Gold Medal International (Gold Medal) is a premier apparel supplier to leading department stores and sporting goods retailers across the U.S. As COVID-19 has taken center stage around the world, the team leading the third-generation family-owned business has relied heavily on its reputation with retail customers and the industry to instill confidence in the future.
“While our customers are pausing and reevaluating their own needs, we are having conversations to ensure them that we will continue to be here to support them when they are ready,” said Lewis Rotstein, sales manager with Gold Medal.
While relatively new to Phocas, Gold Medal already recognizes the value that the software provides the business, enabling the company to look at various business scenarios more quickly.
“In the past, our VP of finance or planner would build scenarios using Excel spreadsheets,” said Rotstein. “It might take a couple of hours to build one, and then if we wanted to change variables or criteria, we would spend another couple of hours building another spreadsheet. It was a tedious and time-consuming process. Now, with a couple of clicks in Phocas, we can run a variety of different scenarios to help us make decisions.”
Despite the challenges facing the wholesale apparel business because of COVID-19, Gold Medal remains data-driven.
Rotstein added, “COVID-19 is not going to change the fact that data is important to our business — rather, it will enhance the need for it. Phocas will allow us to better understand our data and move faster. We love the software, and we’ve had a very positive experience so far.”