SAP meltdown keeps Levis jeans off the shelf
This is the second massive SAP mishap this year. First was Waste Management’s lawsuit for $100 million, and now Levi’s couldn’t ship product for an entire week.
From guardian.co.uk
Gavin at The Reg caught this story last week but I just saw it on The Guardian. Where’s the link, Guardian?
But what Levi’s was unprepared for was the fact that the company’s IT operation could not get its multiyear, multimillion dollar investment in SAP’s business software to work optimally.
The situation became so bad that early in the second quarter, the system was shut down completely for a week. On a conference call a few days ago to announce a 98 percent drop in second-quarter profitability, CEO John Anderson said the computer disaster was a “substantial” factor in a 19 percent decline in U.S. sales and the subsequent profit meltdown.
After a sales and profitability comeback in 2007, the jeans maker was confident going into a tough 2008 that, despite a global slowdown, progress would continue.
