Pandora is disrupting and transforming the jewelry industry by making beautiful jewelry an affordable luxury. Experiencing explosive growth, the company turned to Microsoft to help it establish global processes, streamline operations, and gain business insights. With Microsoft cloud services—including Microsoft Azure, Office 365, and Microsoft Dynamics solutions—Pandora better connects and serves its retailers, wholesalers, franchisees, and consumers worldwide to further its competitive edge.
Pandora sells its pieces in more than 90 countries through approximately 9,500 points of sale, including retailers, franchises, and 1,500 concept stores. Today, all those points of sale interact, sharing best practices and gaining both efficiencies and insights for improved sales. The company is progressing on a path toward providing tailored service to the women who wear Pandora jewelry and those who purchase the jewelry as gifts. The goal: keep customers happy by consistently producing fresh, modern designs that reflect the images that they want to show the world.
A critical part of the puzzle is how Pandora manages its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations. “Most options involved more resources and higher costs than we wanted,” says Kennedy. “Standardizing on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations helped us save costs while giving employees a familiar user experience. Plus, Microsoft had a good technology road map and an understanding that customers like us want products that work well together.”
The company’s ultimate vision is “to become the world’s most-loved jewelry brand.” To achieve this goal, Pandora is using its Microsoft Dynamics–based ERP and CRM solutions to support not only its internal employees but also its thousands of wholesalers, retailers, and franchisees as together they create amazing customer experiences. In the past, Pandora had no structured reporting or ability to compare stores and analyze results. “We needed better business intelligence and transparency so we could make data-driven decisions. We didn’t know, for instance, if ring sales in Australia were outpacing those in the United States and, if so, why,” says Kennedy. “Now we use our ERP and CRM systems to see how different markets are doing, how the franchise business is growing, whether some stores have stronger visual merchandising or different promotional marketing programs, and other valuable input.”
Pandora field teams use a central location to submit data about the retailers they visit; to view their performance, goals, and other account-related details; and to obtain timely information to share. Continues Kennedy, “Using CRM to make data available and sharable across roles, we’re building our sales community’s knowledge and enthusiasm, which helps them provide an even better jewelry-buying experience.”
As the popularity of Pandora jewelry increases, creating new points of sale has rapidly become a company priority, whether the new accounts are Pandora stores or sections of existing department stores. It’s critical for the company to maintain consistency across all aspects of these retail locations, from their look and feel to their financial data routing. “We’re filling the gaps and covering the full lifecycle of an account—all from within one integrated system,” says Kennedy. “By tracking and managing all related teams and activities from within Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we can open new accounts more quickly and smoothly than before.”
