4. SAS Enterprise

Ryan deployed SAS Enterprise to perform cleansing and transformation methods to combine five disparate data of USH Sporting House that came from different regions, different format, and different quality into one single Integrated Reporting System to provide more holistic information about its sales, customers, products and manufacturers across all regions.

Ryan had discovered that the needs and wants of customers are constantly changing, and different regions will have different types of needs and spending ability. For example, customers in the Europe region will have a higher spending threshold while consumers in Africa region will have a lower spending threshold.

To continue to retain and attract more customers, as well as to increase market shares among different regions, the types of products created and targeted on the right market and region is essential. For example, customers in the North America region prefer products that are sporty while consumers in the Australia / Pacific region prefer more casual products.

It is essential to choose the right manufacturers to ensure the overall efficiency of the production. Depend on the agenda of the company, they may select manufacturers that can produce more products at a lower cost in a shorter time or manufacturers that can provide a better-quality product, and vice versa. More importantly, choosing the right manufacturer help to boost the profitability of the company.

Recommendations to the management

Ryan has proposed four strategies that can enhance USH Sporting House brand presence in the globe, profitability from their sales, business model, and the level of satisfaction of customers. The four strategies are (1) Technology implementation, (2) Understanding of customer and business process, (3) Products and Brands restructuring, and (4) Expansion of regions

(1) Technology implementation

Firstly, technology implementation refers to the benefits of implementing technology in their business process. Currently, USH Sporting House sell their products through three platforms, which are the departmental store, retail store, and e-commerce (online) store.

Depending on the lifestyle of the customers in certain regions, having more e-commerce (online) store allows USH Sporting House to save cost due to the pricing of maintaining traditional brick-and-mortar (physical) store and overhead. And it also enables USH to access to a wider range of audience; however, further research is required.

Through the cost saved, USH can provide more incentives for their online customers and attracting more sales and profit. Therefore, USH management has to find a balance between the traditional and digital platform based on customer needs.

(2) Understanding of customer and business process

Secondly, it is essential for USH management to have a better understanding of its customers and their business process. Currently, the membership scheme of USH varies among different regions, and this hindered the USH management to understand the performance and value of each market. Moreover, it is also difficult to roll-out a global marketing plan and campaign to cater to the demand of all regions.

And among each member, they are in the different stages of their life cycle. For example, the “Young Adult” age group may place higher an emphasis on the visual of USH products while the “Senior” age groups may prefer the products to be simple. Therefore, with the data collected through the membership, USH can provide products that cater to the needs of an individual. More importantly, it serves as a basic guideline to offer rewards to the member.

Through the reward system and the products that catered to the needs of the customer, USH should aim to attract more potential customers to spend and participate in their membership scheme, as well as to encourage existing members to spend more and enhance their membership to the next tier.

USH management should also allocate more resources on the manufacturers that are efficient and discontinue the less efficient manufacturers. Currently, they have outsourced many manufacturers in each region. USH should centralize their production to ensure the standard of the products, as well as to have better control of the quality management.

(3) Products and Brands restructuring

Thirdly, many of the USH Sporting House products have either low orders or no order. The “Clothes” and “Accessories” of the product lines are not generating as much revenue as compared to the “Shoes” product line. Therefore, USH should have innovation in their products to improve sales that are in the maturity stage. Through brands restructuring, they may tap into markets that they have low or no sales.

(4) Expansion of regions

Lastly, based on the sales data of USH past transactions, they have a lesser focus in the regions of Africa and the Middle East. Moreover, with their current stronghold market such as Europe region is already in the maturity stage, USH should tap on their global branding to expand quickly into other regions. Last but not least, USH can also consider expanding into the Asia region since they have yet to expand into the market that has high potential value and profit.

*This is for his coursework for his Specialist Diploma with Republic Polytechnic.

Referring to below for a research that Ryan has conducted using SAS Enterprise: