Growing Pains
You’ve probably never heard of JR286 but, if you’re a sports and fitness fan, you’ve likely seen their products. They manufacture high quality sports accessories emblazoned with the Under Armour or Speedo logos and sold in big box sporting goods retailers. I especially like their hats, one of which is now riding high on my young son’s head until he loses it or wears it out.
Last week, at the CIO Decisions near San Diego, I had the opportunity to hear the JR286 story first hand. Let me first mention that my mantra is never to say something that our customers wouldn’t say. Accordingly, the COO/CIO of JR286—Ruben Inofuentes—agreed to handle our presentation at this conference.
Under Armour is a hot brand rocketing toward stardom. JR286 needs to keep pace with that growth to meet the targets of their licensing agreement. As a small company, they didn’t need a top tier, integrated enterprise applications foundation until recently. But when the time came, they needed it bad and they needed it fast. You can read more about how they faced their challenges here.
Ruben captivated the audience with his account of how they implemented a broad footprint of Oracle applications in 90 days, taking advantage of a narrow window of opportunity before their next busy season kicked in. After the presentation, I listened in as attendees came to the front and asked Ruben questions.
Implementing a top tier suite of enterprise applications in 90 days always raises a few eyebrows. We always get questions on that but have the customer stories to back up our claims. Rapid implementations are fairly commonplace for Oracle now, in association with our Oracle Accelerate initiative.
The rest of the questions asked of Ruben centered on knowing precisely the right time to consider an integrated enterprise application suite and how to make it happen in a midsize company. I’m often asked the same questions.
Generally speaking, I see three categories of midsize companies that are ready for such a strategy:
· Rapid growth companies at the lower end of the revenue spectrum—like JR286—where business is overwhelming their legacy systems
· Midsize organizations that want to standardize on a single IT platform, consolidating multiple databases, replacing numerous point solutions, and settling on one financial management backbone
· Progressive companies of all types that want to leverage the best practices and flexibility of a top tier integrated application suite to develop a strategic advantage over their larger competitors.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) recently published a report, sponsored by Oracle, on the relationship between growth and an integrated information technology strategy at midsize companies. The EIU surveyed hundreds of senior IT, finance, and management executives in midsize companies ($10m-$50m USD) around the globe. This research provides insight into the perceived constraints to adopting an integrated information technology strategy. But for me the most interesting findings relate to lessons learned from top performing companies—those midsize companies that are growing much faster than their peers.
To quote the report, “Among other characteristics, the best-performing companies in terms of revenue growth tend to:
· Agree that IT makes the business more competitive;
· Agree that the return on IT investments is higher than anticipated;
· Have a high level of IT integration;
· Agree investment in IT has better returns than investments in other areas;
· Agree that IT gives the firm the flexibility to respond to market changes; and
· Buy integrated solutions, not disparate elements.”
Interesting stuff. For the record, Oracle sponsored this report but did not influence the primary research in any way. It is what it is.
This compelling whitepaper is available for download at www.growingbusinesslink.com/profitablegrowth. Growing Business Link is a partnership between Economist.com and ExecuNet. We recently did a webcast, “Sustaining Profitable Growth”, with Lauryn Franzoni, VP and Executive Editor of ExecuNet's Center for Executive Careers. It’s a discussion about the advantages of moving to an integrated enterprise applications strategy earlier rather than later.
JR286 is a great example of how a small company harnessed integrated enterprise applications to grow fast and profitably. Don’t look for their website—they don’t have one and don’t need one. Imagine that in a Web 2.0 world! But do look for their products in your favorite sporting goods store. The hats are cool and their bags carry a 100% lifetime guarantee. I’m buying one for my sports nut son this weekend. There’s no better test of any warranty than putting a product in his grubby little hands.
Jim Lein
