Sportisimo accelerates international growth with Dynamics 365

Sportisimo, the leader among Czech sporting goods retailers, is expanding the number of customers within and beyond its national borders. In the past, opening a new branch abroad involved complex integration and alignment of disjointed software systems. Adopting Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance has cleared the way for a smooth expansion into other markets. With simplified technology stack, Sportisimo now needs only three to four months to expand to a new country from an ERP perspective, down from 14 months before.

In line with its guiding principle of "Life in Motion", Czech sporting goods retailer Sportisimo constantly evolves to reach more customers and inspire a healthier lifestyle. “In December 2021, we reached 200 stores in five European countries. We grow dynamically—both in the number of physical stores and expansion of our e-shop,” starts Petr Kraus, CIO at Sportisimo.

The company’s patchwork of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and point of sales (POS) solutions was hampering faster growth. “The previous solution was good as cash register software, but nothing more,” Kraus says. “We had an external finance system and needed integrations with Microsoft Excel and other tools for more advanced functions,” Kraus explains. “As a result, the IT team was dealing with lots of integration issues and had to constantly solve problems instead of doing meaningful work.”

A dynamic move to an agile platform

To eliminate lengthy integrations and gain a clearer view of stocks, stores, and sales internationally, Sportisimo needed a correspondent ERP and POS system. “Sportisimo is a very agile and fast-evolving company, so we needed a flexible tool to unlock our growth and facilitate rollout into new markets,” says Kraus.

After careful consideration, it decided to deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance. “We chose an expert Microsoft implementation partner, Xalution—they knew our sector inside out, which was a crucial advantage,“ explains Kraus. “We aimed for a fully functional system so we can operate with even more agility.”

“From an ERP perspective, previously, expansion into a new market could take us up to 14 months. With Dynamics 365 Finance, we can achieve that in three to four months.”

Petr Kraus, CIO, Sportisimo

Achieving scale with a single data source

Sportisimo now connects operations, finance, sales, and project management teams in a single application, consolidating data from various sources. This enables managers to plan strategically with high accuracy, and provides users with up-to-date, reliable information. “All data is consistent and can be traced from pre-orders, delivery planning, merchandise approval, to replenishment,” shares Kraus. “Also, we save time, because we no longer have to merge information between different systems.”

Consolidated data management also speeds up roll out to other countries. “From an ERP perspective, previously, expansion into a new market could take us up to 14 months. With Dynamics 365, we can achieve that in three to four months.”

Flexibility to meet future needs

The leader among sportswear and equipment retailers can now seamlessly process millions of transactions and operations. Sportisimo’s internal teams are also freed from repetitive, inefficient work.

The flexible ERP system aligns with the company's dynamic growth. “Our big plan is continuing digitization and saving operations time via robotic process automation with Microsoft Power Automate,” confirms Kraus. The company is also exploring Microsoft Power Apps to build functional business apps and thinking to incorporate Azure Data Lake Analytics to manage large volumes of data. Because there’s no end to expanding an ERP platform. In each new department, with every new module, I see potential for improvement of the company processes."