Potomac d.o.o.
CONNECTION BETWEEN NAV/LS RETAIL, DYNAMIC WEB & WORLD OF LUXURY FASHION.
CROATA – Style inspired by Heritage
CROATA is Croatian heritage brand specialized for silk, cotton and leather garments for both man and woman.
Excellence does not happen overnight. By unifying tradition and design, CROATA encaptures the memory of the Croatian cultural heritage and combines it with today's fashion, class and sophistication pursuing excellence in all its forms.
CROATA promote the centuries - old tradition of creation and production of neckties and scarfs promoting the core values represented by the cravat and its origins from Croatia.
CROATA neckties, shawls and scarves are all made from the finest silk in exceptionally small series and are handcrafted to perfection.
Strategy CROATA promotes - celebrates what was done in the past, while allowing the brand to move forward and shift to better suit cultural relevance for today’s marketplace and consumers. For CROATA it is rooted in what the core values of the cravat are: dignity, respect, and self-awareness, as well as love, ceremony, and business success.
CROATA pays a special care to the design, offering a wide range of colors, patterns and motifs. CROATA designs are all conceived and created in-house and manufactured in our production facilities, allowing CROATA to offer consistent high quality.
CROATA products are not just fashion accessories for us but the basic of the men’s and women’s style with a strong symbolic value.
The company Potomac was established by two pioneers of change, who redefined a series of aspects of the fashion industry. Dissatisfied with the approach to cravats and male and female classical fashion in general, they brought new life to that key fashion accessory, taking it back to its spiritual roots. In 1990 they established the Potomac company in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.
At the time, there was a long tradition of silk handicrafts in Croatia, which reached its peak at the beginning of the 20th century, when it was the third country in Europe in terms of silk production. Due to the turbulent history and many regimes that ruled until the fall of the Iron Curtain, the offer of cravats, scarves and shawls was scarce and the industry neglected in terms of quality.
Marijan Bušić, one of the company founders and visionaries best expresses the situation at that time: "The cravat in the international market as a symbol contained no story about it, had no feeling, no spirit, and its fashion expression was poor and uninventive. Fashion brands for decades had been repeating the same visual image, and instead of emphasizing individuality, indirectly they unified individuals. With time, the cravat had obviously lost its original function and the universal significance it symbolized."
It is precisely with the mission of taking the cravat back to its roots that in 1990 the Potomac company was established. Potomac mission was to offer their vision of fashion which respects the individual and their individuality, to present cravats and scarves as a communications media and a sign of identity and to tell the story of its origin, which at the time was not well known.
The first CROATA boutique was opened in January 1992.
The company headquarters are located in the 17th century Baroque palace, adapted into modern business premises, in the very heart of Zagreb, at Kaptol 13.
“The system must be adaptable but based on the best world practice.”
The company Potomac, in the fashion world most known for their brand Croata, is a complex living ecosystem.
Potomac has two productions, 16 retail stores, a B2B department, a B2C department, a Design department, Marketing, Distribution and all other supporting departments.
With a clear vision of their future development and growth, Potomac was looking for a system to follow all their ideas and plans. Apart from that, the system had to provide a great platform for future growth.
It needed to be global, supported locally and adaptable.
Potomac buyers come from all over the world, some more famous than others. Therefore Potomac wanted to provide them with the best e-commerce, one that is strong, reliable, that could easily be upgraded and that could meet Potomacs design demands.
After a lot of screening in 2007 Potomac decided to take a plunge with Microsoft Dynamic NAV (version 4.0.).
The process started from scratch involving production, sales, finance… For the retail segment Potomac chose the LS retail software because it was already a part of NAV and it had an advantage – it was not a separate software which needed to be integrated.
As Potomac grows as a company the system follows them impeccably and Potomac is very pleased with the support capabilities. In 2012 DignetSoftware did a major upgrade to NAV 2009R2, which included a significant change to the system and to the company process as well. Based on their own experience and with the support of their partners Potomac implemented a new tailor-made change to the system. Potomac got rid of their legacy process, and implemented a new Vision of their company and process through NAV.
Thinking globally, Potomac even transferred their webshop from an existing platform to the fully integrated Ecommerce solution DynamicWeb, with the intention to keep the B2B, B2C, Content section and E- marketing fully integrated into NAV. Potomac already has the whole project on the go with the new version, and they have screened the benefits of new version and what they can (and should) alter.
Advantages
A system such as ERP is challenging, especially in companies as big and diverse as Potomac. But its biggest advantage is a central posting and data reporting place. So all of our data is gathered in one place for DATA maintenance, forms, customers, contacts or item information. Shared over all location Potomac is working.
Because Potomac’s core business is a high luxury item sell, for their retail they needed a system that is simple and yet able to provide a lot of info about the users to be integrated into their CRM program. They have a whole list of offline information which they track during their store sales process (whether the product bought was a gift, buyer demographics, sales result concerning whether the product was purchased or not and why not, loyalty program, gift card, etc.) that needed to be integrated together with their online tracking data. The system needed to be very user-friendly to minimize the time required to train new people to handle it.
At the same time, the system is providing a great reporting capacity for Potomac management and gives good insight, which enables us to plan our future steps and investments.
Last but not Least
Potomac: As always, you need a vision and the right people to implement the vision. Choosing a suitable partner is a crucial step in any process. Potomac needed a partner open to discussing their ideas in order to see if they are feasible or not. They found that partner in DignetSoftware, whom they have now been working with for a very long time. For Potomac it is priceless to have a partner that has their best interests at heart. The least Potomac could do (and a natural thing to do also) is to become the ambassador for NAV/LS Retail and DynamicWeb.
DignetSoftware, thank you for your support and for always having our back.
By Franjo Bušić, CEO / Potomac d.o.o.