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Emerging Trends
Forecasting and planning tools are also becoming more sophisticated in order
to maximize the efficiency of procurement and production. One of the problems
for fashion companies is that they often need to buy fabrics before they know
what quantities of products they need to manufacture, says Paul Deuman,
business analyst with Gurgaon-based fashion garment exporter, Maestro
Engineering. The risk is that they produce too much and end up with a lot of
unsold stock. They are trying to create simulation models, based on historical
data of what they have sold in particular markets, to better understand their
requirements for fabrics and other raw materials. Traditionally, this was an
informal, paper-based process, based on the individuals knowledge of buyers.
Another factor affecting IT requirements is the increasingly global nature of
the industry. Although luxury brands tend to keep production operations within
primarily Italy or France, because of the high value of the made in
Italy/France hallmarks, mainstream players like Diesel and Benetton and others
found in every Indian mall today are increasingly outsourcing production to
low-cost economies in Eastern Europe and Asia. Their challenge is to build
organizational processes to optimize a highly distributed and often complex
value chain.
Such companies need solutions that can manage intercompany processes and
information flows. For example, the production house in China might deliver its
goods to a distribution house in Australia that is responsible for distribution
to outlets in the entire Asia-Pacific region. The technology solutions that
support this model are increasingly Web-based, because they allow companies to
maintain centralized control of their distribution, while allowing systems
access to entities all over the world.
The need of the hour, most agree, is to have an end-to-end integrated
solution that would help the clients resolve the growing business challenges.
Moreover, with multiple systems, critical data was not available online for
making informed decisions. We could not ascertain whether our stores were making
profit or not; which of the brands were a best-seller and which were simply
occupying shelf space, adds Kamal Kotak, MD, Major Brands, franchisee for
brands like Mango, Nine West, Bally, Promod, La Senza, Charles & Keith, Inglot,
Okaidi among others.
Stuti Das
stutid@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1 2
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