And then, in a cruel-but-telling twist the next week, 11-year-old presidential son Barron Trump was photographed wearing a 2015-collection J. Crew t-shirt. The retailer found itself facing a sudden spike in interest for the \u201cThe Expert\u201d t-shirt but had to tell potential buyers that they no longer offered it.<\/P><\/p>\n
Market leadership depends on digitalization in fashion design software<\/H3>
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J. Crew isn\u2019t the only major brand retailer to suffer a fast decline, as once-stalwart brands such as Sears and Payless are shuttering hundreds of stores and letting go of thousands of employees.<\/P><\/p>\n
The fashion industry faces ever-increasing pressures on margins and ever-shortening time-to-market expectations. Digitalization offers a bright spot for fashion product development<\/A> that can help retailers get out of their reactive mode and be proactive on brand differentiation\u2014the key to competitive advantage.<\/P><\/p>\n Digitalization helps drive brand differentiation by giving retailers a first-to-market advantage, design-driven production efficiencies, and consumer-focused omni-channel sales capabilities. <\/P><\/p>\n One of the most obvious benefits of digitalization in fashion design software is first-to-market advantage. When designers, procurement teams, production planners and supply chain partners can do their work with common digital tools, everything moves faster, quality is standardized and collaboration is easier.<\/P><\/p>\n Zara is an example of just how fast retailers can move from consumer feedback to new styles on the racks. The Wall Street Journal reported in December 2016 how a newly designed woman\u2019s coat went from customer feedback to on-the-rack reality in only 25 days<\/A>.<\/P><\/p>\n Zara\u2019s parent company, Inditex, makes this possible by using near-market production and digital technology in its fashion design software for design and logistics. Analyst Anne Critchlow from Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale described the Spanish fast-fashion retailer this way: \u201cThink of Zara not as a brand, but as a very speedy chameleon that adapts instantly to fashion trends.\u201d<\/P><\/p>\n This has made Inditex the world\u2019s largest retailer in terms of sales.<\/P><\/p>\n In another example of speed-to-market, Adidas recently debuted the world\u2019s first 3D-printed shoe<\/A>. This feat (no pun intended) would not have been possible without cost-controlled R&D and the ability to test and plan for demand-driven fulfillment on a global scale. Adidas also had to fit a new type of digital technology into its go-to-market model. The company is partnering with a 3D-printing innovator and plans to mass-produce 100,000 pairs of the shoes next year.<\/P><\/p>\n There\u2019s more to winning in retail than being first. Another major benefit of digitalization is design-driven production.<\/P><\/p>\n Today\u2019s technology allows designs to be tested and tweaked for manufacturability before they\u2019re released. And once designs are handed off, platforms like PLM can provide visibility into process performance, improvement opportunities, and innovative process options on a global scale. PLM also provides a collaborative platform in fashion design software for improving quality through better process control. That improved quality, in turn, can command premium pricing.<\/P><\/p>\n In addition to improving quality, small-batch, high-demand designs also can command premium pricing; but, producers of these designs need to closely monitor control processes to ensure these ventures are profitable.<\/P><\/p>\n Think about the limited-edition, designer-inspired collections that Target occasionally sells. The products are aggressively hyped ahead of time, linked to a specific date of availability and almost always sell out quickly. Success is all about timing and requires cross-functional collaboration within the company, as well as with suppliers. This can\u2019t happen without visibility, real-time data-sharing and collaboration in their fashion design software.<\/P><\/p>\n Similarly, localized production can be a higher-profit alternative to off-shore production under certain circumstances. As production technology evolves, near-market production is expected to become more common in fashion and other industries. But this emerging model requires digital enablement<\/A> to align with the newer production technologies.<\/P><\/p>\n While the fashion industry is still catching up to some other industries in production efficiency and control, it\u2019s at the forefront of using data for strategic decision-making for sales. Many savvy fashion retailers have jumped on the Big Data bandwagon. According to an article published by the University of Tennessee Chattanooga College of Business, the analytics tools available today that make use of Big Data are giving retailers insights to accurately predict emerging trends and ready their fashion design software to adapt quickly to market changes<\/A>.<\/P><\/p>\n Once these decisions are made, the retailers are using this data-driven insight to develop omni-channel customer experiences that allow customers to interact and purchase based on individual channel preferences\u2014whether it\u2019s in stores, online, on mobile apps or any other channel.<\/P><\/p>\nFirst-to-market today means really fast <\/H3>
\nProduction-by-design during fashion product development<\/H3>
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As fashion and retail companies move into a more digitalized future, they’ll require digital technology and enablement to align with new production technology.<\/span><\/span>Staying close to the customer<\/H3>
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