Lawson for Fashion Built for the Fashion Industry.

Transcription

1 Lawson for Fashion

2 Lawson for Fashion An Overview Lawson for Fashion is a comprehensive enterprise software system specifically for fashion companies connecting business processes from product concept to customer. Lawson for Fashion Built for the Fashion Industry. Lawson for Fashion Gives You More Control Over: Your margins Your product Your supply chain relationships With Lawson for Fashion you can: Make your organization more agile Improve your time-to-market Turn inventory into cash faster Improve efficiency Combat chargebacks 2

3 The Lawson for Fashion Solution Who do we Serve? At Lawson we truly understand the fashion industry, with all its dynamism, complexity and challenges. Whether you are in luxury or commodity fashion, or a brand owner, distributor, manufacturer or buying office, Lawson for Fashion is specifically designed to help you manage your business needs. Our solution comes with strong industry-specific functionality already built in and we have been successfully implementing it in apparel, footwear, home textiles and accessory companies for more than 18 years. We also provide global implementation support through our network of industry-experienced consultants and partners, and we remain firmly dedicated to providing a world-leading solution for the fashion industry, both now and in the future. What is Lawson for Fashion? Lawson for Fashion is a comprehensive, integrated business information system that covers the main business processes within your company: product development, demand management, customer relationship management, planning, sourcing, raw material procurement, production, warehouse management, distribution and finance. At the core of our Lawson for Fashion solution is the Lawson Enterprise Management System which integrates all the activities you need to manage your business; from supplier to customer, from shop-floor to executive suite. Lawson for Fashion links demand management and customer relationship management to comprehensive planning. The solution incorporates most aspects of supply chain management and includes comprehensive, tightly integrated financial management and control functionality. Lawson for Fashion offers integrated functionality beyond the realms of a standard enterprise management offering. The solution includes a collaborative product lifecycle management (PLM) suite that covers product design and development from conception through specification and sampling to preproduction. It also comes with advanced planning solutions that can help you plan and schedule across the different resources in your supply chain. Lawson for Fashion also has a customizable e-sales module to streamline order administration and offer customers self-service capability. The solution also offers integrated business intelligence with a predefined analytics package to enable more effective decision making and alerting you to exception conditions. 3

4 What can Lawson for Fashion Offer you? We designed Lawson for Fashion to meet the specific needs of companies just like yours. Our solution includes: An industry-specific PLM solution that spans storyboarding, line planning, fabric and trim development, product specification, workflow and vendor management; A unique company-wide definition of style-based products at the style level, including three additional dimensions, hierarchies, seasonality, carryovers and definition of discrete products such as accessories; Flexible costing models and costing toolbox for comparison and evaluation of cost and sales prices; Multi-channel sales order management, B2B and B2C customer selfservice, mobile order entry, electronic data interchange (EDI) and XML orders, customer service order entry and simulations; Bulk order and distribution handling, purchase management allowing for milestone follow-up, creation of packing, mark-for and serial shipping container code (SSCC) instructions to your supplier enabling a streamlined advance shipment notice (ASN) process; Integrated production planning using a planning workbench that enables you to balance the production load and materials across single or multiple sites across your business, on an aggregated level such as style or style color; Integrated short-term planning and optimization on a size level using a scheduling workbench that enables you to balance production load and materials across the different resources within production units; Support for any combination of sourcing, subcontracting and your own production; Supply chain orders for linking customer, distribution, manufacturing and purchase orders in complex and extended global supply chains to improve visibility; Creation of assortments for stores and validation of budgets as well as the creation of initial push plans and phase-out plans. The planning and execution is tightly integrated; Integrated warehouse management processes including (package based) cross docking, ship through management, system driven put away, in-house processes, and dynamic delivery processes; An integrated Lawson mobile warehouse solution, enabling the warehouse management transactions to be performed by radio frequency (RF) devices; Support for global organizations and global trade, with full multi-language, multi-currency and multi-company functionality; An integrated business intelligence solution including data warehousing, predefined business intelligence data cubes, dashboards and alerts to enable effective high-level information storage and retrieval for decision making and exception management; The technical infrastructure and tools to enable simple and comprehensive sharing of information with your supply chain partners. 4

5 Smart and Simple Making you More Productive When it comes to navigating your enterprise management system, we believe that simpler is better. Now you can enjoy a user experience that s both functional and fun to use. Lawson Smart Office brings together your enterprise applications, business intelligence, desktop tools, and group collaboration all in the context of the business task at hand. You benefit from having the content, tools and context you need to do your work in a more efficient and dynamic manner. With Lawson Smart Office in place, you ll find yourself working more seamlessly among the applications and tools you know and trust, such as Lawson, Microsoft Excel, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Groove. Yet your experience will be richer more personalized with widgets that make it simple to launch applications, collaborate, and organize your work experience. At every level we use leading technology that is both robust and reliable. The Smart Office interface is based on Microsoft.NET, and for middleware, we adopted the industry standard, IBM WebSphere. Smart Office brings together the tools you need to share information easily and effectively. It can also be extended through internal and external portals to allow you and your supply chain partners to synchronize activities and help eliminate downtime. Lawson Smart Office gives you access to all of the Lawson and non-lawson applications you use within a single interface. At the press of a button, you can get the information you need, where you want it, in a way that is meaningful to you.

6 The Business of Fashion A Dynamic and Challenging Industry At Lawson we know there is no such thing as a typical fashion company. In fact, the word fashion can itself be misleading. Although no two companies are the same, they may of course share similar processes and pains. Our customers span a broad spectrum of enterprises operating in the apparel, footwear, home textiles and accessories markets. The industry then covers a multitude of companies across the entire supply chain, from retailers and brand owners to distribution companies and contract manufacturers. While some companies still control their own production, others have moved to a fully outsourced model. Commodity fashion companies compete in an environment of low margins and high volumes. High-end businesses have higher margins, but maintaining their brand position is critical to their success, and out-of-date inventory is out of the question. We know that every business is unique, but we also understand that there are challenges all fashion companies face. Here are just some of the issues that affect companies in the fashion supply chain: Fluctuating consumer and design-driven demand is difficult to forecast or project. Consumers are becoming more demanding. Having the right product mix in stores is more important than ever. As a fashion company you need to reduce your time-to-market, introduce new collections more often and improve delivery performance across the supply chain. Shorter product life cycles mean inventory can quickly become obsolete. At the same time consumers are looking for lower prices and higher quality, so pressure on margins is intense. Global sourcing is no longer just an option, it is a necessity. Unfortunately it creates longer lead times when carrying inventory is already a liability. How can you benefit from outsourcing production to low labor cost countries while improving your ability to react quickly to changes in consumer demand? Evershifting sources of supply add to the logistical challenges. Supply chains are complex. Many companies find themselves struggling to manage both their own and outsourced production. For contract manufacturers the competition is intense and the retailers and brand owners they supply grow increasingly demanding in terms of cost, quality, delivery accuracy, reducing time-to-market and lead times. Planning and managing a diverse product range is a fact of life for many fashion companies. Traditionally most fashion companies managed two seasons a year, but today some companies juggle new collections every week. Where companies used to handle relatively small ranges, now we see diversification into various aspects of lifestyle products. In addition to managing style-based merchandise such as clothing and footwear, many companies have moved into accessories and perfume. Some parts of product ranges will have very short life cycles, while others are staples or never out-of-stock items. All these diverse products present different challenges in terms of product introduction, planning, sourcing and supply. For all aspects of the product range, maintaining the correct inventory balance is critical if companies are to meet ever-shifting consumer demands, while keeping inventory levels at a minimum and avoiding costly markdowns and obsolete inventory. 6

7 Roles in the supply chain continue to change as companies continue to source globally. At the same time they still need to be able to react quickly to changes in demand. Retailers and brand owners want to increase their control over their supply chains, speed up their time-to-market and reduce lead times. Brand owners are moving into the retail space, and responsibility for floorready inventory, quality and store replenishment is pushed back up the supply chain to the contract manufacturers, who in turn are looking to gain a competitive edge by offering more services to their customers. How Technology Can Help you Address These Challenges Companies everywhere are adopting new strategies and methods of working in order to survive. Most fashion companies today know the importance of being more demand-driven and agile, but achieving this can be difficult. Many companies simply do not have the information they need to create a demanddriven model. One of the biggest obstacles has been the lack of information exchanged between internal departments, as well as with external supply chain partners. The first step a company must take to address these challenges is to ensure that its entire organization is working from one common source of information. An integrated enterprise management solution can help you gain an improved level of visibility across your supply chain. It can facilitate the sharing of information within your own enterprise. What s more, it is essential for sharing information effectively with your supply chain partners. The days of supply chain partners working in isolation and confrontation are gone. By working together to meet consumer demands all parties can benefit. To achieve this, you need to be able to communicate in a fast and accurate way. With access to the right information and with the right technical support in place, you will be able to communicate in real-time with your supply chain partners. Lawson for Fashion can help eliminate the old islands of information. It can coordinate information both internally and externally, giving everyone involved in the supply chain a clear view of plans, orders, inventory, costs and performance. Lawson for Fashion helps: Provide an integrated style-based solution delivering visibility across the enterprise; Facilitate management of varied, complex and changing global supply chains; Deliver critical value-added functionality and a committed future platform for growth; Enable low-risk, industry-focused implementations of core business processes. Key Elements of Lawson for Fashion Product Development As a fashion company you need to be able to introduce new products quickly and manage the life cycles of different types of products effectively. 7

8 Lawson for Fashion can help you streamline the development of new products and the introduction of new collections to help shorten your time-to-market, improve quality and reduce product development costs. Key product development features include: An industry-specific PLM solution; Support for web-based collaborative product design and development together with customers and/or suppliers; Storyboarding for conceptualizing and designing new themes and collections; The development and analysis of line plans in terms of financials and attributes; Support for the development of seasonal colors and palettes on storyboards or in a color library; Collaboration with suppliers for the development of fabrics and trims; Estimation of aggregated usage and material costs across the company; Development of product specification pack including sizes, colors, measurements, bill of materials (BOM) and bill of lading (BOL); The management of sample requests, revisions and approvals; The streamlining of the request for quote, cost evaluation and vendor selection process. 8

9 Data Management Apparel, footwear, home textile and accessory companies need to manage and work with increasing data volumes, wider product variety and shorter customer delivery lead times. Lawson for Fashion can help you enter and maintain data quickly and accurately to increase operational efficiency and help reduce your lead times. Lawson for Fashion provides: Management of both style-based and discrete items such as accessories, perfume and jewelry; A unique company-wide definition of styles using three user-defined attributes for the management of color, size, packaging etc.; The ability to define additional attributes for style-based and discrete products, enabling the management of other product characteristics, such as country of origin or quality, without generating additional stock-keeping units (SKUs); The ability to quickly introduce new products and collections using predefined item types and templates. This helps to minimize manual input as products automatically inherit classifications and planning values; Multiple levels of item classification, including user-defined tables, in addition to a five-level product hierarchy, enabling highly flexible selection and analysis capabilities; Definition of multi-sku pre-packed cartons to enable supply and distribution of store-ready packs; The ability to attach pictures and additional documents held outside the transactional system to styles and items, and access and display them directly in the transactional system; Definition of a BOM and BOL at the style level with flexible definition of variations by color, size etc. The definition may vary depending on the production unit. Assortment Management for Companies with a Retail Channel Are you a fashion brand owner with your own manufacturing, or with a sourcing business model? Perhaps you are a private brand retailer? If you are, then your business no doubt operates in a highly dynamic environment where fashion trends can change overnight. Seasons, like product lifecycles, are not only shorter, but you also have more of them to deal with. Consumers are demanding greater choice and expect immediate availability in their color and size. If you do not have the right product mix in each store at any point in time you risk losing sales opportunities and your brand image and customer loyalty may suffer. Too much of the wrong merchandise can lead to low sell through rates on other product lines. Ticket price markdowns are then often necessary to shift excess merchandise and minimize obsolete inventory, squeezing your profit margins. With Lawson for Fashion there is no need to maintain a custom interface between your enterprise management system and a third party assortment planning tool. This helps to reduce the total cost of ownership. 9

10 Lawson for Fashion can help you develop more effective store assortment and replenishment plans to improve agility, minimize stock-outs, and ensure more sales at full price. Key assortment management features include: Definition of collections, styles, colors, sizes etc; Interactive generation of assortment plans per store; Budget matching; Generation of the buy plan and initial merchandise push plan; Synchronization and adjustment of the push plan with incoming supply; Generation of replenishment planning values as well as adjustments inseason; Handling of exceptions in operational execution. Demand Management Anticipating demand in the fashion industry is often as much art as science. Companies need to be able to forecast at a much higher level than in other industries and often work with products with no statistical history. Lawson for Fashion can help you improve the accuracy of your demand projections, leading to higher customer service levels and reduced inventory. Key demand management features include: Multi-level forecasting, enabling initial forecasts to be generated at different levels such as range or style; Distributed, collaborative demand planning with the ability to manipulate market or demand plans using top-down, bottom-up and middle-out approaches; Mathematical forecasting techniques based on sales statistics, to generate forecasts for continuity products; The ability to copy and use history from old ranges and styles as the basis for forecasting demand for new styles; Forecasts automatically distributed to the SKU level, based on pre-defined distribution templates when required; Time-phased forecast consumption rules controlling the forecast consumption at the style, style/color or SKU level; Transfer of forecasts to operational planning for use as a basis for the buy plan, production plan and raw materials procurement; The forecasts are also fully integrated with the financial system for budgeting purposes. 10

11 Customer Relationship Management Wherever your company sits in the fashion supply chain, managing the relationship with your customers and achieving high customer service levels is critical to your survival. Lawson for Fashion provides a comprehensive view of the various aspects of the relationship with your customer from sales to customer service and from distribution to finance. Clear visibility of customer demand against incoming supply enables proactive management of the customer relationship and improved customer service levels. Key customer relationship management features include: Configurable methods for entering and processing sales orders that enable automatic management of different types of orders such as pre-season orders, follow-on orders, replenishment orders, EDI orders, and internet orders; The ability to enter and amend orders in a matrix format for manual order entry and to enter quantities by style or style/color with automated distribution to SKU level; Season and delivery window handling across the sales order management and sales statistics processes; Definition of a multi-level customer hierarchy, plus delivery-point handling, enabling business with major customer groups; Flexible pricing and discounting, including full currency handling, date-range validity, price by style or SKU, promotion management, and sales contract management; Retail price list management and label printing; Commission, royalty and retrospective discount handling, including automated accruals to the financial system and generation of payment proposals; Comprehensive available-to-promise inventory management; Clear visibility of available inventory and incoming orders which can enable proactive delivery and shortage management; Flexible allocation and joint delivery rules to help you meet the delivery requirements of your customers. For example, minimum percentages of a particular style or style/color order and balanced size distribution on short shipment; Fair-share batch allocation capability where supply is short-shipped; An open point-of-sale interface which assists in facilitating management of inventory in your own retail outlets, or to help receive customer point of sale (POS) information; Integral e-sales capability to enable customer self-service via online sales order entry and tracking; PC-based sales force automation tools to enable field sales personnel to manage all aspects of their relationship with their customers and allow the taking and monitoring of sales orders while working off-line at a customer site or trade show; Comprehensive multi-level order and sales statistics, including customer service targeting and reporting. 11

12 Tactical and Operational Supply Chain Planning Effective forward planning in the long, medium and short term is essential for your business to move from a push" model to a demand-driven supply chain model. The more flexible and agile your supply chain the quicker you can react to changes in consumer demand. Lawson for Fashion provides you with the tools you need to make key planning decisions across all time horizons: from the forward planning of sourcing rules to automated generation of buy plans and production plans, to detailed production sequencing. Effective planning, coupled with rapid notification of any exceptions, enables companies to react fast to change, reduce inventory buffer levels and shorten lead times all while maintaining customer service levels. Key supply chain planning features include: Support for planning across multiple companies, divisions, brands and sites; A supply chain planner which can be used across long to medium time horizons and enables you to optimize your forward sourcing plan; Consolidation of forecasts, actual demand and current inventory across the enterprise, for use as input to the automated requirements planning process which can take into account such aspects as sourcing rules, bills of material and routings; Automatic generation of proposed buy plans, distribution plans and production plans; Planning views available by style, style/color, and other user-defined aggregation levels which can enable planners to work at the appropriate level for the products they are managing; Action messages produced on an exception basis to prompt planners to take action when necessary; An integrated Planning Workbench for Fashion that enables balancing of the production load across single or multiple sites within the enterprise; A scheduling workbench for detailed production planning and scheduling, fast identification of any delayed orders or delayed supply, and simulation capabilities to support decision making as changes occur. 12

13 Sourcing Critical to the successful on-time delivery of quality goods for any brand owner or design, source and distribute company is the overall management of the sourcing process. Lawson for Fashion provides the tools to help plan your best source of supply, communicate effectively with your suppliers, automate the generation of your buy plan and track the progress of your inbound supply. Tight two-way communication with suppliers coupled with exception-based reporting of supply problems provides enhanced visibility across the supply chain. It also helps reduce buffer inventory levels and shorten lead times while simultaneously retaining focus on customer service levels. Key sourcing features include: Automatic generation of proposed sourcing orders based on forecast and actual demand and applying sourcing rules generated from an optimized supply chain plan; Supply chain orders for linking customer, distribution and purchase orders in complex and extended global supply chains to improve visibility, automate date and quantity adjustments and identify the consequences of changes on customer orders; Full supplier quotation management to enable you to request, compare and select best-fit quotations from multiple sources; Configurable methods for entering, releasing and managing buy orders for automatic management of import orders and local source orders from full-package orders to sub-contract orders where fabric or other raw materials may be centrally sourced; Milestone tracking, enabling the definition of a user-defined time and action calendar that can be used to track the sourcing process; Supplier contract handling to enable the management of supplier contracts at multiple levels such as range, style, and style/color; Support for two-way electronic communication with suppliers via EDI, enabling much faster communication and update of information; The ability to pre-allocate incoming supply orders to customer orders while they are still in transit, thus removing an allocation bottleneck when goods are received and reducing the turnaround time in the warehouse; Enablement of generating packing instructions to the supplier, containing pre-pack information and or dynamic pack definitions; Enablement of generating mark-for instructions and SSCC license plate numbers, to support the consignee, for example, third party warehouse agent or retail store, labeling process at supplier. This improves the efficiency within the supply chain; Flexible receiving processes, including optional quality inspection routines, cross-docking and ship through capability and direct put away; Full supplier statistics to help you monitor the performance of your suppliers in terms of accurate and timely delivery, quality and price. 13

14 Raw Materials Purchasing For any company managing its own production or controlling a supply of raw materials to outsourced production, successful management of the raw materials purchasing cycle is critical. This helps to maximize throughput and ensure on-time receipt of finished goods inventory into the distribution warehouse. Lawson for Fashion provides you with the tools to help plan your raw materials purchasing by enabling you to monitor the availability of critical supplies for production and track the progress of your inbound raw materials. Automatic generation of raw material requirements based on the production plan, ease of communication with your suppliers and exception-based reporting of supply problems all provide you with improved control over raw materials inventory. This can facilitate improved production performance and contributes to reductions in buffer inventory and improvements in delivery performance. Key raw material purchasing features include: Automatic generation of proposed raw material orders based on materials required for planned or forecasted production both in-house and outsourced; Supply chain orders for linking customer, distribution, production and purchase orders in complex and extended global supply chains to improve visibility, automate date and quantity adjustments, and identify the consequences of changes on customer orders; Comprehensive lead-time management to facilitate the automated planning of different types of raw material purchase, from critical raw materials with long lead times such as specialist fabric, to raw materials which can be purchased strictly on a just-in-time basis; Configurable methods for entering, releasing and managing purchase orders for automatic management of different types of orders; Supplier contract handling to enable the management of supplier contracts, including greige goods contracts; Support for two-way electronic communication with suppliers via EDI, enabling much faster communication and update of information; Advanced planning capabilities that quickly identify any possible critical material supply problems that might result in production delays; Flexible receiving processes including quality inspection routines and direct put-away; Lot and attribute management to both enable the handling of piece goods and allow the tracking against raw materials of multiple attributes such as dye-lot numbers, supplier lot numbers, and piece numbers; Full supplier statistics to help you monitor the performance of your suppliers in terms of accurate and timely delivery, quality and price. Production For any company managing its own production, the successful planning and execution of production to meet demand is key to maintaining delivery performance. Lawson for Fashion provides the tools you need to help you plan your production across long- and short-term horizons, and to manage your production operations right through to the delivery of goods to the distribution warehouse. This means reductions in buffer inventory levels, improved customer service performance and reduced costs. 14

15 Key production features include: Supply chain orders for linking customer, distribution, production and purchase orders in complex and extended global supply chains to improve visibility, automate date and quantity adjustments, and identify the consequences of production changes on customer orders; Integrated advanced planning tools to enable detailed planning and sequencing of the production plan while taking into account material supply and capacity constraints; The ability to group manufacturing orders into a cut against which material can be allocated and issued and production feedback can be performed; Automated splitting of manufacturing orders into bundles for tracking and managing the sewing and finishing processes; Integrated quality management to enforce quality checking, feedback and reporting at key points in the production process; Integrated subcontract management, including the automated generation of associated purchase orders and material distribution orders and documentation; Supplier self-billing capabilities that can be utilized for small subcontract operations with limited administration processes; Comprehensive production statistics that enable you to monitor and improve production performance; Integrated plant maintenance for maintenance management alongside planned production for companies with expensive critical machinery such as knitting and embroidery machines. 15

16 Warehouse & Distribution Management The efficient management of the distribution network is the final link in the industry s key objective of having the right garments in the store at the right time. Lawson for Fashion supports both simple and complex distribution networks, and provides comprehensive warehouse management functionality. This feature can help you reduce turnaround time in the warehouse, reduce inventory levels, increase productivity and improve customer service levels. Key warehouse and distribution management features include: Tools for managing varied warehouse environments, including rule-based, directed put away, as well as bulk inventory and pickface management with automatic location replenishment; Planned and proactive cross-docking and ship through management to help streamline the processes from receipt to dispatch; Automatic inventory allocation based on flexibly defined rules, and batch fair-share reallocation for management of shortage situations; Specific joint delivery rules to manage typical fashion industry shipping requirements, e.g. when a minimum percentage of a style order quantity or a defined size mix must be available before shipping; Transport and shipment planning, including automatic calculation of the shipment date/time necessary to meet customer delivery requirements, taking into account transport lead times; Distribution planning and stock management for multi-warehouse and or retail environments; Package management from storing and unpacking, packages from ASN and production receipt, in-house movements to outbound deliveries; Support for mobile scanning in the warehouse automates key processes in inbound logistics, in-store logistics, outbound logistics and inquiries; A platform to support radio frequency identification (RFID) transactions; A warehouse management integration module to enable third party WMS solutions. 16

17 Finance Managing the financial aspects of a company is core to success in any business. Lawson for Fashion provides advanced functionality to handle all aspects of financial accounting, budgeting, reporting, cost accounting, consolidation and transaction processing with the appropriate internal control. By improving the control and visibility of your financial processes on all levels, you can manage costs, monitor margins, eliminate redundancies, and redeploy assets to more profitable activities. Key finance features include: A flexibly definable multi-company, multi-division structure with automatic interdivision accounting and group consolidation capabilities; these enable the management of all aspects of a multi-brand or multi-country operating environment; Comprehensive multi-currency support to facilitate global trading; A user-defined multidimensional accounting string allowing multi-level structured analysis and management reporting; Comprehensive, integrated cost accounting, allowing multi-level enquiry and reporting with drill down to detailed transactions; Cash flow management that takes input from budgets, ledger balances and outstanding order values to generate a forward cash flow plan; Three-level credit limit handling and advanced credit management tools to enable proactive management of all debtors; Letter of credit handling for both purchasing and sales; Rebate and royalty management with automated accrual of liabilities and generation of payment proposals; Support for 38 countries. Business Intelligence and Performance Analysis Information is the lifeblood of today s fashion companies. Sound business decisions cannot be made without comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information. Lawson for Fashion provides a single source of information for the whole organization. With timely information available at all levels, from strategic to tactical to operational, everyone in your company can gain access to the information they need when they need it, to improve and support their decision making. Key information retrieval and performance analysis features include: Comprehensive, detailed transactional statistics for sales, purchasing, production and inventory management; An integrated data warehouse and business intelligence solution which extracts and consolidates data and makes the information available in a flexible and powerful format for decision makers throughout the organization; Pre-prepared data analysis cubes which can be used by any online analytical processing (OLAP) business analysis tool for comprehensive business performance monitoring; Dashboards for presenting information in an easy to read manner for decision making; Predefined Analytics for Fashion that can be used to measure KPIs and alerts to notify users of exception conditions. 17

18 Up and Running with Lawson for Fashion StepWise A Step-by-Step Implementation Methodology While Lawson for Fashion is made for the needs of fashion companies, its successful implementation is key to ensuring your company gets the most out of this integrated information system. The implementation methodology for Lawson for Fashion is based on the understanding that many fashion companies may not be ready to implement a full-suite enterprise management system with all its functionalities all at once. The Lawson process is called StepWise. It is a modular, flexible and open implementation process that gradually phases in Lawson for Fashion. This means that you can add functionality when you need it and without disturbing your entire operation. StepWise offers the following benefits: Process Efficiency StepWise uses an industry sector approach, which means the company s existing data can be reused, and resources can be focused on the unique requirements of each customer. This allows for rapid and efficient installation. Phased Improvement StepWise is not a quick fix. Both the implementation and the improvements that follow are part of a process that happens over time. The phasing in of the implementation allows for gradual adjustments as they are needed. Fulfilled Implementation StepWise involves a clear follow-through on agreed measures during the presale/sales phase. Dialog Approach StepWise bases results and customer satisfaction on a continuous dialog between the customer and the implementation team. Better Business StepWise integrates the technical sophistication and business knowledge of Lawson, resulting in both tactical and strategic benefits. Depending on your business information needs, Lawson also offers other implementation models in addition to StepWise. These include: QuickStep for Fashion QuickStep for Fashion is a solution specially designed and preconfigured to provide features and functions mid-sized fashion companies need. It can handle the unique requirements of both brand owners that design, source, and distribute, and of manufacturing companies. QuickStep can reduce and streamline the steps required for a customized system implementation, saving you time and money, and taking the complexity out of deploying the Lawson Enterprise Management System. QuickStep can speed implementation by preconfiguring over 70 percent of core processes within the Lawson solution, but is flexible enough to be customized to meet your own specific requirements. 18

19 Support and Maintenance of Lawson for Fashion The value and quality of Lawson for Fashion comes from its powerful tools that enable you to configure the system according to your needs. Lawson for Fashion was designed in such a way so that there is no need for extensive maintenance and follow-up. Powerful tools give you access to large amounts of data that facilitate selfservice by helping you uncover and correct errors. You can change the user interface, integrate internally or externally with other systems, and even create new business objects or modify existing ones. Simply choose the functionality you want and create your own solution without any modification to the standard components. Lawson for Fashion offers unparalleled quality assurance made possible through a rigorous and thorough testing process that has been implemented to ensure increased reliability. Such quality means less internal and external maintenance and lower costs for you. Integrated, Configurable, Platform-Neutral Technology Many fashion companies are tired of having to maintain a vast number of poorly integrated best-of-breed solutions. They are costly to buy and difficult and expensive to integrate with each other, and with the company s existing systems. At Lawson we have learned that what our customers need is an enterprise management system that provides best-of-breed functionality and the ability to easily integrate with other stand-alone systems. A Broad Solution for Individualized Needs At Lawson, the customer s need to get broad solutions up and running quickly, at a lower cost and higher return on investment, continues to drive the development of our configurable and integrated business applications. Certainly no two fashion companies business processes are exactly alike. But the design of your business processes is critical to your success. For example, synchronizing production supply and demand across an enterprise differs vastly between the different fashion industry segments and depends on your company s specific requirements. Therefore, a solution based on a standard application must always be more or less company specific. One cornerstone of Lawson for Fashion is its ability to offer standard business applications that are configurable for specific needs. Java Technology The Lawson solution s state-of-the-art, Java-based technology provides low cost-of-ownership, high scalability, complete platform independence and the ability to run on any major operating platform. Business components can be configured and reconfigured to meet your changing business needs and keep your operations competitive. Also, as your business expands, Lawson Javabased technology provides additional scalability. IBM WebSphere When it comes to middleware we have adopted the industry standard, IBM WebSphere. It s the leading software for on demand business, delivering business integration, application and transaction infrastructure. We have successfully incorporated WebSphere technology, which enables us to leverage IBM middleware solutions in ways that create the greatest impact for you and help solve your challenges. We believe that we have the right technology at every level to give you the reliability, performance and scalability you need to help you maintain your competitive edge. 19

20 LAWSL20_LFFGEEN_COA4_ About Lawson For more than a quarter of a century, Lawson (Nasdaq: LWSN) has delivered industry-specific enterprise applications focused on enhancing the business performance of our customers. We are a market-leading, financially strong supplier of software and services to more than 4,000 customers in the manufacturing, distribution, and services industries across 40 countries. We also provide the underlying technology necessary to run these solutions flexibly and efficiently. Our history has been guided by two goals: to provide scalable, flexible, and ready-to-use systems for a variety of users; and to simplify the deployment, maintenance, and use of our applications. Lawson solutions include enterprise performance management, supply chain management, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, manufacturing resource planning, enterprise asset management and industry-tailored applications. Copyright 2010 Lawson Software. All rights reserved.