COMPANY: L Brands Inc. (formerly known as Limited Brands Inc.)
INDUSTRY: Retailing
BRANDS: Flagship brands include Victoria’s Secret, La Senza, Pink, Bath & Body Works, and Henri Bendel. (View complete list here.)
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 94,600
CUSTOMER WEBSITE: http://www.lb.com
OVERVIEW:
Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, L Brands Inc. (formerly known as Limited Brands Inc and The Limited Inc.) is a fashion retailer listed as #258 in the (2013) Fortune 500 list of top companies. To offer some context to L Brands success, in 2013 they posted $10.5 billion in revenue. L Brands business model is aimed at creating and managing brands worldwide. Their products are sold through retail brand stores around the world, online, through franchises and independent retailers.
THE CHALLENGE:
Across the L Brands infrastructure, IT systems and production processes were disconnected, not allowing enough control over variations in product data, product lifecycle and supply chain processes. Challenges also included the heightened need for automation to manage complex product data and to create efficient operations. Solving L Brands challenges was also notably one of the largest SAP Retail implementations globally to date.
THE SOLUTION:
With comprehensive SAP ERP solutions for the Retail Industry, Sage Solutions Consulting (Sage) was engaged during the initial integration testing phase and early analysis indicated a critical series of issues with the existing role set, putting the planned go-live at risk. L Brands engaged Sage Solutions to navigate the defects and to adjust design to ensure a seamless and secure solution. This was accomplished by overhauling the existing design, organizing department-based access and delivering the new roles (within a very limited time frame) in time for the second cycle of integration testing.
Sage Solutions Consulting actively participated in the stabilization of both the financial, BW phase, and L Brand merchandising rollout. Sage was also tasked with auditing and retooling the original design and as a result reduced the proposed roles by over 60%, and removed critical segregation of duties conflicts.
THE RESULTS:
Defect numbers were reduced significantly and L Brands was able to exit testing on time in preparation for a successful go-live. Sage Solutions Consulting provided design, building, unit testing and user roles – all on budget and on time. As with the previous go-lives, the roles were scalable, properly segregated with respect to SOD and business requirements, and in alignment with best practice methodology.
As a result of initial success L Brands assigned Sage Solutions Consulting as the lead for both production support of existing roll-outs, and design and implementation lead for future projects. Over the next 3 years, Sage successfully engaged L Brands to lead the security efforts behind numerous successful go-lives.
Services included (but were not limited to designing, testing, implementing, and supporting FI, Make-Source, Buy-Move, EHS, and GTS functionality, among others, while assisting LBI in implementing the Approva toolset for governance. Sage also developed and delivered comprehensive training on SAP security concepts, guiding the team of FTEs that continue to support the SAP environment to this day.
Sage Solutions Consulting’s strong relationship with L Brands continues today and it’s efforts are integral in reducing operational complexity and extending an advanced, stable and compliant SAP environment.
CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL:
“Limited Brands have enjoyed a relationship with Sage Solutions Consulting since 2005 when they were engaged to assist with the design of our Global SAP implementation. Within a very limited timeframe and a demanding schedule, Sage overhauled the design of our Finance implementation and ensured we went live on schedule using best practices. Sage’s documented processes and design philosophy have been utilized by our internal resources ever since.
The quality and professionalism of Sage Solutions Consulting’s work has led to our continued engagement (since 2005) and Sage has assisted in every aspect of our security design and most recently in our complicated operational segmentation. Sage has once again exceeded expectations and L Brands will not hesitate to them in the future.” - Brian Barton, Senior Data Security Analyst, IAM Operations, L Brands.
NOTE: This Case Study is intended to demonstrate both the breadth and scope of Sage Solutions Consulting’s level of engagement and competency. For more information or if you have any questions please contact us directly.