ASICS supports account managers with SAP Sales Cloud by Acorel
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"Together with the business, we have succeeded in creating an even better product with an even better scope than we had envisioned in advance."
One identical customer view worldwide
To optimally serve wholesale customers and ASICS account managers, ASICS strives for one identical customer view worldwide. For sales it is crucial to have as complete a picture as possible of the customer. Even the smallest details are important.
With SAP Sales Cloud, the Japan based company ASICS strives for one identical customer view worldwide. Australia was the first region to migrate to this new solution, online and remotely, at the height of the corona pandemic.
Sports stores and e-commerce
ASICS is one of the largest producers of sporting goods and accessories in the world. The products are marketed through well-known sports stores, but increasingly also directly through their own web shops. A few years ago, this business transformation was the reason for the implementation of SAP Fashion Management Solution (FMS). This ERP system brings the wholesale and e-commerce business together in one type of business.
Project nominated by SAP
ASICS, as one of the 20 nominees for the digital SAP event ‘The Best of Customer Success 2020’ in the category ‘Customer Excellence’, had the opportunity to share their story.
In the video below you can see the conversation with Paul John Bakker, ASICS Vice President Global Enterprise Solutions and Igor Filart, Global B2B Solution Delivery Manager at ASICS about their first SAP Sales Cloud project in Australia. Acorel took care of the implementation, completely online and remote.
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Improved support of account managers
To best serve wholesale customers online, ASICS modernized its B2B platform. “However, we came to the conclusion that we were not yet optimally serving our account managers, when visiting stores for example,” said Paul John Bakker, ASICS Vice President Global Enterprise Solutions. According to Bakker, it was difficult for these employees who are often on the road to quickly gain insight into, for example, the agreements made with the customer.
“Account managers want to work jointly as a team towards the customer. To do this, they need to know in detail which agreements a colleague has made with the customer,” says Igor Filart, Global B2B Solution Delivery Manager at ASICS. “Overview is crucial for sales. You must be able to capture even the smallest details somewhere and be able to share them with colleagues.”
“SAP FMS is not very suitable for capturing and transferring that data,” continues Filart. “We needed a new solution for that. It had to be a solution that integrates with our B2B platform as well as with SAP FMS, so that our account managers have all the information available in one solution to serve their customers in the right way.”
SAP Sales Cloud as a solution for Asics
After seeing a demo during SAP CX Live, ASICS quickly realized that SAP Sales Cloud is the tool ASICS needs. According to Bakker, this solution facilitates a new way of working. “When you open SAP Sales Cloud on your mobile or desktop, you immediately have an overview of the customer and the possibility to communicate with colleagues. Here you can also record new information, for example that there has been an adjustment in the presentation of a product line and that it works well.”
At an early stage, ASICS together with SAP drew up forty ‘user stories’. These stories describe what an account manager should be able to see in SAP Sales Cloud. For the implementation of a ‘minimum viable product’ in six regions – starting in Ocean-Pacific – the sports equipment manufacturer engaged SAP partner Acorel. “And then corona came,” said Filart. “We were unable to physically meet and had to do the rollout in Australia completely remotely. Only after the go live in this first region did we meet at our head office and eat a Bossche bol at a safe distance.”
An even more beautiful product
Corona was not the only challenge the project team faced. Adjustments were needed on SAP FMS to make the connections with SAP Sales Cloud work optimally. Those changes required tight planning within ASICS that also involved other implementations at the same time. “And yet, together with the business, we have succeeded in creating an even more beautiful product with an even better scope than we had envisioned beforehand, which was enthusiastically put into use by the first users,” Filart notes.
"In five months, two previously unrelated companies managed to implement flawlessly."
Stick to the standard
“The fact that ASICS had already defined a number of user stories certainly contributed to this,” says Joost Goudriaan, account manager at Acorel. “But the principle of not deviating from the standard as offered by SAP Sales Cloud also contributed to the project running smoothly and efficiently.” ‘Stick to the standard’ will also be the starting point in the regions to come, including Japan, Latin America, and Europe.
Bakker attributes the success mainly to the close cooperation between ASICS and Acorel and the focus of both parties. “Two companies that previously had no relationship with each other have travelled together from a lockdown situation. A journey with the final destination of implementing a new solution for a user group twenty thousand kilometres away that was never served by Global IT before. And they managed that flawlessly in five months. Really nothing went wrong.”