Founded in 1973, the company manufa

Founded in 1973, the company manufactured a single line of sandals in a small factory in Southern California. The challenges of managing the raw materials and finished goods inventories were small compared to today’s global sourcing and sales challenges for the company’s various brands. Today, each brand has its own development team and brand managers who generate, develop, and test-market the seasonal styles that appear on the shelves of retailers such as Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor, REI, the Walking Company, and the company’s own UGG brand retail stores in the UnitedStates and Japan. At Deckers, forecasting is the starting point for inventory management, sales and operations planning, resource planning, and scheduling—in short, managing its supply chain. It carries a considerable amount of seasonal stock. Shoes with seasonal demand that are left over at the end of their season must be sold at heavily discounted prices. Its products fall into threecategories: (1) carry-over items that were sold in prior years, (2) new items that look similar to past models, and (3) completely new designs that are fashionable with no past history.