1. Letson 1
Oxford Industries Case Evaluation
Oxford Industries was founded in 1942 as a US-based producer and marketer of branded
and private label apparel for men, women, and children. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, 90%
of Oxford’s manufacturing was located within the US; however, the “807” clause of the US
customs regulations brought about significant change. It allowed for duty-free re-importation of
US clothing made in a Caribbean Basin country. 1
This brought about the growth of “mega
retailers” who imported their entire product line as finished goods. By the late 1990s,
manufacturing in North America had almost completely dried up as a result of the “807” clause.
This decline in manufacturing caused Oxford to reassess their business strategy. They made the
decision to move away from the manufacturing industry and into the sourcing industry, which
ultimately placed them into the same industry as the companies they had previously serviced.
To get Oxford out of the manufacturing business and into the sourcing business, they
acquired several international lifestyle brands including Viewpoint International that operates as
Tommy Bahama in 2003, Ben Sherman of the UK in 2004, and Arnold Brant from Canada in
2005. These acquisitions did not come without their share of headaches. The key issue Oxford
now faced was an extraordinarily complex IT and systems portfolio. Each of the acquisitions
had their own set of accounting and inventory tools, IT systems, and network infrastructure. The
accounting departments, in particular, were wasting significant amounts of time and resources at
each accounting close. Wybo and Bernier state, “The Oxford CFO, corporate accounting staff
and the operating unit accounting staff all participate in each accounting close. It currently takes
five to seven days for a month-end closing, three to four weeks for a quarter-end, and two
months for a year-end.”2
Some locations were even faxing and emailing spreadsheets or reports
from local accounting systems to corporate headquarters each month. To make matters worse,
the central accounts payable system came with its own set of problems. It could be queried in
real-time; however, corporate management employees were the only ones who could access the
data until the end of the fiscal period. Inventory orders (POs) within accounts payable could not
be viewed until the end of the first closing period after the receipt of the goods. This made for a
very disconnected and confusing environment. The Tommy Bahama facility had just recently
acquired a new ERP system, Blue Cherry. This further complicated the already-complex
portfolio of systems. HR and payroll were also struggling as this information was being
submitted by the business units to corporate via email or hard copy and was being keyed into the
appropriate system at the corporate level. This was quite the security issue as well as a
duplication of work.
Unfortunately, the IT systems did not make this situation any better. Corporate IT was
managing central systems in addition to supporting legacy wholesale, retail, and licensing
operations for North America as well as Ben Sherman’s North American operations. Each newly
acquired site came with its own set of hardware, software, applications, and staff who were
knowledgeable of their respective business processes and data. Oxford’s legacy IT infrastructure
was also a constraint on their ability to implement a new strategy.3
There was little to no
congruency among the various business units’ IT teams or with Corporate IT.
To resolve the complexity issues that have plagued Oxford as a result of these
acquisitions, a project team needs to be formed to manage the selection, testing, acquisition, and

2. Letson 2
implementation of an IT portfolio replacement. This project should be sponsored by the CEO,
have a project manager, and team members should include the CFO, CIO, Corporate IT
Manager, corporate developers, business unit plant managers, business unit IT managers, and
business unit supply chain managers (or a subset of business unit personnel from two to three
business units). This team will use the COBIT 5 model to see to it that the stakeholders’ needs
are being met, Oxford’s IT functional responsibilities are covered from one end of the company
to the other, a single, integrated framework is applied throughout the organization, a holistic
approach is taken, and governance is separated from management. They will also identify risks
associated with this project as well as the scope, timeline, and budget.
Exhibit 1
After looking at the SWOT analysis in Exhibit 1, I have identified a number of critical
gaps in the system that can and should be corrected. First, it is clear that there needs to be a
common, consolidated system at the corporate level where all business units can report to on a
daily/real-time basis. This will eliminate the need for daunting, manual processing, wasted time
at fiscal period ends, and it will allow employees to focus more on business process
improvements and creative thought. To handle this sort of system, new infrastructure will need
to be put into place in areas where legacy infrastructure currently exists. This can be anything
from new fiber runs between sites to hardware such as servers, switches, firewalls, routers, and
wireless access points. Along with this hardware replacement/upgrade will come the need for
new network monitoring software. All of these improvements will require employee training,
guidance, and likely the hiring of new subject matter experts.
To reduce or eliminate the complexity of various manual accounting, HR, and inventory
systems, the project team should implement Oracle’s PeopleSoft ERP at the corporate level.
STRENGTHS
•Rich history and reputation as a quality apparel
manufacturing company
•Newly acquired companies Tommy Bahama, Ben
Sherman, and Arnold Brant
•Tommy Bahama's new Blue Cherry ERP system
•Wide variety of existing IT knowledge across all
business units of the company
WEAKNESSES
•Oxford's legacy IT infrastructure
•No common IT infrastructure throughout the
company as a whole
•No central ERP/HR/Inventory system
•Significant time wasted doing manual processes
(accounting, HR)
•Limited IT security/oversight
•Potential for disgruntled employees
OPPORTUNITIES
•Enterprise ERP systems such as Oracle's PeopleSoft
•Outsource contractors to replace legacy
infrastructure
•Team building workshops
THREATS
•"Mega-retailers" already have significant market
share and economies of scale
•Hackers
•Poor publicity
SWOT

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PeopleSoft applications provide comprehensive business and industry solutions, enabling
organizations to increase productivity, accelerate business performance, and provide a lower cost
of ownership.4
This would eliminate the need for faxing or emailing accounting reports and it
would cut the month-end, quarter-end, and year-end activities to days rather than weeks or
months for the accounting department, which will lower Oxford’s overall operating costs.
PeopleSoft also offers HR tools that will provide HR a way to enter payroll, talent management,
and communications in a one-stop-shop. Inventory management would be taken care of, too.
PeopleSoft’s supply chain management tools handle customer orders, inventory and fulfillment,
and supply chain warehouse needs. This will allow for users to view pending activities, so there
will be no more waiting for fiscal period ends to see purchase order requests.
As part of a phased service transition, corporate headquarters should receive the first
installation of PeopleSoft with an additional system for redundancy. Those employees should be
trained first on these applications and should begin using it first. Once corporate’s systems are in
place, the roll-out should begin into the business units. An instance (with redundancy) of
PeopleSoft should be installed at each business unit to prevent a single point of failure at
corporate. Because the legacy Oxford facilities already have a system in place that works, it
would be best to address the newly acquired Ben Sherman first followed by Arnold Brant. The
business-level PeopleSoft instances will replicate to the corporate-level instance once every 5
minutes. This will give corporate a near-real-time insight into what is going on at the business
level and will provide insight into pending transactions as needed. Rather than replacing Tommy
Bahama’s new Blue Cherry ERP system, we will integrate it with corporate Oxford’s PeopleSoft
and reconsider replacing their local system 5-10 years from now (or sooner if needed). The
Tommy Bahama site, in particular, has already been through two significant changes – the switch
to Blue Chery and then the acquisition by Oxford. There’s no reason to force another change
upon them so quickly if we don’t need to, and it will be a cost savings opportunity for the project
team. From there, the project team will identify an order for upgrading the remaining business
units. In the interim, business units who are awaiting the upgrade will continue to send their data
to corporate as usual, and corporate accounting will enter data into the corporate PeopleSoft
instance. The phased service transition will begin at a new facility every 3 months.
While these activities are going on, infrastructure upgrades should be taking place
simultaneously through local contracting companies. As part of the IT portfolio replacement
project, each business unit’s IT manager will work with the Corporate IT Manager to assess their
current infrastructure and identify what improvements need to be made. Also, corporate IT will
install SolarWinds’ suite of network monitoring tools both at the corporate and business unit
levels to gain insight into where bottlenecks are within the systems and potential threats.
Finally, the people of Oxford Industries are the core of its success. Onboarding the new
employees with team-building opportunities is absolutely key. Oxford executives should provide
detailed avenues for professional development and a promotion guide so that employees with the
most growth potential can be recognized and placed into positions where they will find and
provide value to the organization.
While Oxford’s acquisitions can be seen as a challenge, there are plenty of opportunities
to get the train back on the tracks and gain recognition as a “mega-retailer”.

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References
1
Wybo and Bernier, “IT Governance at Oxford Industries: Information Architecture for
Financial Data,” International Journal of Case Studies in Management Vol. 6 Issue 1, May 2008,
p. 1.
2
Wybo and Bernier, “IT Governance at Oxford Industries: Information Architecture for
Financial Data,” International Journal of Case Studies in Management Vol. 6 Issue 1, May 2008,
p. 3.
3
Wybo and Bernier, “IT Governance at Oxford Industries: Information Architecture for
Financial Data,” International Journal of Case Studies in Management Vol. 6 Issue 1, May 2008,
p. 4.
4
Oracle, Oracle PeopleSoft Applications,
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/peoplesoft-enterprise/overview/index.html ,
access June 2016.