Finding structure in rapid transformation - Eldorado Customer Story

Eldorado's story begins back in 1963, when Børge and Birgit Lausen opened a pet store in Haderslev, in Southern Denmark. As the popularity and number of stores grew, it was time to focus on the wholesale part of the business and expand across different segments. When Pernille Holzapfel Lausen joined her parents' business in 2011, she found herself working with a completely different company than it was in the 60s.

Through rapid growth and the acquisition of two new brands, Eldorado started focusing more on product development. Needing a solution to bring structure and efficiency, it implemented Delogue PLM.

Eldorado has a need for structure

Eldorado started expanding in the riding segment during the 70s and 80s, creating its own brand Catago Equestrian, a step away from the pet wholesale business.

The big change, however, happened in 2019, when Eldorado acquired the Roskilde company Three Horses. The company came with two brands: Equipage and Horse Guard, producing equipment and apparel for horses and riders. “When we took over, Three Horses had already been running in a more structured way. They had a resident designer and were working on a seasonal base, like the fashion industry,” shares Holzapfel Lausen. “Our approach was more focused on products, rather than season, so the acquisition led us to find a way to make the whole development process more structured”.

That is when Delogue entered the picture. “I thought it was a good idea to implement a PLM to structure the whole process,” says Holzapfel Lausen. Now, the product development process in Eldorado is run seasonally, with two collections Spring / Summer and Autumn / Winter, and a designer overviewing the three brands.

READ MORE: It's always boot season if you are a horse rider.

Meeting deadlines

Holzapfel Lausen highlights that its production process hasn’t changed since the acquisition, as the team still develops and designs everything from scratch. However, shifting to a more seasonal approach brought challenges to the company. “We are now more dependent on deadlines, for example for proto-samples, and for all those in-between steps in the process that have to be ready before sales kickoff.”

As Eldorado used to work with product innovation as a driver, the team didn’t have cut-off dates: the product was launched when it was ready. Now everything is intertwined, and the different steps need to run smoothly in order to meet sales’ deadlines.

Working with Delogue

Delogue is now integrated with the Eldorado design process. Holzapfel Lausen shares that they create the styles in Delogue as early as in the start-up meeting, where sales, purchase, and design discuss the pieces they’d like to create for the next collection. Then, the designer starts to develop and work on the sketches, updating everything into the software as she goes. “Delogue gives us a total overview of the collection at a very, very early stage”, explains Holzapfel Lausen, who finds the possibility of coordinating different departments and having a clear outline from the start very helpful. “Without Delogue, it would have been somewhere in a file in our designer’s computer. And I, as a manager would not have had access to it”. Everyone in the Eldorado team is now able to access the internal communication and the messages with the suppliers, creating an environment where it is easy to collaborate and thrive.