Background
XTM was born when a handful of influential friends put their heads together. During a 1999 brainstorming session, Peter Forras, Gary “X” Rae and Bill “The Uncle” Dalton sat down in a spirit of competitiveness, irreverence and deep respect, to explore what their combined lifetimes of snow expertise could teach them. The three decided to create a brand that would change the face of Australia’s snow sports industry and show the world that Australia is a country to be taken seriously in Winter sports.
The brand’s value proposition was high quality product at an affordable price resulting in a massive clientele base from on-mountain stores to city based boutique Retail outlets. They also had their sights set firmly on the overall outdoor market which offered a product synergy and global aspirations to distribute into North America and Europe.
“We wanted to extend our global reach” says XTM founder Peter Foras ” but also to better service our more isolated customers that were close to the mountains. We needed to tell people our story and make it super easy for them to support us. As we grew, I also wanted to be mindful of our headcount to ensure we expanded in an efficient and streamlined manner”.
Solution
XTM engaged with Brandscope and loaded consecutive pre-book and in-season releases onto the platform along with a magnitude of marketing and technical product information to drive brand awareness. Brandscope was then integrated into the SAP Business One system to deliver greater backend efficiencies with ordering and inventory control. Sales Agents and internal staff were then educated on the system and Retail partners prepped in readiness to pre-book launches. As a latter step, international catalogues were loaded at specific currencies to service a growing network of global distributors.
“The onboarding process was very well executed and you could tell very quickly that Brandscope was going to be a solid long term partnership”, recalls Peter. “Implementing new technology into a traditional business full of old heads was daunting but the structures were there to guide the team along, which resulted in a quick update by everyone involved”.
Outcome
The new online ordering process was immediately embraced by a solid portion of the Retailer clientele with pre-book orders quickly flowing into the SAP ERP. Refill orders soon followed as the system continued to entrench and the more isolated accounts began to increase order volumes because “it was easy to use and access” (some accounts grew by over 400%).
“By giving our trade partners the ability to see our stock availability and allow them to order 24/7 as opposed to office hours has been the main refill driver. It has also been a perfect marriage for those retailers who prefer to buy without sales rep input directly from the screen, they have effectively quadrupled their budget with us as it is their preferred way to buy”.
Marketing campaigns were later launched to further incentivise brand and specific categories. Distributors also rallied behind the system to place bulk future orders for respective territories.
“Embracing the platform into the business created true win/win benefits for our old and new customers, agents, distributors and our bottom line in broad cost savings’, said Peter. “Everyone found the system to be very intuitive and effective, and it’s consequently evolved into a essential part of our business in an effort to sell more, reduce costs and expand our domestic and international distribution.”
Testimonial
“We chose Brandscope first and foremost after consultations with leading retailers that use a combination of multiple online ordering platforms and traditional methods. It became clear to us that they placed all their Brandscope orders first due to the speed and ease of using the platform.”
