Our IT solutions help firms adapt to changes in business environment
Option Systems Limited (OSL) specialises in computer systems for the apparel, footwear and soft goods industries. The company's Styleman and Styleprm systems are used by over 100 companies in 35 countries. Director Tony Parkinson talks about disruptions in the apparel and footwear retail and the future of e-commerce.
You work closely with apparel and footwear retailer's world over. How would you describe their most common difficulties and requirements that they aspire from information technology (IT) solutions?
I think the common issues facing apparel companies start with the customer and how to keep them engaged with a brand. Most companies have internet strategies geared around social media, blogs and website engagement with varying degrees of success. A physical retail store is becoming less relevant given same and next day order fulfilment, and the cost of running them is becoming prohibitive.
Brands are also challenged to remain fresh and relevant to their customers. The next big thing is never far away and those who do not keep up will struggle to maintain interest.
Global regulation and politics had become a surprising issue in the last couple of years after decades of relative stability. Companies need certainty to plan and strategise, and Brexit, US uncertainty around the trans-Pacific trade pact, a potential trade war with China by President Trump and his threats to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have created an environment that is more difficult to work in. The vast majority of volume apparel still relies on seasonal trade patterns, minimal international trade barriers and relatively long lead times.
Our Styleman solution can't do much about Donald Trump or Brexit, but it can allow a business to quickly understand the ramifications of changes to trade on their business and to adjust their model accordingly. This is what customers want from their IT solutions - the ability to adapt to business needs and not constrain business change.
What are the latest innovations in product lifecycle management (PLM) and ERP solutions?
There is a continuing move towards 'applications as a service', where systems are seen more as a utility, which also typically involves cloud deployment. Systems are becoming increasingly integrated, both within a business and with trading partners, and it is safe to say this trend will continue, with no company operating in isolation. This approach has huge benefits for information accuracy, labour-saving and speed to market.
In the product development world, 3D design and prototyping are making some inroads, and it is easy to see how well that can work with footwear and simple products, but harder to see how well it can translate to concepts like dress design. The prize here is to reduce the number of samples produced, resulting in faster time to market and lower development costs.
What are the challenges that apparel and retailers will face by 2020? How can they be more prepared in terms of IT solutions?
2020 is not so far off now; it starts in less than two years. I think it is safe to say that most of the challenges on that timescale are easy to foresee - landlords are likely to compromise to balance store rent and occupancy, duty changes are likely unless the looming trade war fizzles out, currency fluctuations are likely to result from Brexit and trade wars, consumer engagement will still tax brand's creative minds. Unfortunately, IT solutions cannot solve any of these challenges, but they can position the business to understand the ramifications and take advantage of opportunities as they arise.
What solutions do you offer for omni-channel retailing?
The core strength of Styleman enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is its ability to manage demand from multiple channels and to prioritise any stock shortages according to business rules. Stock can also be reserved for specific channels and also in multiple locations around the world to fulfil local demand. Having a single view of a style across the business enables companies to make strategic decisions regarding unpopular styles, colours and sizes, and also whether to repeat or reorder and where best to consolidate stock for clearance if needed.
Styleman Mobile provides an interface for channel users, such as wholesalers, sales staff, distributors, franchisees and concessions, to check availability and orders, view billing and effectively become self-serving. Styleman Mobile is a web app that is designed to be used from a smartphone, tablet or a PC device, and has recently been extended to include a supplier portal.
Which are your major markets for Styleman ERP, PLM, Mobile, WMS, and BI? Which major retailers are your clients?
OSL predominantly concentrates on the United Kingdom and Europe from its Leicester headquarters, and also has resellers in Australia, South Africa, Canada, the United States and Sri Lanka. In the United Kingdom, companies like Superdry and River Island are our clients and globally, Oregon, among the world's largest sportswear brand based in Portland, has been a customer for over 20 years.
How does your software improve speed in PLM?
There are several ways in which Styleman PLM software improves speed to market, primarily by reducing the possibility of errors and by driving the development schedule according to the desired timetable. Errors are reduced by both the factory and company looking at the same data, by the accuracy of the tech pack and by quality of feedback from sample fit sessions. A development style inherits a defined critical path for the type of garment, source country and desired tracking points, and notifies all personnel of upcoming and overdue events in the cycle. Management have overviews of all the products in development and can easily spot and anticipate problems.
What are the challenges in getting people to adapt to newer technologies?
Typically, clients using Styleman PLM are moving on from Excel as a development tool, usually since the volume of products being developed outgrows the ability of Excel to manage it. Excel is highly flexible and simple to use for this sort of purpose. However, its information is siloed and generally not shared with others involved, and its limits are soon apparent as the volume of products and size of development team increases.
PLM vendors' challenges are to provide the simplicity of use of the Excel spreadsheet but over a purpose-built collaborative database. In Styleman PLM, we have a report builder that allows users to construct their preferred data view, which can then be used to show and update data within the application.
What is the size of apparel and footwear companies using Styleman IT solutions?
Styleman addresses the problems of growing businesses, typically those which have outgrown their current systems and need a solution that is specifically designed to address their issues. There is no particular turnover or head count for this. A lot depends on the 'shape' of the business, but usually a potential customer will have a minimum of 5-10 people needing access to the application, and our largest customer has over 600 users.
What factors will affect apparel and footwear retail industries in the years to come?
There is no doubt that e-commerce has changed retail forever and that the e-tail purchase to delivery timescale will compress further. This will increase pressure on brick-and-mortar stores and undoubtedly, their numbers will reduce. Order fulfilment time now is limited by travel time from the local depot, and increasing the number of warehouses raises both the total inventory and its fragmentation. There has been much talk of Hyperloop for human transportation, but it may well find a niche in fast freight, allowing a single stock holding to service a wider geography with, for example, a two-hour delivery.
Robot assembly is starting to make inroads into manufacturing, raising the possibility of 'micro-factories' making to order, revisiting conventional tailoring. You may visit a shop, browse some garments (physically or virtually), adjust the colouring or pattern to your taste, and have a coffee while the garment is manufactured on the spot. This is more likely to happen in footwear first, since 3D fabric printing/knitting still has a way to go.
Ten years hence, 3D printing may develop to a stage that it will disrupt e-commerce, allowing individual garment or footwear personalisation and printing at home.
Blockchain is a technology more associated with crypto-currencies like Bitcoin rather than the apparel industry, but retailers are under increasing pressure to reassure consumers about the provenance of their garments and fibres, and blockchain may provide an un-forgeable history of a product from organic cotton through living-wage factory via green freight to the consumer.
How was your fiscal 2016-17? What are your financial targets for the year 2018-19?
Following a dip in revenues after the financial crisis of 2007-8, OSL has enjoyed sales growth and profitability throughout the 2010s. We tend to budget conservatively and Brexit has definitely impacted new business sales in 2017. Our targets for 2018 are the same as 2017 and hopefully for 2019, we will have some clarity on the new business landscape.
What are your future plans?
For software companies, business is in continual development to take advantage of new technology, standards, devices and ideas. The business is in a long transition to a more cloud-based model, but we still see a lot of companies who like their data on a box in the corner. We are seeing more adoption of mobile technologies, both within a business and for business partners - sales, customers and suppliers. We are also keeping an eye on voice interface (Siri, Alexa, Google, etc.), which is certainly gaining traction on home devices but has yet to make it into the office. (HO)
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