DHL Makes Go Sport's European Distribution Operation Leaner With Warehouse Management

Go Sport is a leading European sportswear and sports accessories retailer, catering to a whole range of disciplines including racket sports, cycling, winter sports, mountaineering, golf, horse riding, muscular training, combat sports, team sports and fishing. Up until several years ago, Go Sport's European distribution operations had been supported by a logistics service provider (LSP) and by a long-serving but ageing IT infrastructure. Go Sport decided that, to meet its fast changing business requirements and to support its European expansion, it needed a new LSP and a new technology solution that could handle its increasingly complex supply chain.

The retailer evaluated logistics service providers against two main criteria. First, the LSP needed to be operational within five months in order to execute against the first orders that Go Sport was expecting. Secondly, the LSP would have to be capable of handling fluctuating order volumes as well as shipment quantities that would often exceed 100,000 items per day. Go Sport's European management team sought to establish a world-class order fulfilment function that would allow the retailer to achieve as error- free a European distribution operation as was technically possible.

In evaluating potential LSP partners, Go Sport's decision centred around the IT infrastructure, and more specifically around the warehouse management solution proposed. DHL responded to the challenge by proposing to Go Sport a combination of its own know-how in terms of fashion logistics experience along with the expertise of Manhattan Associates in term of its warehouse management solution offering.