MIS: Crocs Global Systems and Business Strategy Case Study

This case study analyzes the management problems faced by Crocs in its global systems, including issues related to order management, retail merchandising, and warehouse management. The analysis explores the factors behind these problems, such as the lack of an integrated system and difficulties in maintaining local customizations. The solution involved implementing SAP Apparel and Footwear to support its business strategy, streamlining business processes, and improving operations and decision-making. The new systems automated purchasing, inventory, and distribution, leading to improved order satisfaction and reduced costs. The case study also examines the influence of the global business environment on Crocs, including the company's strategic adjustments in response to market demands. The provided solution covers the challenges, solutions, and outcomes related to Crocs's global systems and business transformation.

Running head: MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Name of the Student:
Name of the Universities:
Author note:

1MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
1) What management problems typical of global systems was Crocs experiencing? What
management, organization, and technology factors were responsible for those
problems?
Answer- The problems with the Crocs global systems started locally first. It has bought the
best breed systems in several areas for order management, retail merchandising, and
warehouse management and for the Electronic Data Interchange functions. This approach
lacked in integrated system and led to enterprise wide connectivity and a strong need for the
maintenance. The local customisation of its process comprised of attempting for and realising
the integrations of all the functions. All these have made integration of systems over the
regions very difficult to achieve. Even the most basic structures became difficult to maintain
and carry out. By the year 2011, it was clear that the changes in the Crocs systems were not
sustainable and that it must be fixed by the other staff and the management. Moreover, the
Multilanguage orders and cross currency were not consistent and also, the local business
regulations needed to be managed by hand.
2) How did Crocs’s new systems and use of SAP Apparel and Footwear support its
business strategy? How effective was the solution chosen by the company?
Answer- Crocs is considered to be a world leader in the field of innovation or new products
in the footwear industry. The overall collection of products under Crocs is huge and it offers
a wide range of footwear right from seasonal to stylish one. Its business is worldwide famous
and it has performed exceptionally well in most of the nations. However, in order to support
the growth of the company, Crocs was teamed up with the SAP Apparel and Footwear
solutions for capturing the important data and analyse it for improving the profits of the
company. Its main aim for choosing this approach is to avoid the customisation of the

2MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
systems from top to bottom. The SAP Apparel and Footwear solutions supported Crocs
business strategy as it provided three way size for the sellers of the footwear (Majeed and
Rupasinghe 2017). The senior Vice President of the company, Sir Dennis Sheldon of SAP
Apparel and Footwear solutions gradually became instrumental in process of excising the
excess of SKUs which have been driving many system customisations at regional level and
was shackling the global integration (Grauer 2018).
3) How did Crocs’s new systems improve operations and management decision
making?
Answer- The new systems in Crocs are the automation of the purchasing, the chargebacks,
the inventory segmentation, delivery tracking and all the other aspects of manufacturing,
designing and the distribution of the footwear in the SAP Apparel and Footwear solutions.
Along with the streamlining of the business processes, the sales of Crocs after the
implementation of the new systems got outstanding for some days and also there was a
notable improvement in the demand satisfaction percentage of the orders that satisfied from
the inventory on has. With the same, the SG&A, the freight costs as well as the
nonproduction selling expenses and expenditures that combine with the commissions and the
sales and travel expenses, all got reduced to a substantial amount (Rodriguez-Villalabos,
Garcia-Martinez and Mata-Camarena 2018). Also, the payroll expenses and the costs of
advertising was also decreased. Moreover, the new systems have also enabled Crocs to
increase its medium order quantity to the industry standards enterprise wide with the relative
ease. It was not able to realise the gains in its productivity because of the forward thinking
abilities of its management after the implementation of the new systems. One of the other
major changes in this context is that of the decision of Crocs to bring its VAS more in line
with the standards of the industry for making it easier to package the orders and transfer them

3MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
by means of distribution centres. Moreover, the allocation of the orders, the order stats and
the inventory availability were also very easily obtainable and this was making the supply
chain management in global context, a lot easier.
4) What influence does the global business environment have on Crocs, and how does
that affect its choice of systems?
Answer- It has been analysed from the given case study that in the year 2014, Crocs
experienced a significant company shakeup. About 100 of their stores got closed and 70
employees lost their jobs. With the same, it also experienced scaling back of its fashion
seeking and newer styles to focus on its casual styles. It also reduced the investment in the
smaller markets for concentrating on a total of six nations comprising of the Germany, the
UK, the South Korea, United States, China and Japan. The global environment forces were
influencing the companies to a great extent. However, Crocs was very smart and hence, catch
on early. It adopted effective IT system for preventing itself from going completely under
during 2014. It is to state that the high demands of the global orders have changed the way
Crocs used to conduct its business both domestically and internationally.

4MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
References:
Grauer, A.L., 2018. Proceedings of the Eighty‐Sixth Business Meeting of the American
Association of Physical Anthropologists New Orleans, Louisiana April 21, 2017. American
journal of physical anthropology, 165(2), pp.378-408.
Majeed, A.A. and Rupasinghe, T.D., 2017. Internet of Things (IoT) embedded future supply
chains for industry 4.0: an assessment from an ERP-based fashion apparel and footwear
industry. International Journal of Supply Chain Management, 6(1), pp.25-40.
Rodríguez-Villalobos, M.C., García-Martínez, J.G. and Mata-Camarena, R.O., 2018.
Economies of Scale and Minimization of the Cost: Evidence from a Manufacturing
Company.