The medium-term IT planning of Ochsner Sport AG, the largest sports retailer in Switzerland with over 1,600 employees, intends to connect the company to the parent company Deichmann’s central PLM system. This planning also affects the purchasing department, which has so far carried out its purchasing planning in a complex Excel-based process. This was to be simplified during the transition period and transitioned to an integrated, automated solution. Just as Ochsner Sport equips its customers with the right equipment for sporting challenges, the new solution was also intended to make the purchasing team’s behind-the-scenes work easier and to successfully guide planning for the coming season toward the desired goal.
Since Ochsner Sport opted for a sprint rather than a marathon in this case, a Microsoft Power App, combined with Power Automate and Power BI, was an efficient, quickly deployable transitional solution. The company entrusted the solution’s creation to Arineo’s Power Platform experts.
The purchasing management at Ochsner Sport AG conducts its rough and detailed planning for the seasonal sports goods business using Microsoft Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI. An Excel interface enables the easy import of article master data.
Data collection in Excel was unreliable, time-consuming, and error-prone. The new Power App was designed to offer functionality such as size split, Excel imports, various table views, and filtering and sorting options.
Purchasing planning was to be carried out on a stable data basis through the integration of Power Automate.
Standardized export and import functionality for suppliers and the company’s own ERP system was intended to simplify working with the new tool significantly.
The new Power App should enable live article planning that all relevant stakeholders can track in real time.
Reliability – this is what characterizes our collaboration with the Arineo team. Our contacts not only advised us excellently but also consistently responded to our wishes and feedback, continuously developing the solution. The result is convincing: we now have an intuitive, central tool for our purchasing planning.
Miriam Uhland
Head of Merchandise Management, Ochsner Sport AG
To optimize the purchasing process, the Arineo team created a model-driven app in combination with a Canvas app using the Microsoft Power Platform. In the model-driven app, rough planning of product groups for the stores is carried out to determine how many items will be ordered for the next season. The purchasing teams can filter in the app to see how many stores need goods ordered. In addition, modules configured with store-grading information make it possible to assign specific items to specific stores. The purchasing teams can import Excel files with the suppliers’ item data into the system. In addition, Arineo programmed various auxiliary tables with calculations that account for changes in product groups during planning.
After the rough planning, the teams receive budget plans and can create reports on their product groups’ planning metrics using Microsoft Power BI. The reports are comprehensive, but thanks to the filter options implemented by Arineo and the similar structure to Ochsner’s existing ERP, they offer the necessary clarity. Using the reports, the various purchasing teams can view the status of the rough planning in real time.
For successful detailed planning, the Arineo team created a Canvas app that performs a size split. The tool helps purchasing to plan the required quantities for each item and size. It also determines whether an item is intended for stores, the online shop, or the warehouse, as well as the desired delivery date. The data is prepared for direct processing by robotic process automation. If the supplier system cannot process this, all information can be exported to an Excel file with a single click.
The purchasing planning solution developed by Arineo on the Microsoft Power Platform meets all our requirements! With this customized solution, we have optimized our business process. We can now focus on strategic tasks and the further development of our product range for the benefit of our customers.
Sandro Streuli
EDI Project Manager, Ochsner Sport AG
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