Sports Group Denmark is one of Scandinavia's leading sportswear and apparel companies, recognized for developing high-quality products that strike a balance between performance, a focused ESG approach, and affordability.
With multiple brands and a global supplier network, insight and transparency are the foundation for its high quality standards.
The focus on quality extends far beyond the finished products to the entire value chain – from the earliest design stages to production, shipping, and audits.
To achieve these goals, the company began working with Qarma several years ago – a single platform that helps unify processes and data while strengthening collaboration with suppliers.
From disconnected data to shared and actionable insights
Previously, quality data was handled across multiple systems and formats, making it harder to gain a full overview. With Qarma, processes are now more streamlined, data and reports are easily accessible across teams, and verifications can be supported through geolocation and images.
Sports Group Denmark already had a strong foundation for quality management. By adopting Qarma, the company has been able to connect existing processes in one shared platform – making it easier to access data, share reports, and verify results across teams and locations.
For us, quality is not just about the product, but about the entire process. When we share insights and data, we can work more efficiently and responsibly together with our suppliers,” says Lena Østergaard, ESG team and Quality Coordinator at Sports Group Denmark.
Supporting long-lasting supplier relationships
In 2023, the company began an extensive evaluation of how to standardize and optimize its QC inspections and audits. It quickly identified the need for a central technology upgrade to handle data robustly and generate real-time reports.
Other goals included supporting the more direct involvement of suppliers in quality matters and sharing key learnings from the data being collected.
Many of its suppliers have been company partners for over a decade, and Sports Group Denmark sought to expand its ability to communicate QC matters more clearly, including across languages and cultures, with its suppliers.
With a strong focus on supplier due diligence and responsibility, the solution also needed to be flexible enough to handle everything from product-level defects to ESG audits, while remaining intuitive for both internal staff and factory partners.
A bottom-up approach with Qarma
Sports Group Denmark was among Qarma’s very first customers, and the platform has beenpart of the company’s quality and compliance procedures for more than seven years. Over time, this collaboration has evolved into a close partnership focused on data transparency and continuous improvement.
Qarma’s picture-first approach and built-in translation features have made communication clear across languages and cultures, while its transparency tools support the company’s standards and supplier collaboration.
“It’s not about hiding mistakes but working together to fix them. Qarma makes that clear to everyone," Lena emphasizes.
One shared view of quality across teams
The shift to Qarma has laid the foundation for data to flow seamlessly across departments and continents. A defect logged in an inspection in Asia can be instantly reviewed by purchasing teams in Denmark.
Supplier meetings are now guided by dashboards that clearly show collaboration metrics, claim rates, types of errors, and even reinspection and rejection rates.
Sports Group Denmark can quickly assess how suppliers are performing, track quality issues, and determine where resources should be focused.
The benefits extend beyond the quality team.
Teams across buying, development, and shipping now work from shared quality data, ensuring alignment where it matters most,” says Lena Østergaard.
Relationships with suppliers and customers have grown stronger as a result, as openness about errors and defects has broadened the shared commitment to improvement and replaced defensive conversations, creating a more collaborative environment.
Smarter insights, stronger partnerships
Looking forward, Sports Group Denmark expects quality to play an even larger role in its growth and ESG commitments. The company is already GRS certified and continues to expand its audit and compliance initiatives through the same platform.
Supplier onboarding now includes both quality and compliance expectations, ensuring alignment from day one.
By utilizing dashboards and analytics, Sports Group Denmark can focus its efforts more precisely, identify risks earlier, and ensure that quality is continuously improved across the entire value chain.
“We see quality and compliance as deeply connected. With better data and transparent verification, we can identify risks earlier, act faster, and ensure that our shared standards move us all forward.”
.svg)