Today, Columbus Consulting International, a leading retail consulting firm, announced its recent engagement with MALIN+GOETZ, a global personal care brand, to re-platform the business for omnichannel growth. MALIN+GOETZ is now benefiting from enhanced omnichannel capabilities, increased transparency, and more efficient reporting methods.
MALIN+GOETZ was founded in 2004 as a curated assortment of six core essentials for face, body and hair, and has since grown to sell more than 100 SKUs. The global self-care brand creates its own products, requiring the company to balance vendors and manufacturers. As well, the company sells to consumers directly and distributes to partners in wholesale clubs, hotels, airlines and gyms. As MALIN+GOETZ expanded, so did its list of technical hurdles.
MALIN+GOETZ found that it was bringing in more data than its systems could handle, forcing team members to work manually across Excel files, leading to unnecessary frustration and lost time. With tremendous growth forecasted for the near future, MALIN+GOETZ needed to advance its core systems to strengthen its omnichannel and international reach.
To address these challenges, MALIN+GOETZ brought in Columbus Consulting to assist in the vendor selection and implementation of new ERP, POS and inventory management systems. In just 12 months, Columbus Consulting helped ensure that the re-platforming went live on time and without delay, despite downtime during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We had outgrown our systems and processes, and we were spending considerable time on the manual processes of controlling the moving parts,” said Susan Gould, vice president supply chain and operations, MALIN+GOETZ. “The partners from Columbus Consulting served as key members of our team, and we would not have been able to complete the project without their expertise. This achievement is a huge leap forward from where we’ve been, and we’re now confident that we’ve platformed the business to scale.”
Now with one platform spanning every aspect of the business, MALIN+GOETZ is embracing true omnichannel opportunities. The company anticipates offering new customer benefits like a seamless buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS) option and a unified gift card program as a result of the partnership. Internally, the MALIN+GOETZ team is utilizing better reporting systems that deliver a single source of truth, capable of propelling business analysis instead of hindering it.
“With the re-platforming complete, MALIN+GOETZ is well-positioned to grow for the next five to 10 years,” said Richard von Hirschberg, partner, Columbus Consulting. “Internal processes are already more efficient and transparency across the entire supply chain has been restored. We’re excited to see the ongoing results of our combined efforts as MALIN+GOETZ continues to roll out new omnichannel capabilities.”
