Sneakersnstuff is a Swedish company that turned a sneaker collection into a global retail company.
Based in Stockholm, but with stores in around the world, the company has grown from approximately 300M SEK to 1B SEK and 3 to 16 entities in only two years. What started as a two-man operation in 1999, has since grown to be a global sneaker experience with over 200 employees.
Prior to AARO product introduction Sneakersnstuff did not perform monthly closings at all. But the company realized the need for an improvement to its core business functions, both due to rapid global expansion, and the fact that its 16 entities just wasn’t possible for the company to handle in an Excel spread-sheet.
They required new routines and an efficient group consolidation system that could support their burgeoning business, group closings and shareholder reporting requirements.
Andreas Gerde, CFO at the company, was the one that decided to go with AARO. “We chose AARO because it is a highly customizable system developed by group accounting experts, and a system where you can do most things yourself.”
The implementation was fast and smooth, he recalls, and although they worked together with an AARO consultant, he found it very pleasing that they also could perform many parts themselves.
“AARO is a system that you notice is developed from the users’ perspective. Overall, we are very satisfied with AARO.”
Andreas Gerde, CFO, Sneakersnstuff
On the same day that AARO went live at the company, Controller Nils Larsson took over the responsibility for AARO. As a first-time user, one of the most notable things about AARO he found, was that it was very easy to use compared with other systems that he has worked in at previous organisations.
He highlights the report generator which allows he and the CFO to perform both high level and in-depth reviews of profit and loss because of the drilldown and expand feature. “In other systems, you have to have a separate BI tool to analyze the group this way. Today, profit and loss, balance sheets, and numbers are now more accurate than ever before.”
“AARO fits Sneakersnstuffs business processes very well. We wouldn’t be able to keep everything together without it.”
Nils Larsson, Controller, Sneakersnstuff
Overall, Sneakersnstuff has experienced company-wide benefits from their interactions with AARO and the AARO team. For example, during their 2018 IPO, they enlisted consultants from AARO to assist with the addition of a new parent company and acquisition analyses.
Andreas Gerde summarizes: “AARO is a system that you notice is developed from the users’ perspective. You can do most things yourself; you do not have to spend a lot of time on consulting hours to arrange the smallest thing, and everything you could possibly want to do has someone already thought of. Overall, we are very satisfied with the system.”
Challenge
- Need for a group consolidation system for multiple global subsidiaries.
- Need to perform monthly closings.
- Need for a complete closing process workflow that could keep up with rapid global expansion.
Solution
- AARO visualizations and dashboards provide a complete overview.
- AARO easy-to-use web interface.
- AARO Report Generator with drilldown and expand functionality.
Outcome
- More transparency and insight about profit and loss.
- Easily handle high volume of subsidiaries and company creation.
- Seamlessly able to gather data from multiple subsidiaries and consolidate figures.
