When American Exchange Group (AXNY) selected Infor CloudSuite Fashion a couple of weeks ago, Enterprise Times contacted the companies involved to learn more about the story. AXNY is a multi-division industry leader in accessories design, manufacturing, and wholesale. It works with and designs products alongside fashion icons maintaining the authenticity for brands such as XOXO, AEROSOLES, Kendall + Kylie, and Rocawear. It distributes its watches, jewellery and footwear worldwide in many of the best-known retailers and other markets.
Managing such a diverse international portfolio of products was proving a challenge, especially after it acquired AEROSOLES and White Mountain Footwear Group. Therefore, it started the hunt for a new ERP solution that it could consolidate its operations on and would assist with further growth.
Once fully deployed, around 250 employees across its locations in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Panama and China, will be using the Infor CloudSuite Fashion solution. Enterprise Times also had the opportunity to ask some questions about the process to Todd Emerson, CTO, AXNY.
Alen Mamrout, CEO of American Exchange Group, commented, “With our recent acquisitions of AEROSOLES, White Mountain and Cliffs, adding to our AXNY portfolio, we were faced with having to maintain multiple ERP systems to support multiple brands. We knew we needed one platform that made sense for all divisions and brands with the dynamic capacity to support future growth and additional potential acquisitions. This provides better communication and better allocation of our resources for productive results. We are looking forward to the consolidation of systems, as well as optimizing the visibility of our information from one source.”
The list of legacy solutions it will migrate from is not static for the acquisitive company. Emerson noted, “As American Exchange Group continues to expand, this solution list will evolve. Over the next year, we will migrate from A2000, BlueCherry and Momentis ERPs.”
Choosing Infor ahead of NetSuite
Enterprise Times asked what other solutions were considered?
Emerson replied, “American Exchange Group looked at a broad range of solutions, including smaller companies that focused on fashion as well as solutions from larger providers like NetSuite. Many of these solutions, claimed to be “cloud” solutions. While it is true that these solutions were hosted in the cloud, they were not multi-tenant solutions that enabled us to easily and continuously benefit from new features and services. Most of them were systems that served as a “hub” for multiple applications and services.
“This meant that once we implemented the ERP, we would then have to find and integrate multiple partners for the solution to provide us with the core functionality we needed. Beyond technical integration, this would require multiple business and product agreements and licenses to manage. The Infor multi-tenant Suite approach gives us a single core technology platform as well as single business relationship. Even with third-party integrations, such as EDI partners, Infor’s team is highly involved in vetting and recommending services that other Infor customers have used successfully. Infor runs on top of AWS and uses AWS services – which aligns with our cloud strategy. All services have APIs that allow us to integrate with Infor as needed.”
Fortude delivers the specialist expertise
Working alongside Infor is its implementation partner Fortude. Fortude has a long history of working with Fashion brands and deep expertise in the Infor CloudSuite Solution. It has previously worked with Karl Lagerfeld, APP Group and Hatco.
Enterprise Times asked Emerson which Infor solutions AXNY will deploy, and he replied. “Infor will replace some internal proprietary processes and systems for Product Lifecycle Management (“PLM”), as well as replace our existing finance/accounting systems. Company-wide finance, inventory and sales reporting will be provided by Infor Birst™. We will also use Infor Factory Track™ for logistics and warehouse management. American Exchange Group’s technology team will use Infor ION™ APIs to implement custom tools and services as needed.”
Fortude will manage the tricky task of migrating the AXNY and AEROSOLES (BlueCherry) solutions in the first phase without disrupting their business operations. The second phase will see the migration of White Mountain and Cliffs, which both use Momentis for ERP and PLM. Once complete, the consolidated solution will reduce the number of integrations and have a common platform and the ability to report across the entire business.
Emerson explained the phasing saying, “American Exchange Group has begun the planning phases for ERP and PLM. As we implement Infor ERP and PLM, we will migrate our Footwear businesses first, then migrate our other business units (Watches/Jewelry, Handbags, Cold Weather, Consumer Technology, Procurement). We plan to go live with AXNY Footwear and AEROSOLES by early Q4 2023. Some smaller divisions may be implemented in-house sooner and other divisions will gradually be on-boarded through Q2-2024.”
No ERP system operates in a silo. As Emerson infers, there are other solutions that Infor needs to integrate with rather than replace. Emerson explained further, “AXNY will need to integrate EDI and third-party systems for processing orders and logistics. For example, we integrate with logistics from AXNY’s warehouses and with ShipLogiq 3PL.”
How will AXNY measure success
This is always a fascinating subject when talking to firms. Emerson gave a complete answer showing that AXNY has considered the benefits they expect to see over the next few months and years. It is published in full below.
“Right now, we have so many disparate systems and processes that prevent us from having reliable baseline metrics. Our bill of materials and landed costs are managed in different systems for different products, while billing, operating costs and capital expenditures are stored in different systems. The biggest immediate impact of adopting Infor CloudSuite will be that we have a single view of our business that allows us to establish and measure benchmark metrics for all of the various American Exchange Group businesses. Some areas where we hope to make immediate improvements include:”
Time-to-Market
“Measure and Improve efficiencies from product concept to retailer’s shelf or customer’s doorstep. Infor’s CloudSuite will help us manage key aspects of our Product Lifecycle and Producer/Vendor management all the way through to inventory management and logistics. Today much of this information is not captured in a single system, making it practically impossible to establish baseline metrics.”
Inventory Planning and Management
“Managing inventory to get closer to “just-in-time” levels using near real time data from internal and external sources. As we have a single source of truth for the business, our goal is to be able to better plan and manage inventory using both internal data (Purchase Orders, Direct to Consumer orders, etc.) and external data (retailer reporting, industry reporting). This should allow us to produce higher quality products at an overall lower cost.”
Order and Logistics Efficiency
“With so many disparate systems and companies under the American Exchange Group umbrella, it is often difficult to track and manage orders across multiple systems and companies. Today, we make up for this with raw human-power. Introducing a mature ERP, such as Infor, provides American Exchange Group with the appropriate systems and processes that support us as we grow and scale into a multibillion-dollar group of companies across a wide range of industries.”
RPE/NIPE
“American Exchange Group already has impressive Revenue Per Employee (RPE) metrics, but with new systems and processes in place we should be able to better understand and measure our Net Income Per Employee (NIPE) for each business and continue to improve both metrics. We’re always looking for better ways to “do more with less” and having a line-item view of our revenue and expenses across each business will help us focus on the areas that make the most impact to the overall health of the business.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
AXNY has taken a considered approach to unifying its systems, a challenge many organisations face, especially acquisitive ones. In Infor and Fortude it has found partners that can help them on a journey that won’t be easy.
Emerson commented, “AXNY has made it a priority to have the best resources, products, and teams to ensure the continued success and growth of our company. We selected a partner that aligned with our digital transformation strategy and would support our continued success and growth. Infor’s multi-tenant CloudSuite Fashion ERP solution is powered by Amazon Web Services, making it a perfect match for our long-term strategy.”
Once the deployment is complete, it will be interesting to see whether AXNY has achieved the improvements they are looking for. First, they will be able to measure the KPIs with a single integrated solution. For Infor, this is another success for its Fashion solution, the ERP and PLM solutions combined make it one of the strongest on the market. With Fortude, it has a partner that has deep expertise in the industry and should help them win even more deals.
Dan Dufault, SVP and general manager of Infor fashion & retail solutions, said, “American Exchange Group (AXNY) is the latest example of a leading Apparel brand company that has joined the Infor CloudSuite Fashion roster of customers in their quest for a digital transformation. AXNY is strategically positioned to consolidate and streamline its current processes while leveraging our technology to advance its leadership position of driving growth in the market. We look forward to a long and mutually successful relationship with the AXNY team.”
