Red wing to run on integrated business intelligence

US-based Red Wing Shoe Company says it will streamline report generation and improve overall performance of its organisation as a result of adding Lawson’s business intelligence (BI) software to its Intentia ERP system. This is the first cross-selling success for Lawson since its takeover of Intentia this year. Red Wing Shoes, which is a $500 million international shoe maker, had been an Intentia user for around two and a half years before the merger, and has now bought the Lawson M3 Business Performance Warehouse (BPW) and M3 Portal applications. “We selected Lawson’s BI solution because of its rich functionality, ease-of-use and reputation for helping its customers achieve measurable results,” says Andy Anderson, Red Wing’s IT director. “Moreover, since it is compatible with our existing M3 applications, it was more efficient to incorporate a Lawson product than investing the time and expense into a best-of-breed solution.” Red Wing plans to use the software to streamline collection, analysis and dissemination of KPIs to the management team. Automating the distribution of sales, orders and shipment information via web reports will, it says, help provide near real-time snapshot reports to business managers. It expects to reduce the time, complexity and costs associated with enterprise-wide reporting, and says it will be capitalising on information already in its existing ERP system.