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526 Part Four Building and Managing Systems
INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS
BURTON SNOWBOARDS SPEEDS AHEAD WITH NIMBLE BUSINESS
PROCESSES
When we hear “snowboarding”, we tend to think SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software.
of snow-covered slopes, acrobatic jumps, and Rather than buying new software to solve IT prob-
high-flying entertainment. We don’t usually think lems, Burton decided that it would explore basic
of improving business process efficiency. But functionalities of SAP ERP software that it had not
snowboarding is business for Burton Snowboards, used yet. Often, Burton could resolve problems this
an industry pioneer and market leader. Founded in way without adding new layers of complexity to its
1977 by Jake Burton Carpenter and headquartered IT infrastructure, and the company gained profi-
in Burlington, Vermont, Burton designs, manu- ciency with SAP enterprise software in the process.
factures, and markets equipment, clothing, and Burton aims for a standard, traditional version of
related accessories for snowboarders. Today, Burton software whenever possible, realizing that with
is a global enterprise that serves customers in 27 more bells and whistles comes increased mainte-
countries and has offices in Japan, Austria, and nance costs and steeper learning curves to under-
throughout the United States. standing the software.
At its peak, Burton controlled over 40 percent SAP analysts helped Burton identify the top
of the U.S. snowboarding market, and it remains five transactions that were the most critical to its
the market leader amidst a growing number of business operations and that needed optimization
competitors. Now, as Burton continues to expand from a systems standpoint. Burton had to identify
into a global company, it has a new set of prob- unnecessarily complicated processes, back-
lems: improving its systems for inventory, supply logs, and design gaps in the flow of its business
chain, purchasing, and customer service. processes. For example, the available-to-promise
Stocking and managing inventory is a difficult process was taking hours to complete. (Available
problem for Burton, whose inventory changes dra- to promise, in response to customer order inqui-
matically depend on product line updates and the ries, reports on available quantities of a requested
time of the year. Burton takes feedback from its product and delivery due dates.) Burton wanted to
customers very seriously, and will move quickly speed up this process so that its dealers and retail
to meet their needs. For instance, if a rider tests customers would have more precise information
a jacket and recommends repositioning a zipper, about the availability of products not currently
Burton’s production line must be able to make this in stock. Completing this process now takes 20
modification quickly and easily. Being dynamic minutes.
and adaptable is a competitive necessity. Other processes in need of improvement
Burton has implemented and currently main- included the order-to-cash process (receiving
tains SAP enterprise software, an Oracle data- and processing customer sales, including order
base, a SUSE Linux enterprise server, and com- entry, fulfillment, distribution, and payment);
modity hardware. That’s a long way from a lone the handling of overdue purchase orders in the
woodworking shop in Vermont. Before making procure-to-pay process, which consists of all the
these upgrades, Burton’s information systems steps from purchasing goods from a supplier to
were a hodgepodge of inconsistently implemented paying the supplier; and the electronic data inter-
and underutilized software. The company had to change (EDI) inventory feed extract transaction.
manually allocate product to customers and orders. Burton has an assortment of warehouses that pass
In 1997, Burton first deployed SAP to begin upgrad- inventory data to one another automatically using
ing its IT landscape, and the company has contin- EDI systems. Thousands of items are moving from
ued to use SAP since that time. But Burton needed warehouse to warehouse and thousands of transac-
to do more with its systems. tions occur each day at each warehouse. Burton
Two of Burton’s IT goals, established by CIO found that the process of reporting inventory was
Kevin Ubert, are to “strengthen the foundation,” inefficient, and both suppliers and customers
and keep their systems “simple, standard, (and) could not easily determine up-to-date information
supportable.” The foundation Ubert referred to is on which items were in stock at which warehouse.
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