Timbuk2 has business insights in bag with PivotLink

15 May '10

3 min read

Customers of Timbuk2, the successful designer of stylish urban messenger bags and accessories, aren't the only ones enjoying cool "build your own" capabilities over the web. Using the same principles that allow customers to blend styles, sizes and fabrics using the "Build Your Own Bag" feature at website, employees and supply chain partners are now creating self-service analytical dashboards and reports to make instant business decisions and accelerate growth. Timbuk2's on-demand analytics environment is powered by PivotLink, the leading provider of business intelligence solutions delivered via Software as a Service (SaaS).

In a recent webinar on improving performance using retail analytics, the company known for popularizing the messenger bag as an urban fashion accessory described how this new generation of business intelligence in the Cloud allows Timbuk2's managers to optimize inventory and anticipate customer preferences in a lightning-fast made-to-order environment.

Timbuk2 is popular with road warriors and adventure-seekers who create bags that are as individual as they are to tote everything from iPads to laptops and other daily essentials. Customers select from durable and stylish fabrics such as "Ballistic Nylon and X-Pac" and "hack" their own bags in colors like "Sourgrapes, Jellyfish, Limeaide and Potrero."

Serving consumers and corporations around the globe requires an innovative, easy-to-use analytics environment. With products available through its website, retail store and specialty retailers like REI, Timbuk2 needed a solution to integrate and access large volumes of data from its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with its 3rd-party warehouse and other business data without draining IT resources to build and maintain a data warehouse.

During the webinar, Timbuk2 highlighted the benefits of standardizing on PivotLink as its enterprise-wide business intelligence platform:

• Reduced its dependence on spreadsheets and eliminated the IT backlog, recovering 16 hours per week that were previously spent developing reports
• Enables all employees to perform their own analysis of current business information using PivotLink dashboards and reports
• Secure way to share data and collaborate with key stakeholders
• Easier to predict and fulfill customer demand
• Real-time inventory accuracy increases customer satisfaction, repeat orders and revenue

"Our ERP system had a wealth of data, but there was really no way to access, analyze or collaborate on that data in a timely fashion," said Chuck Schweiger, business analyst, Timbuk2. "When I realized that I could get granular, future inventory-availability data and push it out to the business, my expectations for PivotLink were exceeded. Before, we published that information in Microsoft Excel twice a week. Now, it's near real-time. PivotLink offers outstanding flexibility and value that is helping us streamline decision making across our entire supply chain."

More Information Technology News - United States Of America...