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IBM > Case Studies > Buffalo David Bitton: Leveraging IoT for Improved Business Planning and Performance
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Buffalo David Bitton: Leveraging IoT for Improved Business Planning and Performance

Technology Category
  • Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
  • Sensors - Level Sensors
Applicable Industries
  • Apparel
  • Retail
Applicable Functions
  • Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
  • Demand Planning & Forecasting
  • Inventory Management
The Challenge
Buffalo David Bitton, a leading fashion brand, was facing challenges in analyzing, planning, and forecasting demand and inventory for its wholesale, online, and in-store channels. The company's sales channels were run on different software systems, and its financial data was managed in another system. This disparity made reporting a laborious process, hindering the company's ability to make timely decisions. The company needed a solution that would provide a holistic view of sales trends across all channels, ensuring the right products were always available to appeal to each customer. The existing systems, while efficient for day-to-day operations, had limited reporting capabilities, making it difficult to gain an overall view of the business or to analyze data in detail.
About The Customer
Buffalo David Bitton is a leading fashion brand founded in Montreal, Canada, in 1985. The brand sells denim collections targeted at men and women ages 18 to 34 in stores spanning 18 countries and 3,000 locations worldwide, as well as online. The company operates in a fiercely competitive apparel industry, making it vital to make the right style, color, and size choices, and ensure that the right amount of stock is allocated to the right sales channels at the right times.
The Solution
Buffalo David Bitton, with the support of IBM Business Partner Knowledge Providers Inc. (KPI), deployed IBM Cognos TM1, an integrated suite of analytics and planning tools. This solution could handle demand planning, forecasting, budgeting, and scorecarding. KPI helped Buffalo implement financial and operational reporting, analytics and budgeting, demand planning, and dashboarding. The solution allowed all these applications to communicate with each other and be leveraged across all parts of the business. By harnessing IBM analytics and performance management tools, Buffalo transformed its ability to support decisions with timely, accurate data. The company could now see vendor performance or product performance at the style, color, and size level, and automatically feed that information into reports, dashboards, and planning and budgeting applications.
Operational Impact
  • The implementation of IBM Cognos TM1 has transformed Buffalo's ability to support decisions with timely, accurate data. The company now has a fully integrated view of its business across all channels on a single platform. The automation of the reporting process has allowed analysts to focus more on analyzing information rather than gathering it. The use of analytics has become a critical application for the business, changing the corporate culture fundamentally. Managers have become independent and empowered, thanks to their ability to access accurate, timely, and relevant information. They can now visualize and measure performance at a glance, and make better and faster decisions with confidence. The company is now investigating how predictive analytics can help understand customer behavior on an individual level, and build a personalized, customer-centric approach to sales and operations.
Quantitative Benefit
  • Weekly reports are now ready on Monday mornings – one day earlier than before.
  • The time taken to generate weekly figures has been reduced from one working day to seconds.
  • The solution has eliminated inconsistencies and human error associated with manual processes.

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