AmAsia   

AmAsia Selects SoftShoe

BOSTON - July 28, 1997  – Global Trading Systems, a leading provider of international trade and supply chain solutions, today announced that AmAsia International Ltd. has selected SoftShoe to automate their global sourcing operations. SoftShoe, the footwear industry's only commercially available, comprehensive footwear sourcing application, will be installed in AmAsia's Taiwan, Hong Kong and head office operations.

AmAsia – a leading U.S. footwear company and exclusive distributor of Caressa, Allure, SRC and Mushrooms -- will use SoftShoe to streamline the sampling and production order processes and improve business communications between all the offices. "As a footwear importer supplying many of the nation's largest department stores and discount retailers, AmAsia places a great deal of importance on our international sourcing operations. We were looking for an application to meet our critical business objectives of improved productivity, reduced cycle times and increased customer responsiveness throughout our global organization," said Ted Finn, President of AmAsia. "We see SoftShoe as providing the technology that will enable us to meet those objectives."

"SoftShoe will provide AmAsia's global user base with the ability to update, view and report on the current status of events associated with any sample or production order by style, line, supplier or customer - with a further drill down to the associated pre-production plan(s), price history, specification(s) and last information", said Janet Kelley, Marketing Director at GTS. "It was designed for international companies, like AmAsia, where the development and procurement teams are made up of people that are physically dispersed, but who still need to interact in a single application environment to shorten cycle times and take corrective actions before problems materialize downstream. This should result in reduced costs for the development and procurement of product."

Finn said another key benefit to the system is its use of current technologies. "GTS is providing a data communications interface between our merchandise system, FootWorks, and SoftShoe in our overseas offices for receiving, processing and updating Purchase Orders.", he said. "SoftShoe, also, runs on an SQL-compliant database which opens up all that business information to us for reporting purposes. We will be able to develop reports to meet our specific needs."

SoftShoe is a client/server application designed to automate the operational processes and activities of sourcing footwear. It is the first comprehensive system to plan, process and track critical tasks beginning from the request for a sample through to the shipment of an order. A fully integrated relational database design and Internet-based communications capabilities allow the sharing of information between internal departments, offices and outside trading partners such as suppliers, agents and logistics providers.