A Shipping Conversation with Movado
*Last Updated: Dec. 15, 2023
In a chat hosted by SAPinsider, now-former Movado’s Mitch Spaner and Maria Carbone, and ShipERP’s Joseph Cabrera discuss how the SAP-integrated shipping solution was able to eliminate painstaking processes by integrating with various shipping carriers and foreign trade zones, implementing dimensional weight rating and rate shopping, and creating a architecturally seamless environment in a user-friendly web interface that is native to SAP.
Are you impressed by what Movado and ShipERP achieved together? Schedule a chat to learn more about ShipERP.
Transcript
Natalie Miller: Hi, this is Natalie Miller with SAPinsider, and we are at the SCM CRM and IoT event here in Las Vegas. Today I am joined by some folks from the Movado Group. We have Mitch Spaner, Sr. Manager of Global IT Business Solutions at Movado. We also have Maria Carbone, Sr. Manager of Distributed Shared Services. We also have Joseph Cabrera, who is a partner at ERP Integrated Solutions. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for being with me today.
Maria Carbone: Thank you for having us.
Natalie Miller: So, I was hoping we could start. I’m sure everyone knows the Movado brand, but if you could just start by giving a little bit of background on the company, that would be great.
Maria Carbone: Sure. Movado is actually celebrating 135 years this year. We have nine watch brands under our umbrella. Movado is our most recognizable brand. We have two luxury brands, Concord and EBEL. Then we have our license brands, which are Coach, Tommy, Juicy, Lacoste, Ferrari, and HUGO BOSS.
Natalie Miller: So, obviously, we’re here talking about the ShipERP Solution, but if we could start by just having you run through some of the shipping challenges you were experiencing back in 2014 before the project.
Mitch Spaner: Okay. We had a point shipping solution that only covered our US and Canadian operations. We needed something that was a global ship system, and that was native to SAP. We also had challenges like our dimensional rating that we didn’t have the capabilities for. We also had a challenge that we wanted to eliminate unwanted servers from a third-party system as well.
Maria Carbone: Some of the challenges to Mitch’s point, would be we couldn’t ship through UPS World Ease and Swiss Post, and also, Swiss customs, we needed an integrated system. So, we were working with Z Tcodes in order to do our write-backs, and we didn’t have very much automation with that system. Some of our other challenges were dimensional weight ratings. We did not have that ability with our old system as well as rate shopping. That was another challenge for us.
Mitch Spaner: And we had the desire to bring our application and development people that were SAP knowledgeable into this project as well and have them support the project. We were also looking for additional planning capabilities that we did not have with our Legacy System.
Natalie Miller: In terms of the evaluation process. Can you walk us through some of the reasons why you chose ShipERP?
Mitch Spaner: Yes. We wanted a solution that could interface directly to the small parcel carriers like FedEx and UPS. We needed a solution that was native to SAP. We need a solution that provided us with some web capabilities to interface to our carriers. Maria, if you wanted to add something?
Maria Carbone: I also think one of the decision points was because they were able to provide us with a solution that was specific to a FedEx service that’s called FICE (FedEx International Controlled Export) and IPD (International Priority Direct Distribution), which our company uses daily. They seem to be the only solution that could provide us that.
Natalie Miller: Joe, my next question is for you. Supply chain solutions, as far as SAP is concerned, is an area of expertise for ERP Integrated Solutions. Correct?
Joseph Cabrera: Yeah, that’s correct. We specialize in supply chain solutions around the transportation and compliance area. We have a multi-carrier shipping solution that resides right in the SAP ERP as well as the SAP EWM platform. It allows for seamless integration between the carriers and your SAP system without having to have any kind of third-party systems, which is what Movado was using at the time we engaged with them. So, that was a big advantage for our solution for them. Our solution is blending those types of compliance and transportation, so that it’s a nice package for customers that need targeted services and compliancy area.
Natalie Miller: Okay. In terms of implementation, can you talk a little bit about that, and when the go-live was, and how the implementation went?
Maria Carbone: Sure. So, we went live about a year ago, and our implementation started in October of 2014. That’s when we started our blueprint phase, a four-person team with a mix of technical and business side. It only took us about four months to get the entire project complete start to end.
Natalie Miller: Can you talk a little bit about how the ShipERP Solutions solve some of the challenges that you were talking about before?
Mitch Spaner: Yes. We were able to solve a number of the ones that we mentioned before. For instance, we were able to set up a process for dimensional rating, where all the shippers knew exactly which boxes they could choose, and what the sizes were, so we could get our proper rating in place.
Maria Carbone: On top of that, the reporting capabilities were excellent. So, we are using the reporting on top of the dimensional weight to see where our cost savings are now within the company.
Mitch Spaner: ShipERP provided us with the ability to upgrade our shipping system without needing to upgrade our ECC system or our SAP ECC system, which was a benefit. We were able to get USPS rating and carrier labels that we didn’t have before. We were able to integrate with our foreign trade zone that we were not able to before.
Maria Carbone: I believe it also allows us now to kind of operate a little more seamless because of the fact that we don’t have an end-of-day manifesting anymore. So, there’s quite a few benefits to this upgrade.
Natalie Miller: Okay, great. You said you’ve been running about a year, correct?
Maria Carbone: Correct.
Natalie Miller: So, during that time, can you talk a little bit about some of the support and continued process improvement for the future?
Mitch Spaner: Yes. I mean, we’ve gotten some really good support from the help desk that ShipERP provides. They’re able to help us with any type of upgrades or integration questions that occur. Any type of carrier compliance or carrier rating questions that come up.
Maria Carbone: To add to that, definitely the support has been great. They always remember our business processes, and we’ve been live for a year now. So, to call up and say we’re having an issue with this, and they know exactly our business process. They’re able to really support right away for that particular issue. We do constantly have smaller projects that we’re working on. So, right now, we’re in the middle of three other enhancements of little things that we say “Hey, you know what? Now that we’re really running the system for a year, we want this.” So, we’re continuing to make process improvements everyday with their help.
Mitch Spaner: Right. Now, we’ve implemented in the US for US Canadian operations, but we’re looking to implement globally in our European operations and in our Far East operations. We see no reason that some of the capabilities that ShipERP has won’t help us quite a bit.
Natalie Miller: Okay, great. To close, Joe, I’d just like to ask you if you have any advice for other companies and some other listeners today on evaluating solutions for supply chain?
Joseph Cabrera: Yeah, absolutely. We feel we did a really good approach here with Movado, the team here, and that we did a really detailed discovery prior to engagement, and to find all the requirements with them. Really, it was kind of like a mini blueprinting session, and what that allowed us to do is really understand their requirements. It also gave them a good insight to how we perform as a partner. I think you really want to find that right partner that provides a solution. That’s really out of the box. There’s a lot of functionality, and then that you can tailor enhancements around it.
Then as they touched on with support. I mean, you want to make sure that once a product is delivered that it is going to be well supported, and they understand your business. So, when you’re calling, they can tie things together pretty quickly versus having to do too much discovery on a phone call. We pride ourselves on that.
Natalie Miller: Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate you all being here and sharing your story. Again, this is Natalie Miller with SAPinsider, and we’ve been chatting with Mitch Spaner and Maria Carbone of the Movado Group, and with Joseph Cabrera of ERP Integrated Solutions.