WD-40: Systems Transformation and Brand Expansion - ' Taking a Shot' (
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Taking a Shot
A year later, in January 2002, WD-40 made a quick decision when the opportunity arose to purchase the Spot Shot brand. The $35 million company was integrated into WD-40s systems within 30 days of the deals May closing.
Unlike the previous acquisition of GHB, Freeman chose not to import three years of sales data from the acquired company. "It was too much work for too little operational value," he says. "Every time, its different," he says. "In this case, it was too messy, so we just took their old system and put it in our warehouse building to use for financial reporting."
There were a few problems along the way that centered more on processes than technology, such as reconciling inventory it owned, such as cans, with orders shipped from contract manufacturers. "The first month or two after going live with Innatrack, were challenging," says Freeman. For example, if the company bought 150,000 cans from a can company, and 145,000 were filled by a manufacturer and sold, WD-40 sometimes could not find the 5,000 remaining cans in the system.
Knowing that large orders are frequently filled inexactly, plus or minus a thousand cans or so, and that some number of cans get lost in warehouses, thrown out for quality control, and so on, Freeman decided not to tinker with his software, but instead changed the process so that the can-maker now ships and invoices directly to the contract manufacturer.
The focus now, says Freeman, is on pushing newly packaged products into new sales channels, such as the Spot Shot product to be sold in pet stores. Like the acquired brands, Freeman expects new releases to fit smoothly into WD-40s information and business processes.
"Those new products just go right onto the system," he says. "Were flexible enough to handle them."
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