ST. PAUL, Minn., Oct. 10, 2011 – Lawson Software, an Infor affiliate, today announced that Australia-based Billabong International Limited (Billabong) has signed a contract to implement Lawson QuickStep Fashion. Billabong is a leading global player in the action sports market. Lawson QuickStep Fashion, designed and preconfigured around the needs of fashion companies, will provide Billabong tools to help manage manufacturing and distribution processes of each of its brands across its wholly-owned operations in Australia, North America, Europe, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and Brazil.


With international headquarters in Burleigh Heads, Queensland, Australia, Billabong provides apparel, accessories, eyewear, wetsuits, and hardgoods designed for surfing, skating, wakeboarding, and snowboarding. It delivers products to market under leading brands, including Billabong, Element, Von Zipper, Honolua Surf Company, Kustom, Palmers Surf, Nixon, Xcel, Tigerlily, Sector 9, DAKINE and RVCA.


“Over the past decade, our global acquisition strategy focusing on top brands and retail banners has fueled strong growth across key international markets,” said Craig White, CFO for Billabong. “As our business continues to expand, our aim is to maintain the integrity of our brands as well as our commitment to customers. Our new relationship with Lawson will help support these objectives though the implementation of an enterprise software system designed to help us gain greater supply chain visibility and provide easier access to critical information across the enterprise. The Lawson QuickStep Fashion solution will help deliver greater business agility, which will further assist us in achieving ongoing growth goals."


Following an extensive evaluation of several competing enterprise software offerings, Billabong selected the Lawson QuickStep solution to replace legacy systems around the world.


“Due to the way in which our business has grown globally across the various regions and brands, core processes such as accounting, purchasing, inventory management and sales ordering have, until now, largely been supported by different applications,” said John Austin, international systems project manager for Billabong. “We chose Lawson because we were impressed by the company’s implementation approach and its strong cultural fit. The alliance will help facilitate the creation of a central repository of critical business information by helping to consolidate enterprise data that has been stored regionally in separate ERP systems.


Lawson QuickStep Fashion is an industry-specific solution that helps eliminate the ‘islands of information’ that can occur in fashion companies. Predefined and flexible, the solution can help speed implementation by preconfiguring more than 70 percent of core processes, which when used in the format provided by Lawson, can help reduce the costs, risks and time required for deployment – and a faster time-to-benefit.


As part of the contract, Billabong will implement additional solutions such as Lawson Smart Office, Lawson Enterprise Search, Lawson Business Intelligence, Lawson M3 Analytics, Lawson M3 Warehouse Mobility, and Lawson M3 e-Sales.


“The global fashion and apparel segment is an important and strategic market for Lawson,” said David Hope, general manager and regional managing director for Lawson, Asia Pacific and Japan. “Partnering with a leading global player in the action sports market such as Billabong validates the value of our fashion industry solution, as well as our dedication and commitment to fashion customers globally.”


Lawson Professional Services will begin a phased approach to the Billabong implementation project starting with the company’s operations in Europe.

About Lawson Software
Lawson Software is an Infor affiliate with more than 4,500 customers worldwide, primarily in specific services, trade and manufacturing/distribution industries.

For more information:
Joe Thornton
Lawson
612-868-3647
joe.thornton@lawson.com