A reputation for fashion, style and sophistication in women's and men's apparel and accessories has driven Elie Tahari's expansion among retailers here and abroad as well as into its own bricks-and-mortar locations. Senior managers soon realized, however, that they needed the technical tools to protect their brand within these diverse markets and multiple retail channels.

A key decision in achieving that goal — along with significant improvements in overall performance management — came with the addition of the IBM Cognos business intelligence (BI) application. Since it was installed in 2003, Elie Tahari has been able to measure its performance in multiple operations and to make the appropriate adjustments.

This capability is all the more valuable because of the inherent sophistication of the brand's merchandise (and customers), as well as the complexities and distances involved in its international operations, which includes some 40 countries.

Elie Tahari apparel is sold by Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and major department stores, as well as in the company's 19 mostly East Coast stores. Plans call for the opening of the first international store in Kuwait, followed by others in Athens and Istanbul, later this year.

Maintaining the brand's status and stature requires massive amounts of up-to-date information dealing with fundamental day-to-day details such as ensuring that retailers adhere to the brand's price points and avoid inappropriate markdowns, that their marketing and promotional programs are appropriate and consistent with the brand's positioning and making certain that high-quality materials are being used by its manufacturing partners.

Selection of the IBM Cognos BI suite meant Elie Tahari was able to integrate its own best-of-breed systems on varying platforms that could communicate with each other at a transactional level, and maintain that level of communication with speed and accuracy.

The implementation "was intended to be a single point for reporting and data analysis for the entire company, and it has lived up to this expectation," says Nihad Aytaman, director of business applications for the New York-based company.

"We do not write any reports in our legacy applications and have replaced most of the existing legacy reports with BI screens and reports. Our user community has adopted our BI implementation to the point of total dependence on it in performing their daily duties."

Instant visibility
ROI "has been more tangible in some areas than others, but is evident throughout," Aytaman says. "We have seen a 20 percent across-the-board increase in our packing efficiency after showing our packing supervisor a graphic performance analysis of packers. Our own retail division has changed its buying patterns after they found out that [previous] patterns were inconsistent with what was selling on the floor.

"We have provided instant visibility across production and sales delivery requirements, which improved our shipping efficiency from 80 percent air and 20 percent ocean to 45 percent air and 55 percent ocean."

More than 500 retailers and all but one of the top 20 consumer product companies use IBM Cognos, according to Patricia Waldron, AVP, global retail industry, for IBM's Cognos software brand. They are "adopting our performance management application quickly," she says, "because everybody wants to answer" several key questions:

How are we, as a company, doing?
Why is that happening? Why is a product not moving well? Is it a regional pattern, is it a particular color, or is it perhaps bad weather in a certain market?

What should we do next? If sweaters are hot in the east and not in the west, how much merchandise should be transferred, and to where? And what about the required planning, budgeting and forecasting for that transfer? How should the merchandise be shipped, and how will all those decisions affect profit margins?

While the traditional retail model always offered its own litany of mind-boggling complexity, subtlety and a mountain of important details, today's sophisticated version of retailing helps make a strong case for these applications, she says.

"The trend toward multi-channel operations began eight to 10 years ago with consumer companies entering the retail space with outlet stores," Waldron says. "The centers became so popular that manufacturers said, ‘we should have our own stores.' The brands began to move from being manufacturers to being retailers, as well, and they started outsourcing their manufacturing."

IBM Cognos "allows companies like Elie Tahari, which has its own stores and outlet locations in addition to its retail customers, to use the same tools and metrics to manage" all of its business parts, she says. "And that is what companies are looking for — a single system to match the other elements of their business.

"Retailers and brands want to better understand individual markets and results from a variety of options and individual stores, as well as how they can best compete for the consumer," Waldron says. "It's all about differentiating the brand … and making sure it's positioned to be viable and profitable."

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