IBM Amplify Session 1330 | How Varsity Spirit Fashions Achieved a 100% Adoption Rate Internally & Transformed Their Business

How Varsity Spirit Fashions Achieved a 100% Adoption Rate Internally & Transformed Their

Business

Session 1330

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Agenda

• Welcome to the Session,

Introductions

• Introduction to Varsity Spirit

Fashions

• Varsity Design Studio Vision and

Transformation

• Demonstration (Day in the life of a

Varsity Sales Rep and a Coach)

• High level solution

approach/overview

• Challenges Encountered (Business

and Technical)

• Business results

• Evolution of the Solution

• Questions

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Varsity Spirit is the source for all things related to cheerleading and dance team. We provide educational camps, competitions, and uniforms to teams around the world.

Fast Facts about Varsity

Spirit Fashion

• 300 field sales reps

• 85-90% market share

• Goal for “head to toe”

sale

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Varsity Spirit Fashion- Rep Challenges

• Huge catalog offering

• Customers unable to visualize uniforms

• No tools to create visuals for the customer

• Reps used their own tools

• Inconsistent messaging, branding

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REP VISUALS

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REP VISUALS

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Before Varsity Design Studio

• Rep visuals not accurate

• Customer disappointment

• Remaking custom garments

• Increased staff to create visual prototypes

• Lettering still generic

• Remakes still occur

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Introducing the Varsity Design Studio

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VARSITY DESIGN STUDIO

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Varsity Design Studio Demonstration

• Overall Sales Process

– Consult- use VDS

– Fitting- size/measure athletes

– Process Order in Order

Management System

• Demo (video)

– VDS

– Style Guide

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Varsity Design Studio – Solution Overview

• Key Technologies utilized:

– IBM WebSphere Commerce Enterprise Release 7.0.0.6 FP2

• Same platform they are running their shop.varsity.com B2C Sites and Staff

Stores using Extended Sites (Full redundancy and highly scalable clustered

implementation running on SUSE Enterprise Linux)

– IBM WebSphere Application Server 7.0.0.23 (Web Services Integration to their

IBM iSeries back-end) for :

• Product load

• Product configuration

• Order integration to back-end OMS

– IBM DB2 9.7 High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR)

– Adobe Scene7 Rendering Server for all dynamic image rendering

– Jasper for Reporting Requirements

– Jquery and AJAX capabilities to provide dynamic and rich user interface

– Targeted for laptop, ipad and later on the Microsoft Surface Tablet

• Managed Services and Software Support handled by Perficient

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• Photography Process –overcome by putting standards in place

• Need for introduction of new styles quickly and efficiently –overcome by creating easy to use custom Administration Interface to define the various Lettering Styles, Mascots and other custom configuration components.

• Adoption – overcome by establishing a rep focus group that was included in the initial POC process and by soliciting on-going feedback throughout the project.

• Training hundreds of Sales Reps - located throughout the USA - overcome by conducting training in multiple cities to introduce the program and then held webinar follow up sessions

Transformation inherently has challenges

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Technical Challenges• Pushed the limits of the Scene7

Rendering Server Engine

• Mascot and Lettering Style Complexities

• URL Length Limitations (Overcome by using standard naming conventions)

• Overcome by leveraging Adobe Scene7 Architects and Production Team to work through the majority of these items.

• Integration to back-end OMS application (Overcome by using a WAS based Perficient Web Services Integration Server which read from a shared db2 instance. This took the complexity away from the Varsity IT Team and they were able to read and write to db2 using their existing skill sets.)

• Performance: Needed to optimize the performance of the application to provide real-time customized configurations (Overcame by using Scene7 Server Caching and instituting an annual performance engagement.)

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BUSINESS RESULTS

• 100% adoption by the Sales

Team

• Increased Order Volume

and Order Size growth due

to visualization and

accessories

• Reduced return rates

• Using VDS images in plants to

ensure accuracy in the

manufacturing process

• Increased efficiency in the

sales process

• Reduced custom silhouette

requests

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Elated Sales Team and Happy Customers

• This program is unbelievable AMAZING!!!

• I just met with 3 schools who had no plans to buy uniforms for 2 more years.

Thanks to VDS, they have all decided to purchase new this year!

• I can't tell you what a game changer the Varsity Design Studio has been for me!

The look on a coaches face at a consultation when I can show her what we can

now do is priceless.

• I have gained more sales this year than any other year because of this tool!

• The Design Studio saves time for the rep, lets the customer see exactly what they

are ordering, it's a win-win situation!

• VDS has been such an amazing tool in gaining new business and has made my

life so much easier!

• VDS is truly driving measurable growth in sales for me this year.

• My customers are WOWed by this new tool!

• I heart VDS!

• Just received a text from one of my coaches after our VDS consult yesterday. She

said she was up all night because she was so excited to show the girls their TWO

new uniforms for next year!

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Evolution of the Solution

Convergence of Design Studio

and OMS

Continued expansion and growth of the

VDS platform to support the ever

changing and growing product

line

Continue to seek

performance improvements of

dynamic rendering

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Name: Shannon Ahern

Title: Director of Business Technology

Company: Varsity Spirit Fashions

Email: [email protected]

Name: Greg Schaller

Title: Managing Director – IBM Smarter

Commerce

Company: Perficient

Email : [email protected]

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