Artificial Intelligence & ERP for La Bota Roja: Solving Today’s Business Challenges with Tomorrow’s Technology

In the fast-paced world of retail business, efficient inventory management is the key to success. Following a thriving implementation of an omni-channel eCommerce retail solution including NetSuite and Shopify (see full details here), La Bota Roja was continuing to confront substantial obstacles in their product set-up process because of manual data entry and lag in product loading, their inventory counts and procurement processes were hindered, creating operational setbacks.

Eager to overcome these obstacles, they turned to Trajectory for operational improvement avenues.

Project Highlights

Our in-house development team, having leaned into exploring AI (and more specifically Machine Learning) and its application to ERP infrastructures, saw an opportunity to assist. Leveraging Machine Learning (a subset of Artificial Intelligence that enables a machine or system to learn and improve from experience), supported by Trajectory’s in-house integration tool Initus, Trajectory built an automated process for setting up products based on product photos and automatically creating the related Purchase Orders in NetSuite.

Based on this process, NetSuite automatically identifies whether the item is an existing or new product. If existing, the product details related to the existing item are updated. If new, the new product is set-up with the appropriate attributes (i.e. brand, color, gender and category), resulting in less errors and faster load times. The new process also auto-generates codes and barcodes to identify the products for use throughout the ERP system (i.e. on Purchase Orders).

“The utilization of Machine Learning enables us to streamline various aspects of our organization, such as product set-up, procurement, and webstore integration. This optimization breakthrough eliminates the need for manual tasks, minimizes the risk of errors and delays, and ultimately enhances efficiency within our organization.”

Ramiro Méndez
General Manager
La Bota Roja

The implementation process is streamlined for NetSuite users, who only need to validate the data instead of manually inputting it. With a simple click, Initus automatically analyzes the shoe based on physical characteristics, classifies the product and creates it in NetSuite following proper accounting and operability configuration (e.g. Matrix items). In addition, the process generates codes, barcodes, configures the product in Shopify and associates the product in both systems to facilitate and streamline integration when the shoe is purchased online. Based on the quantity count, Initus also creates Purchase Orders for each vendor.

Solution Benefits

• Process Automation – Automating complex manual processes saves time and increases accuracy.
• Fast to Implement – The solution was implemented within a four-month timeframe. This period encompassed one month for solution design and three months for implementation, which involved building a custom user interface (UI) in NetSuite, setting-up of the automated product creation process, and providing training to support this new process.
• Perpetual Process Improvement – The automated solution continuously evolves and captures updates, evolving with La Bota Roja’s business.