Case Studies
The Next Great American Sport
Bracing for growth by tracing financial impact to operational activity and allowing for forward-thinking decisions.
Overview
Spikeball’s game, roundnet, has rapidly grown in popularity across North America. With the objective of “building the next great American sport”, Spikeball saw increased growth from 2014 and eventually appeared on ABC’s show “Shark Tank ” in 2015. Their social media popularity grew in the following years, and they even aired a competition on ESPN in 2018. In 2020, looking to gain greater operational efficiencies as a means to manage their rapidly growing business, Spikeball came to Appficiency.
Company Name: Spikeball
Company Location: Chicago, Illinois
Industry: CPG, Wholesale Distribution
Number of Employees: 100+
Number of Users: 28
System/Process Replaced: Purchasing, Inventory, Sales, Light Manufacturing, Celigo (Amazon & Shopify integration), SCA website, BrightPearl ERP replacement
The Challenge
The main challenge at Spikeball centred around data. Namely, the ability to have operational activities reflected through quality data while having reliable reporting to make forward-thinking decisions. Prior to their implementation, the organization struggled with traceability when it came to tracking inventory in transit and landed cost. They were lacking key classifications to their data for performance reporting based on metrics such as region and sales channel. Additionally, Spikeball had many systems working independently across different processes, including Amazon, Shopify, Monday.com, Shipwire, ShipHawk, and other 3PL systems. Spikeball was left with a collection of unclean data, unable to trace financial impact to operational activities. They decided to move to an ERP system and needed an implementation that would cover their process from top to bottom, including integrations with their current systems.
The Solution
Spikeball needed a solution that provided more visibility into both their costs and performance drivers. Integration planning and execution was a large success factor in achieving cleaner data for Spikeball as they required integrations with 3rd party systems both in their inventory tracking as well as their sales process. These integrations included multiple Amazon stores, Shiphawk, bill.com and many other third-party platforms. appficiency provided Spikeball with a solution to accurately track their inbound shipments, including landed cost. We also provided additional classifications so they could report on metrics by region and sales channel. Optimizations were made to the company’s order planning process through a custom logic for item commitment based on long-term and short-term sales orders. This allowed Spikeball to easily plan and forecast their needs based on quality data, preparing them for future growth.
Top Three Wins
Developed an SCA website for Wholesale customers
A highly customized website that maximized user-friendliness with minimal issues upon Go-Live.
Custom logic created for commitment
Utilized for long-term and short-term sales orders which optimized Spikeball’s planning and forecasting capabilities.
Robust Reporting
Allowed Spikeball to report on various segments they could not report on before (Region, Sales Channel), granting more visibility into operations and key business drivers.
Watch The Spikeball Webinar
March 21, 2021: Spikeball and Appficiency teamed up to bring NetSuite users an unique opportunity to learn more about the benefits of this dynamic and expansive platform in relation to product distribution. Hosted and facilitated by Appficiency, this exclusive online webinar event featured special guest speaker, Spikeball Director of Finance & Accounting, Jurie Victor. Jurie Victor is a groundbreaking leader in the sports products industry. Launched in 2008, Spikeball has grown into an international phenomenon, harnessing over 4 million players worldwide.
Headquartered in Chicago USA, Spikeball employs 40 full-time staff members, and hosts over 150 global tournaments each year. Their product has been mentioned on the popular tv shows Shark Tank and The Today Show, and has gained support and recognition from YouTube celebrity Casey Neistat, comedy group Dude Perfect, Inc Magazine, and countless other athletes and celebrities alike.