Case Study: Shaw Industries achieves higher sample inventory turns, improved cash flow and reduced cost of sales with Varicent

Gaining new insight into cost of sales and customer profitability with sales performance analytics

Shaw Industries, the world’s largest carpet manufacturer, faced a fast-moving, highly competitive flooring market where changing design trends make sample management and sales incentives critical. Relying on spreadsheets left sample inventory and territory budgets weeks out of date, tied up capital in unused samples, and made it hard to manage complex customer rebate programs and understand true customer profitability.

Shaw extended its existing IBM sales performance management/analytics platform (IBM Incentive Compensation Management) to cover sample inventory, budgeting, customer rebates and nationwide sales trends. The analytics solution gave instant visibility into spending and product movement, raised sample turns from 0.9 to 2.2 (improving cash flow), enabled better rebate and profitability decisions across dozens of programs, supported targeted sales coaching, and reduced the cost of sales while improving margins.

Shaw Industries

Sheri Stroop

Manager of Special Projects