advertisement
advertisement

Federal Filings Paint Crocs IT Software As “Archaic,” “Primitive” and “Hopelessly Error-Prone”

Written by Evan Schuman
March 3rd, 2011

Buried in the various legal filings of a shareholder fraud lawsuit against footwear maker Crocs is an intriguing look into how routine IT operations and discussions can quickly become very public and seem really bad.

The case, which US District Court Judge Philip Brimmer dismissed on Monday (Feb. 28), told tales of a new IT chief whose software recommendations were treated by senior management “dismissively.” Also mentioned were inventory and forecasting software that was “archaic,” “primitive” and “hopelessly error-prone” and financial reporting software that consisted of “obsolete, unsuitable tools.” And almost all of it involved the manufacturer’s interactions with retailers.

The IT issues—which Crocs apparently did not dispute—never played a crucial role in the arguments, with the judge throwing out the case because he said the shareholders couldn’t prove that senior management lied about these matters. That said, it’s educational how close a linkage the shareholders drew between routine IT issues and critical financial shortcomings. Excel spreadsheets, for example, were blamed for product shortages and surpluses.

“One root cause of the company’s failure to manage inventory was the fact that Crocs used archaic, error-prone Excel spreadsheets to track inventory and forecast sales. This approach ran directly contrary to the modern standard of using appropriate inventory control software which provides a real-time, up-to-the-minute picture of the company’s vast inventory,” said one filing from attorneys representing the shareholders. “The use of outdated technology led Crocs continually to both undershoot and overshoot the amount of inventory actually on hand, and to produce absurd quantities of unusable merchandise—such as size 13 shoes in colors such as fuchsia and butter, supposedly aimed at women customers.”

Crocs media relations did not return a voicemail and an E-mail seeking comment.

Lack of upgrades also prompted a mention.


advertisement

One Comment | Read Federal Filings Paint Crocs IT Software As “Archaic,” “Primitive” and “Hopelessly Error-Prone”

  1. Larry Negrich Says:

    The litigation floodgates would open if every mfg/retailer that used Excel as an inventory mgt. tool or that failed to upgrade to the latest version of each of its software application was found to be fraudulent to its shareholders. The lesson for retailers and manufacturers should be that an investment in modern forecasting and inventory management software should be looked at prior to reaching the point of shareholder revolt.

Newsletters

StorefrontBacktalk delivers the latest retail technology news & analysis. Join more than 60,000 retail IT leaders who subscribe to our free weekly email. Sign up today!
advertisement

Most Recent Comments

Why Did Gonzales Hackers Like European Cards So Much Better?

I am still unclear about the core point here-- why higher value of European cards. Supply and demand, yes, makes sense. But the fact that the cards were chip and pin (EMV) should make them less valuable because that demonstrably reduces the ability to use them fraudulently. Did the author mean that the chip and pin cards could be used in a country where EMV is not implemented--the US--and this mis-match make it easier to us them since the issuing banks may not have as robust anti-fraud controls as non-EMV banks because they assumed EMV would do the fraud prevention for them Read more...
Two possible reasons that I can think of and have seen in the past - 1) Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code. 2) Also, in offline chip countries the card determines whether or not a transaction is approved, not the issuer. In my experience, European issuers haven't developed the same checks on authorization requests as US issuers. So, these cards might be more valuable because they are more likely to get approved. Read more...
A smart card slot in terminals doesn't mean there is a reader or that the reader is activated. Then, activated reader or not, the U.S. processors don't have apps certified or ready to load into those terminals to accept and process smart card transactions just yet. Don't get your card(t) before the terminal (horse). Read more...
The marketplace does speak. More fraud capacity translates to higher value for the stolen data. Because nearly 100% of all US transactions are authorized online in real time, we have less fraud regardless of whether the card is Magstripe only or chip and PIn. Hence, $10 prices for US cards vs $25 for the European counterparts. Read more...
@David True. The European cards have both an EMV chip AND a mag stripe. Europeans may generally use the chip for their transactions, but the insecure stripe remains vulnerable to skimming, whether it be from a false front on an ATM or a dishonest waiter with a handheld skimmer. If their stripe is skimmed, the track data can still be cloned and used fraudulently in the United States. If European banks only detect fraud from 9-5 GMT, that might explain why American criminals prefer them over American bank issued cards, who have fraud detection in place 24x7. Read more...

StorefrontBacktalk
Our apologies. Due to legal and security copyright issues, we can't facilitate the printing of Premium Content. If you absolutely need a hard copy, please contact customer service.