Drive collaboration and innovation through a social enterprise

Transcription

1 Drive collaboration and innovation through a social enterprise

2 Fashioning success through social The right inventory at the right place at the right time. Sounds like a simple formula for success. Then why is it so challenging to achieve? With all the issues you may be facing in the fashion industry, it s no surprise that your efforts sometimes go astray due to: A disconnected value chain that functions in silos and relies on inefficient processes Price sensitivity and increasing local and global competition that erode profits A consumer-driven fast fashion mandate that calls for increased responsiveness and strict measurement against your sustainability goals Support for omni-channel consumer engagement to enable more extensive, convenient, and valuable customer interactions Traditional business models that make it hard to adapt and innovate, especially as the industry continues to evolve Moving to a social enterprise model can help you overcome these challenges. But adopting this framework requires both an understanding of how social business can fully serve your organization and a best-practice way to deploy it or the results you achieve could be limited. Opportunity for the taking The fashion retail market is healthy and is expected to reach $3.7 trillion by And based on historical growth patterns, the total value-chain turnover could be estimated at three times the projected retail value. You have to be prepared to capture as much of that business as possible. Organizations that operate as social enterprises are poised to innovate rapidly and respond more quickly to constantly changing business demands in short, to be industry leaders. 1 reporterlinker.com 2

3 Social enterprise basics So what exactly is a social enterprise? It s one that injects many of the concepts of social media into a business environment to give employees, suppliers, and partners new ways of communicating and collaborating. While social media applications are primarily focused on personal interactions and experiences, social business tools are designed to facilitate collaboration among internal and external stakeholders, automate information delivery, and streamline processes. Importantly, these tools are embedded within core organizational systems like ERP or supply chain execution and employees throughout the organization have access. Social business tools can give employees the ability to: Follow people or objects within the organization Receive automatic notifications Centralize communications for projects or within work groups Easily search for information within communication streams Have information delivered wherever they are and on multiple types of devices Value through social collaboration Social business fosters improved collaboration and communication among internal teams, suppliers, and other business partners to help you meet the quick-response demands of the fashion industry. Social business is about: Process Collaboration Plans and projects Structure Productivity Knowledge capture Gain unique customer insights Better connect people to products Sell what you have with tighter control of your stock Innovate, innovate, innovate 3

4 Social collaboration in action Here s an example of how your employees can work using a collaborative platform. 1. Based on individual roles, users are presented with a desktop or mobile platform that gives them easy access to all the systems they need. 2. Employees can stay on top of critical requirements through real-time alerts that inform them of inventory issues, supply or labor shortages, or other concerns that must be rapidly resolved They ll work faster and more productively by viewing and responding to automated tasks, like purchase approvals or re-order requests And they ll use posts to share information, offer recommendations, make inquiries on policies or procedures, and otherwise engage in conversations that foster greater awareness, efficiency, and innovation. 5. Meanwhile, in-context analytics will deliver key indicators at a glance to help drive decision-making and keep the focus on your business priorities. 4

5 Enhance interaction along the value chain A complex, ongoing series of interactions takes place every day among the members of your fashion value chain. Ideally, your organization smoothly orchestrates all these activities. Yet, inefficient often manual processes and siloed applications can hinder the communication and collaboration needed to do so. That s when innovation suffers. Consider this. Your design team is ready to roll out a trendsetting collection, but the materials they need are unavailable. Procurement was close to finalizing a related contract until they discovered a missed indicating a low quality rating for the supplier in question. Now they have to go back and find information on additional suppliers, and then vet them, further delaying production. Let s look at what happens, when you provide a real-time social business platform for internal and suppliers: The sourcing team can engage in and view real-time conversations about suppliers providing performance and quality ratings used in procurement s decisionmaking process. This enables faster, more coordinated sourcing of required materials from preferred suppliers. Designers can post information related to past projects and available supplies to help sourcing and procurement organizations support greater reuse of existing designs, fabrics, and trims. Designers can be more focused on creating collections and innovating since they no longer waste time searching for required documents, photos, or s. A social business platform lets you enhance and derive greater value from the multitude of interactions taking place daily among internal and external teams. 5

6 Improve margins... Improve margins More socially aware and savvy, today s consumers have easier and greater access to information about potential purchases, with the ability to search for and compare products with the touch of a screen. At the same time, fewer consumers are sold on the value of a particular brand. Meanwhile, luxury items that still retain loyal customers are moving into new channels such as airport boutiques. All these situations create new selling dynamics and competitive challenges that can t be addressed by markdowns alone. Under these circumstances, social capabilities become critical to promoting market-readiness and avoiding profit margin. Profit from greater insight Unplanned markdowns are the largest cost to your business, and having to repeatedly mark down a collection, style, or even SKU can impact overall profitability. Continuous collaboration with consumers and value chain members helps you break free of the markdown cycle by providing better insight into demand and improving forecasting. BIG SALE 30%-40% of products are sold at markdown prices in the fashion industry. 2 Yet, a company like Zara, which pursues a deeper understanding of its customer s wants and needs, achieves an average of 15%-20%. 3 2 reporterlinker.com 3 The Future of Fashion Retailing, Forbes, November

7 Using social capabilities Improve margins Used strategically and in combination with analytics as you pursue efforts to improve margins, social capabilities can help you: Listen to consumers more: Create a more interactive e-commerce experience by soliciting opinions on seasonal colors, styles, or collections as part of the buying process and then capture and share the results with designers and merchandisers. Increase your understanding of what consumers want, so you can innovate faster: Use the messaging-board feature of your internal collaboration platform to post real-time updates of what s trending where. Work more effectively with suppliers to improve supply chain planning and execution: Add a partner portal to your collaboration platform to support anywhere, anytime, any device interaction while enabling streamlined, integrated access to key business systems. Collaborative actions like these help you deliver desired fashions at more competitive price points making your profitability goals easier to reach. 7

8 Reduce time to consumer The last thing your organization wants to do is miss out on sales opportunities. But a consumer-driven fast fashion mandate, which includes demands for more collections and styles, increases the odds. Keeping up with this pace for new products calls for greater innovation and shorter development cycles. And greater innovation requires improved collaboration. For example, operating in a social enterprise, your designers can tap into consumer insights to inform and validate their design decisions. During this process, your designers can simultaneously collaborate with your sourcing and sustainability program managers to ensure that any proposed designs can be delivered quickly while also adhering to green standards and sustainability best practices. Employing the instant messaging or chat features of your collaboration platform, they can speed data gathering and more rapidly identify qualified suppliers. At that point, sourcing can immediately proceed to get the materials needed to produce a variety of new fashions. In the end, you ll be positioned to meet fast fashion demands with greater velocity and control for more predictable outcomes. Deliver on demand Late delivery of a single component in a collection results in lost sales and customers, potentially costing your organization millions of dollars. Through a social enterprise model, you ll enhance the collaborative capabilities of all the members of your design, development, and production teams to deliver collections on demand. 8

9 Support omni-channel requirements From Millennials to Boomers and everyone in between, consumers are using multiple channels to learn about, shop for, and purchase the latest fashions. By extending your social presence and making these activities convenient and simple to perform, you can keep your company top of mind and help drive sales. As a result, you ll increase your opportunities to engage with consumers. And when you combine this approach with customer relationship management (CRM) tools to establish a more intimate, prescriptive sales model linked to consumers personal behaviors, you ll find it easier to gain insight into what consumers want on a real-time basis. An omni-channel approach is essential to taking advantage of these opportunities. Through this strategy, you can reach consumers through social and mobile technologies, as well as via traditional ecommerce and bricks-and-mortar storefronts. The millennial effect Among Millennials, the use of social technologies is a fundamental part of daily life. And this extends to their purchasing decisions: 4 3X more likely than Boomers to turn to social channels for opinions about products to buy 84% influenced by user-generated content on company websites Enabling them to make their purchases through social and mobile technologies complements their decision-making behavior. An omni-channel focus using technology to find new ways of engaging with consumers across all channels will be key to shaking off discounting and boosting profits. 5 Magdalena Kondej, head of apparel & footwear research at Euromonitor 4 Bazaar voice white paper: Talking to Strangers: Millennials Trust People over Brand 5 Outlook 2014 Apparel Industry Challenges, just style website, January 16,

10 Empower your teams to collaborate Business collaboration Your goal is to make operations more efficient through better information sharing. To do so, you need to enable effective collaboration internally and with partners, suppliers, and other value-chain members. What kind of changes should you expect? The ability to automatically capture, structure, and trace conversations within a collaborative platform. This capability alleviates issues with - and telephonebased communications, which contribute to errors and delays when messages are missed or lost. Comprehensive drill-down capabilities into line-item details. With this level of granularity, you can improve visibility into operating costs such as landed and distribution costs to facilitate decision-making and reporting. Real-time activity updates to customers online records. Access to this information through a centralized, collaborative space allows you to offer an improved customer experience. For example, anyone interacting with a customer can rapidly view the latest order status, see how a potential issue is being resolved, provide an immediate response, and then adjust or escalate any actions taken as warranted. Consumer collaboration With a solid foundation for collaboration in place, you can extend these capabilities to engage with consumers: Ask for their opinions about your products online. Give them the opportunity to like or dislike new fashion ideas or trends. Find out what they want and when they want it. Like business collaboration, consumer collaboration also requires you to evaluate how you re currently communicating with existing and potential customers. Afterwards, you can streamline related processes and offer preferred communication options through social and mobile to promote more convenient and frequent interactions. 10

11 About Infor Infor is the world s third-largest supplier of enterprise applications and services, helping more than 73,000 large and mid-size companies improve operations and drive growth across numerous industry sectors. To learn more about Infor, please visit Disclaimer This document reflects the direction Infor may take with regard to the specific product(s) described in this document, all of which is subject to change by Infor in its sole discretion, with or without notice to you. This document in not a commitment to you in any way and you should not rely on this document or any of its content in making any decision. Infor is not committing to develop or deliver any specified enhancement, upgrade, product, or functionality, even if such is described in this document. Copyright 2014 Infor. All rights reserved. The work and design marks set forth herein are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Infor and/or related affiliates and subsidiaries. All other trademarks listed herein are the property of their respective owners. INFDTP en-US