The demands of global orders clearly changed how Crocs conducted business worldwide and
locally. The global market forced Crocs to integrate all of it systems regionally and worldwide
by removing the need for customization by adopting the SAP Footwear and Apparel system. The
company could have choose to continue to do many of its important functions manually and or
by hand but instead it choice to operate using the SAP Footwear and Apparel system to keep
with changes and emerging markets as well as competitor growth. Crocs had continued to be a
world leader in the development of its style of products due to their decision to go to SAP Foot
wear and Apparel. From the case study, though Crocs experienced a company shakeup in 2014
that included70 jobs lost, 100 store closures, scaling back some of its newer, fashion seeking
styles to concentrate on its casual styles, and reducing investment in some smaller markets to
concentrate on just six countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany,
South Korea, Japan, and China- due to its changes in systems the company has continued to
thrive. The global environment forces companies seeking to operate large scale to do away with
systems that operate by hand. Crocs was smart enough to catch on early and adopt an IT system
to prevent the company from going completely under during a year like 2014.