Executive Summary: Obermeyer offers a broad line of fashion ski apparel, including parkas, vests, ski suits, shells, ski pants, sweaters, turtlenecks, and accessories. Parkas are considered the most critical design component of a collection; the other garments were fashioned to match the parkas’ style and color. Their products were offered in five different genders: men’s, women’s, boys’, girls’, and preschoolers’. The company segments each “gender” market according to price, type of skier, and how “fashion-forward” the market was. Within each “gender”, numerous styles are offered, each in several colors and a range of sizes. In the current situation, Obermeyer is facing two major issues: inability to meet the demand of retailers during peak sales and a confusion of where to produce the garments – Hong Kong or China. The best way to mitigate the inability to meet the demand of retailers during peaks sales would be to forecast the demands with either past data or with the help of a forecasting committee. It would be idea for Obermeyer to forecast future demand with the help of a forecasting committee. To come over the confusion of which city to continue production in, Obermeyer should choose to continue short term production in Hong Kong but the Long Term production should be in China. Sport Obermeyer has the following main problems: Inability to meet the exact demand of the retailers of the latest fashion which is actually a result of poor forecasting of the jackets: Sport Obermeyer depends on the Las Vegas show to determine what fashions were going to dominate the season coming up and then produce the best fashions. This was a problem because the gap between the show and the production of final product and making it available to the retailer takes time and meanwhile anything can happen. Thus a rigid and accurate forecast must be made based on data as well as
Bibliography: http://www.hbs.edu/research/facpubs/workingpapers/papers2/0102/02-024.pdf http://www2.isye.gatech.edu/~sman/courses/2030/Newsvendor.pdf http://www.slideshare.net/glenferry/sport-obermeyer?src=related_normal&rel=708013