The news: Levi Strauss is consolidating nine ERP systems into a single SAP platform. The company expects to finish by mid-2027.
An ERP is the software that runs a company’s finances, orders and inventory. Levi built nine of them over the decades, region by region, when it sold mostly through wholesale.
The progress: The US switched over in 2023. East Asia and Greater China, a 14-country rollout, finished this spring. The Andes, Brazil and Europe are the last regions.
So far the company has retired more than 90 legacy systems and moved 2,600 employees onto the new platform.
The payoff: One system lets Levi fill wholesale and e-commerce orders from the same pool of inventory. E-commerce sales grew 19% last quarter.
“On my iPad, I can see the movement of goods happening as they happen,” CFO Harmit Singh told analysts this month.
The risk: ERP projects have derailed other retailers. Revlon's 2018 SAP switchover left $64 million in unfilled orders at one plant. Lidl walked away from its own SAP project after spending roughly $600 million. Both companies customized the software heavily. Levi is running SAP's standard setup instead and switching one region at a time.
The bigger picture: Levi’s filings group the ERP project with its warehouse outsourcing, including the Kentucky distribution center it is closing and handing to Maersk. Europe is the last region for both.
