The softgoods market consists of textile, apparel, and footwear manufacturers. The apparel and footwear market is top heavy with the few leading brands commanding large market capitalizations. The global market is fragmented with several small apparel and footwear brands across the globe. There is significant consolidation going on in the market. There has been growth in the market in recent years both in dollar and unit sales.
The apparel and footwear industry is characterized by a proliferation of styles and sizes coupled with a short product life cycles. The products are split between fashion and basics products. Given the product characteristics, it is usually difficult to predict demand accurately. Manufacturing has to a large extent been completely outsourced to the Far East.
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Apparel & Footwear industry challenges
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Strategies to address challenges
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Business issues to address with each strategy choice
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Driving the top line: Improving revenue and market share
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Product innovation
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How to leverage the art that is inherent in product development and marry it with as much science as possible to achieve the best baseline?
When should a product launch?
What is the impact of the launch on existing products?
How much to sell? How much to buy, manufacture and distribute?
How to get continuous updates during the initial portion of the launch?
How to course-correct? What are the levers?
How to synchronize data within a company and with retailers? |
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Growth by mergers and acquisitions
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How to align two disparate networks to maximize customer service efficiently?
How to understand dependencies among product portfolios?
How to provide a single face to the customer?
How to bring together and rationalize disparate enterprise data – items, customers, vendors? |
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Enhance customer service
Solution Details |
How to make reliable customer delivery promises with prioritization for key customers?
How to understand dependencies among product portfolios?
How to provide innovative fulfillment services to customers – VMI, consignment, scan-based and trading?
How to make sure those relationships are profitable?
How to manage a supply chain across wholesale operations and retail stores? |
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Improving promotional ROI
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What price points are most relevant – by customer and location?
How to leverage brand strengths?
How to target promotions based upon POS data?
How to do I get an early read on promotional effectiveness? |
Apparel & Footwear industry challenges |
Strategies to address challenges |
Business issues to address with each strategy choice |
| Improving the bottom line: Reducing costs and improving asset utilization |
Reducing inventory
Solution Details |
How to align inventory positions to POS?
How to align inventory and thereby production to product and customer specific rates of sale?
How to position raw material (leather, greige etc.) inventory to ensure flexibility to react to customer demand?
How to enhance collaboration with customers and vendors? |
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Managing outsourced operations
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How to streamline my procurement, sales and inventory planning (S&OP) process and make it more accurate and flexible?
How to make more accurate decisions in terms of possible assortment options (item attributes)?
How to ensure that constraints and targets are understood by the various organizations?
How to communicate changes in plans and enable faster reaction times to changes in demand?
How to cut out as much of the informational lead time and reduce the physical lead time as much as possible?
How to manage my outsourced manufacturing operations?
How to determine the best product mix to improve market share and profitability? |
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Reducing transportation costs
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How to ensure the lowest possible costs while improving “perfect-order” metrics?
How to manage a mix of private and 3PL fleets?
How to understand the impact of inventory strategy on transportation constraints?
How to model current and future network requirements? |
