Everyone in the industry is talking about partnerships these days. And while the idea of a brand and its suppliers and factories working in concert for the greater good is the ideal scenario, it’s often not the current practice. For the few that have achieved this goal—or are at least on the road to accomplishing it—true partnerships have meant quicker turns, increased sales and better margins.
This episode focuses on how digitizing operations helps to drive better collaboration and relationship building all along the supply chain.
Click here to listen to the full episode.
Below are excerpts from our discussion with Crocs and Pou Chen, a brand and its factory partner, on how they’ve gained agility, transparency and profitability by finding the right tools to facilitate communication.
Cody Bumgarner, director of product operations at Crocs, explains how working more efficiently with its partners to improve on time, in full resulted in gains for the business:
“From a high level, we were what we’d describe as industry worst, and we’d had feedback from our retail partners that would state that we were not very good at it, and now we’re at industry average or in many cases, better than average. Everything is planned to hit market at a certain time so you want to be able to maximize that entry of that product with your marketing assets at the right time. Can you get by? Yeah, but you want to be able to maximize those opportunities when they come, so being able to deliver on time in full gives you the full benefit of maximizing in market.”
Eva Law, deputy manager at Pou Chen, on what it takes to be able to chase product in season:
“By chasing the product, it means we have to stop something from the production line so we can add in the new product to it. So flexibility is one of the key words for a factory. This is not only for me as a T1 factory but my suppliers too because I need to get the materials from them too. So it’s communicating not only from the brand but also from our downstream operator too to understand when the order comes in [how to match it] with the materials we have, give to our production line, give it priority and have it in the market to give to our customer on time.”
Subscribe to the Sourcing Journal Podcast on Apple iTunes, Google Play and Tune In.
This podcast is made possible by Centric Software, the #1 Product Lifecycle Management solution for fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods.