Succeeding in the Footwear Industry through Cloud-based PLM
In today’s global footwear market, retailers, brand owners and manufacturers face many challenges that can hinder their success. With the increasing use of social media and mobile devices, consumers are more in touch with each other and retailers and brand owners. Such ubiquitous communication means that retailers and brands need to react faster to changes in trends to remain relevant in the market. The rise of new middle class segments globally also is mandating higher quality and more durable products, but at the same price point.
To meet these challenges, organizations need to be able to reduce time to market by executing the most efficient and innovative new product development process possible to help them capitalize on as many trend cycles as possible. They also must maintain higher quality and manage an increasingly complex set of underlying product data that reflects the growing choices consumers are demanding. Moreover, these choices are leading to increased SKU complexity and proliferation, while organizations are still struggling to prevail against rising raw material costs and manage quality across an increasingly complex, divested and globally diverse value chain.
Consumer goods (CPG) manufacturers and retailers will likely find this a familiar scenario, as they too are grappling with similar challenges like SKU proliferation, shorter product cycles, and accelerated product demand that will require ever- faster market delivery.
Although these challenges are not new across sectors, what is new is an emerging trend whereby product lifecycle management (PLM) applications and cloud computing are combining to form a solution to such challenges. It is a solution that not only can aid the footwear sector, but offer some valuable strategies that may help the CPG industry. Applying PLM processes across enterprises has greatly enhanced the ability of companies to coalesce vital resources around the life of products, ranging from product development and supply chain support to sales and marketing. But, given the speed of today’s emerging fashion trends and growing market complexity, there is a need for a faster and more flexible approach to capturing opportunities and addressing challenges. Cloud-based PLM provides that approach.
How PLM helps and why delivery though the Cloud is making PLM accessible to all
Footwear manufacturers that deploy PLM technology and processes can enhance their ability to more quickly respond to the market. With the ability to leverage the Cloud, many of the entry barriers to the full value of PLM are removed. Cloud-based PLM could save time, cut costs, and help improve supply chain performance, global scalability, and speed-to-market. Some of the key areas companies can benefit from by using this strategy include:
The challenges confronting footwear manufacturers are not likely to diminish - they are likely to intensify. Cloud-based PLM provides an effective solution for helping overcome these challenges, and helps companies capitalize on new opportunities, and seek to achieve a competitive advantage in a highly competitive and constantly changing global market.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Heys is Industry Solutions and Services Manager at Accenture. He joined Accenture in 2013 as a Manager through the acquisition of Prion, a global PLM services delivery organization. His main industry sector focus areas have included retail, consumer goods, and aerospace and defense. Heys has worked on numerous PLM projects in various roles, including pre-sales engagement lead, and subject matter, and program management expert. He specializes in PLM strategy for technology and delivery, business process re-engineering and rationalization, and cost reduction.
To meet these challenges, organizations need to be able to reduce time to market by executing the most efficient and innovative new product development process possible to help them capitalize on as many trend cycles as possible. They also must maintain higher quality and manage an increasingly complex set of underlying product data that reflects the growing choices consumers are demanding. Moreover, these choices are leading to increased SKU complexity and proliferation, while organizations are still struggling to prevail against rising raw material costs and manage quality across an increasingly complex, divested and globally diverse value chain.
Consumer goods (CPG) manufacturers and retailers will likely find this a familiar scenario, as they too are grappling with similar challenges like SKU proliferation, shorter product cycles, and accelerated product demand that will require ever- faster market delivery.
Although these challenges are not new across sectors, what is new is an emerging trend whereby product lifecycle management (PLM) applications and cloud computing are combining to form a solution to such challenges. It is a solution that not only can aid the footwear sector, but offer some valuable strategies that may help the CPG industry. Applying PLM processes across enterprises has greatly enhanced the ability of companies to coalesce vital resources around the life of products, ranging from product development and supply chain support to sales and marketing. But, given the speed of today’s emerging fashion trends and growing market complexity, there is a need for a faster and more flexible approach to capturing opportunities and addressing challenges. Cloud-based PLM provides that approach.
How PLM helps and why delivery though the Cloud is making PLM accessible to all
Footwear manufacturers that deploy PLM technology and processes can enhance their ability to more quickly respond to the market. With the ability to leverage the Cloud, many of the entry barriers to the full value of PLM are removed. Cloud-based PLM could save time, cut costs, and help improve supply chain performance, global scalability, and speed-to-market. Some of the key areas companies can benefit from by using this strategy include:
- Market Delivery - Seismic trend changes, customization, and shifting demand globally present opportunities and challenges that make acquiring superior global scalability critical to success. There can be, for instance, demand for the same shoe in multiple markets, with each market requiring a slightly different design. To manage costs, there may be a need to temporarily collaborate with multiple design partners captive in each local supplier. Cloud-based PLM can adjust the scale of the PLM operations managing the number of users up or down, depending on the need, ensuring timely market delivery, as well as satisfying diverse user demand across geographies.
- Merchandising / Line Planning – Merchandising and line planning allow organizations to provide direction on the mix of products to be made, the price points, and the number of units to be manufactured. For a footwear organization, being able to integrate and deliver capabilities such as line planning and PLM using the Cloud, provides clear direction for design teams on what products to focus on. Many PLM vendors are now including line planning as part of their core capability.
- Product Design – A design team and the different stakeholders involved in the design process are rarely co-located. PLM enables a single source of the truth or information to support the design process, from material management and libraries, and specification creation to ‘tech pack’ creation and management. Using a Cloud-based PLM approach enables the capture and re-use of best practices and knowledge. By providing a single source of information, where organizations can manage their product design processes and share the required information at the right time and in the right format, they can deliver a more efficient, effective and innovative new product development process. This also enables quicker reactions to change whether it involves reacting to shifting trends, supply chain issues, or raw material price changes.
- Supply Chain Efficiency – Delivering PLM through the Cloud enables the global footwear supply chain to be part of the process, using the same single source of information in a controlled and managed way. Waste and inefficiencies can be taken out of activities such as the management of the sample process. Rather than e-mailing sample process tech packs and specification data to various suppliers that may become confused as to whether or not they are working on the right version, the sample process is managed within the PLM/ Cloud application with suppliers accessing and interacting with the data sets from the ‘single source’ of information. Cloud-based PLM gives organization’s the flexibility to accommodate as many or as few participants as needed.
- PLM delivered in the Cloud – Cloud technology and newer commercial delivery models for enterprise software, such as subscription rather than perpetual license, are removing entry barriers to the value that organizations can gain from PLM. Entry costs are reduced by eliminating the need for up-front capital investment for hardware and infrastructure, which can include set-up charges and financing interest. It also eliminates the need for a large capital budget to purchase software upfront. PLM software providers are developing on-demand usage based on licensing models that enable companies to pay only for what they use in the Cloud. This could make infrequent usage of PLM applications more cost-effective. In the past, infrequent usage would have been considered too cost-prohibitive to pay for a user’s license that remained idle a majority of the time.
The challenges confronting footwear manufacturers are not likely to diminish - they are likely to intensify. Cloud-based PLM provides an effective solution for helping overcome these challenges, and helps companies capitalize on new opportunities, and seek to achieve a competitive advantage in a highly competitive and constantly changing global market.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Heys is Industry Solutions and Services Manager at Accenture. He joined Accenture in 2013 as a Manager through the acquisition of Prion, a global PLM services delivery organization. His main industry sector focus areas have included retail, consumer goods, and aerospace and defense. Heys has worked on numerous PLM projects in various roles, including pre-sales engagement lead, and subject matter, and program management expert. He specializes in PLM strategy for technology and delivery, business process re-engineering and rationalization, and cost reduction.