It started 37 years ago with a pair of football cleats made of kangaroo leather. That’s how John Forzani, an ex- football player who couldn’t find his favorite pair of cleats decided to open The Locker Room in Calgary.
Now, after a colorful few decades that saw massive expansion, the Forzani story is about to end with a $770 million dollar takeover bid.
It started 37 years ago with a pair of football cleats made of kangaroo leather. That’s how John Forzani, an ex- football player who couldn’t find his favorite pair of cleats decided to open The Locker Room in Calgary.
Now, after a colorful few decades that saw massive expansion, the Forzani story is about to end with a $770 million dollar takeover bid.
In a quote from CTV news, “Indeed, technology woes are just as much a part of Forzani’s history as kangaroo-leather shoes. In the early ’90s the Forzani group launched a public offering and went after their competitors by buying up Sport Chek and Sports Experts. That’s when things started falling apart. The three banners each had their own computer system, there were two different buying offices, and an inventory management system that created deficiencies.
“It almost cost us the company,” Mr. Forzani, said in an interview Monday. “The key factor is that we didn’t have the proper technology”. The enlarged company ended up with tens of millions of dollars in excess inventory and had to slash prices.
Now we should all be so fortunate to receive buyout offers of this magnitude, but the reality is that Technology is at the CORE of your business.
LeverageIT has spent many hours with one of our clients customizing a midware application that processes orders from Magento to multiple warehouses and dropshippers. It is with this data integrity and core data functionality that we were striving for.
