Skins is a specialist 'compression garment' that works by improving an athlete's circulation and blood flow during physical activity.

Skins selected SAP Busienss One and Evolution Future Solutions to provide it with a strategic business platform for its rapidly expanding global operations. Skins is replacing existing point solutions, which were failing to keep pace with the company's growth.

Skins selected Evolution Future Solutions as its SAP Business One implementation partner. Evolution provided Skins with a common and consistent approach to the global deployment, completing subsequent implementations at subsidiary locations in the UK and the US. Evolution also worked with Skins to integrate additional functionality to provide specific capability related to inventory management.

"We are on a massive growth path with global distribution and expansion," said Ron McKellar, finance director, Skins. "Our previous solution was approaching its absolute maximum capabilities. We had to use add-on products to get the information and reports that we required, we were reliant on manual processes and unable to integrate online sales with inventory."

Evaluation of a number of accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems led SkinsTM to SAP Business One. The company sought feedback from existing users and was attracted by SAP's reputation and global support footprint.

"It was clear that our existing systems would need to be replaced," said McKellar. "This provided us with time to carefully plan the implementation of SAP Business One. We also recognised the need to re-engineer some of our core processes. The new system went live at the beginning of the 2008 financial year and we saw immediate improvements, particularly in the area of report generation, which was down from 15 minutes to 15 seconds."

SAP Business One has eradicated manual processes for a range of activities, saving employee time and reducing manual errors. With a standard and globally accepted business platform in place, SkinsTM can easily add distribution partners to its global supply chain.

The company has significantly improved its ability to track sales, forecast demand and access supply information, following the implementation of an SAP Business One module for inventory management, which was developed by CitiXsys Technologies, an Evolution Futures Solutions partner.

"SAP Business One has improved our operational efficiency," continued McKellar. "Manual data entry is down and order accuracy is up along with customer satisfaction. We wanted a solution that would be instrumental to our future growth, and SAP Business One is fulfilling this expectation."