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Supergroup - it’s only growing pains!
Posted 05/10/11
The owner of the Superdry brand loved by UK teens has had an IT nightmare – call it growing pains!
Following an August upgrade to its warehouse management systems to increase capacity and efficiency at its Barnwood site the business apparently encountered some short-term issues in the transition which ultimately caused a significant, temporary reduction both in the amount of stock and range of sizes reaching its UK stores.
Although the majority of the system issues have been rectified, some are still ongoing with temporary warehouse facilities being used to address capacity requirements. They hope that the distribution capability will have returned to normal levels of operation and have been fully upgraded with additional capability and efficiency in November – right on the edge of the buy Christmas trading period!
The cost impact will be a £6m-£9m profit hit in the current year and an increase in year end stock levels of c£2m
On a positive note one could view the IT mishap has a consequence of the Group’s rapid growth, something that is rare to find in the current retail environment! Although some might also think that a greater problem of slowing sales might be hidden in this ‘convenient’ IT nightmare.
Somewhat bizarrely the Group’s international and wholesale operations are not affected, clearly they are supported from a different warehouse!
Analysts were quick to downgrade estimates.
This entry was posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago.
