Skechers fashions a winning audit strategy with Oracle Cloud
Skechers’ 10-person audit team uses Oracle Risk Management Cloud to help safeguard the $7.4 billion footwear and apparel company.
“Oracle Risk Management allows me to standardize a lot of my moderate- and lower-risk areas so that my team and I can focus on more meaningful areas and provide value-added audit services to the company.”
Business challenges
Founded in 1992, Skechers has grown to a $7.4 billion enterprise with more than 4,500 Skechers stores. Given the diversity and complexity of the company’s global operations, the internal audit team focuses on corporate governance initiatives, including management of financial, operational, and regulatory risks.
The team is responsible for internal controls over financial reporting, operations audits, digital controls review, enterprise risk management, and fraud risk assessments. As the company grew over the years, the internal audit team was challenged in addressing the risks facing the company.
“We had a good understanding of our critical business processes, risks, controls, audit programs, and test plans,” says Ashwat Panchal, Skechers vice president of internal audit. What was lacking was a way for the small team to gain an immediate understanding of low- and moderate-risk areas so that it could focus on high-risk activities.
Skechers sought a cloud-based financial risk compliance system that provided automated access control testing, allowing employees to review risk areas online.
Skechers must adhere to local regulations as it expands into new regions. Oracle Risk Management helps the company mitigate risk across its entire global business.
Why Skechers chose Oracle
As a longtime Oracle customer, Skechers knew that Oracle could help the company speed up back-office operations, identify and mitigate risk, and ensure that regulatory compliance was consistent and aligned with corporate strategies. Company leaders ultimately decided to adopt Oracle Fusion Cloud Risk Management and Compliance, part of the Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suite of applications.
Results
After adopting the Oracle Risk Management system, Skechers implemented electronic workpapers and workflow to document audit assessments and track areas for improvement. “If we didn't have the product, I'd be on a plane 75% of the time. With Oracle, I'm able to leverage workflow and documentation repositories and testing and be able to review stuff online. I can do it on my phone if I want to,” says Panchal.
He started the process with a master library of best practices that served as the foundation for the Oracle Risk Management Cloud implementation—which took weeks, not months or years. Now, getting a new region up and running is simple and can be managed from anywhere. For new regions, Panchal works with the local business unit to determine the high-risk areas and decide how to test and what to test.
“We now spend our time addressing more meaningful issues—who are the key competitors in that area, what products are selling, and what are the logistics issues that we're facing in those different countries,” says Panchal.
About the customer
Founded in 1992, Skechers is the third-largest footwear brand in the United States, with a focus on athletic and casual shoes. The company includes wholesale and direct-to-consumer segments, with its collections available in approximately 180 countries and territories. The international business is managed through a network of wholly-owned subsidiaries, joint venture partners, and distributors. Skechers has donated more than 16 million pairs of shoes to children in need worldwide.