How Varsity Spirit Fashions achieved a 100% adoption rate internally and transformed their business

1. How Varsity Spirit Fashions Achieved a 100%
Adoption Rate Internally & Transformed Their
Business
Session 1330

2. 2
Agenda
• Welcome to the Session,
Introductions
• Introduction to Varsity Spirit
Fashions
• Varsity Design Studio Vision and
Transformation
• Demonstration (Day in the life of a
Varsity Sales Rep and a Coach)
• High level solution
approach/overview
• Challenges Encountered (Business
and Technical)
• Business results
• Evolution of the Solution
• Questions

3. 3
Varsity Spirit is the source for
all things related to
cheerleading and dance team.
We provide educational
camps, competitions, and
uniforms to teams around the
world.
Fast Facts about Varsity
Spirit Fashion
• 300 field sales reps
• 85-90% market share
• Goal for “head to toe”
sale

4. 4
Varsity Spirit Fashion- Rep Challenges
• Huge catalog offering
• Customers unable to visualize uniforms
• No tools to create visuals for the customer
• Reps used their own tools
• Inconsistent messaging, branding

5. 5
REP VISUALS

6. 6
REP VISUALS

7. 7
Before Varsity Design Studio
• Rep visuals not accurate
• Customer disappointment
• Remaking custom garments
• Increased staff to create visual prototypes
• Lettering still generic
• Remakes still occur

8. 8
Introducing the Varsity Design Studio

9. 9
VARSITY DESIGN STUDIO

10. 10
VARSITY DESIGN STUDIO

11. 11
VARSITY DESIGN STUDIO

12. 12
VARSITY DESIGN STUDIO

13. 13
VARSITY DESIGN STUDIO

14. 14
Varsity Design Studio Demonstration
• Overall Sales Process
– Consult- use VDS
– Fitting- size/measure athletes
– Process Order in Order
Management System
• Demo (video)
– VDS
– Style Guide

15. 15
Varsity Design Studio – Solution Overview
• Key Technologies utilized:
– IBM WebSphere Commerce Enterprise Release 7.0.0.6 FP2
• Same platform they are running their shop.varsity.com B2C Sites and Staff
Stores using Extended Sites (Full redundancy and highly scalable clustered
implementation running on SUSE Enterprise Linux)
– IBM WebSphere Application Server 7.0.0.23 (Web Services Integration to their
IBM iSeries back-end) for :
• Product load
• Product configuration
• Order integration to back-end OMS
– IBM DB2 9.7 High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR)
– Adobe Scene7 Rendering Server for all dynamic image rendering
– Jasper for Reporting Requirements
– Jquery and AJAX capabilities to provide dynamic and rich user interface
– Targeted for laptop, ipad and later on the Microsoft Surface Tablet
• Managed Services and Software Support handled by Perficient

16. 16

17. 17
• Photography Process –
overcome by putting standards in
place
• Need for introduction of new
styles quickly and efficiently –
overcome by creating easy to use
custom Administration Interface to
define the various Lettering
Styles, Mascots and other custom
configuration components.
• Adoption – overcome by
establishing a rep focus group
that was included in the initial
POC process and by soliciting on-
going feedback throughout the
project.
• Training hundreds of Sales
Reps - located throughout the
USA - overcome by conducting
training in multiple cities to
introduce the program and then
held webinar follow up sessions
Transformation inherently
has challenges

18. 18
Technical Challenges
• Pushed the limits of the Scene7
Rendering Server Engine
• Mascot and Lettering Style
Complexities
• URL Length Limitations (Overcome by
using standard naming conventions)
• Overcome by leveraging Adobe Scene7
Architects and Production Team to work
through the majority of these items.
• Integration to back-end OMS
application (Overcome by using a WAS
based Perficient Web Services
Integration Server which read from a
shared db2 instance. This took the
complexity away from the Varsity IT Team
and they were able to read and write to
db2 using their existing skill sets.)
• Performance: Needed to optimize the
performance of the application to provide
real-time customized configurations
(Overcame by using Scene7 Server
Caching and instituting an annual
performance engagement.)

19. 19
BUSINESS RESULTS
• 100% adoption by the Sales
Team
• Increased Order Volume
and Order Size growth due
to visualization and
accessories
• Reduced return rates
• Using VDS images in plants to
ensure accuracy in the
manufacturing process
• Increased efficiency in the
sales process
• Reduced custom silhouette
requests

20. 20
Elated Sales Team and Happy Customers
• This program is unbelievable AMAZING!!!
• I just met with 3 schools who had no plans to buy uniforms for 2 more years.
Thanks to VDS, they have all decided to purchase new this year!
• I can't tell you what a game changer the Varsity Design Studio has been for me!
The look on a coaches face at a consultation when I can show her what we can
now do is priceless.
• I have gained more sales this year than any other year because of this tool!
• The Design Studio saves time for the rep, lets the customer see exactly what they
are ordering, it's a win-win situation!
• VDS has been such an amazing tool in gaining new business and has made my
life so much easier!
• VDS is truly driving measurable growth in sales for me this year.
• My customers are WOWed by this new tool!
• I heart VDS!
• Just received a text from one of my coaches after our VDS consult yesterday. She
said she was up all night because she was so excited to show the girls their TWO
new uniforms for next year!

21. 21
Evolution of the Solution
Convergence of
Design Studio
and OMS
Continued
expansion and
growth of the
VDS platform to
support the ever
changing and
growing product
line
Continue to
seek
performance
improvements of
dynamic
rendering

22. 22
Name: Shannon Ahern
Title: Director of Business Technology
Company: Varsity Spirit Fashions
Email: sahern@varsityspirit.com
Name: Greg Schaller
Title: Managing Director – IBM Smarter
Commerce
Company: Perficient
Email : greg.schaller@Perficient.com
CONTACTS

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