12/7/21, 10:43 AM Case Study: Performance Sailcraft | RSM Australia

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Case Study: Performance Sailcraft SHARE

16 November 2021

Industry
ILCA / Laser Dinghy Manufacturing

Company size
15-20 staff

Challenge
Performance Sailcraft Australia (PSA) is the only
builder of the Olympic class ILCA (formerly Laser) dinghy in Australia and one of only six only around
the globe.  

PSA management came to the RSM Digital Advisory team after separately implementing inventory
management and e-commerce platforms.

While both systems operated properly, PSA had two business critical challenges:

The e-commerce platform didn’t sync sales data to the inventory management system and all
sales and customer details were manually transferred between systems. This significantly
impacted the accuracy of data and stock levels were not accurate in real time.

 Shipping on the e-commerce platform was linked to one carrier and calculating on weight only.
As PSA’s key products are large and bulky items which require specialty shipping, the
automatically calculated shipping costs were often significantly undercharging the freight
component and PSA was regularly losing money on fulfilment.

Solution
The RSM Digital team worked in consultation with PSA management on weekly sprints to resolve
both the e-commerce and inventory management syncing and shipping issues.

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12/7/21, 10:43 AM Case Study: Performance Sailcraft | RSM Australia

We were able to utilize our deep product knowledge

and refine theAustralia
setup of each solution so that when the
×
final integration was turned on, the products matched
Succession
Your guide to succession plann  
planning – transferring wealth and family business
and syncing worked seamlessly. This involved a
complex
considerable level of product clean up along the way, because it brings together money power and love
which further simplified the operations of the business.

Several solutions were discussed to resolve the shipping challenge. We considered using individual
product size and weight in the calculation of individual shipping rates across multiple carriers.

We also considered the potential improvements to fulfilment, due to the unique

nature of shipping dinghies and the different sized spars and other items.

Ultimately, a scaled ‘flat rate’ shipping fee system was selected, together with a fulfilment solution to
fully automate the printing of shipping orders and notification to shipping carriers.

Outcome
In sorting out these two critical issues, PSA has been able to save over four (4) hours per week in
manual data entry and significantly improve data accuracy and timeliness of information in their
inventory management and financial systems.

Further, by calculating shipping on a scaled flat rate they

significantly reduced undercharging and improved margin
across the business.  Ultimately, the process and system
improvements allowed the PSA management team to focus
less on internal process issues and more on growth through
product development and effective marketing.

Lessons learned
Automating the back-office tasks for a traditional retail business which has moved online can be very
difficult when systems for accounting, inventory management, e-commerce and shipping are handled
separately.

We highly recommend clients approach our team when in the planning stages, rather than undertaking
post implementation integration of systems which may have been set up by different providers on
different platforms.

In this case, through our deep technical knowledge, the RSM digital team were able to facilitate a
combination of business process improvements together with intelligent use of technology to
integrate existing systems and to ensure the best possible business outcome for PSA.

For more information

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12/7/21, 10:43 AM Case Study: Performance Sailcraft | RSM Australia

If you would like further information or want to learn more about how the RSM Digital Advisory
Australia
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Your guide to succession plann
team can help you and your business, please reach out to Laurel Grey.
 
Succession planning – transferring wealth and family business
complex because it brings together money power and love
case study digital services

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