Retail / Fashion · 2014–2019
Global fashion brand
The brand is a UK-founded fashion retailer that, by the mid-2010s, operated more than 500 branded stores across 46 countries alongside wholesale and ecommerce channels. It was still run largely as a UK-centric business, though, without the systems, supply chain or transformation capability of a company trying to become the multi-channel, global digital lifestyle brand it was aiming to be.
The situation
When this engagement began, the brand had no standing transformation capability: no team, methodology or PMO to plan and land change at the pace global growth required. The product range had grown to 5,800 SKUs a season, fragmenting buying volumes, eroding margin and tying up working capital the business needed for its next phase of growth. Product data lived on email, thousands of spreadsheets and other documents, with no single source of truth and no clear ownership; every quarter, the design team spent a week physically printing storyboards for collection reviews because there was no better way to review the range.
Without a transformation function, a disciplined range, and product data it could trust, the brand could not sustain the growth it was chasing or run itself as the global, multi-channel brand it wanted to become.
The challenge
Every major initiative in this engagement traced back to the same root problems: no transformation capability, a range that had grown out of control, and fragmented, unowned data.
- No standing programme, project or change management capability to plan, govern or deliver change at scale.
- 5,800 SKUs a season, fragmenting buying volumes and tying up working capital.
- No single source of truth for product data, spread across email, spreadsheets and other documents with unclear ownership.
- A single UK distribution centre serving a growing international store estate and ecommerce channel, with regional delivery taking 7-14 days.
- An early RFID deployment that had stalled: stray tag reads from stock rooms were undermining store stock accuracy even after physical shielding.
What we did
We built the Business Transformation Department from nothing: a team of 20 across programme and project management, business consulting, PMO and change, running a c.£30m annual portfolio.
- Ran the Design to Customer programme, re-engineering the value chain from product strategy and design through to sourcing, logistics and inventory, cutting seasonal SKUs from 5,800 to 3,700 and raising average units per SKU by 65%.
- Selected and implemented a leading PLM platform through a seven-vendor RFP, replacing thousands of spreadsheets with a single source of truth for product data and combining the retail and wholesale ranges into one.
- Opened three distribution centres across the UK, Europe and the US, replaced the legacy order management system, and cut regional delivery times from 7-14 days to 1-3 days.
- Paused the stalled RFID rollout, ran a full RFP, and switched to a specialist RFID vendor's Virtual Shielding technology, extending the rollout from 37 to 200+ stores.
- Ran the £23m acquisition of the brand's US licensee, set up an £18m Chinese joint venture, and integrated three European franchise businesses into the UK head office.
- Later, as Head of Central Merchandising, ran a two-year stock management strategy and new S&OP process, cutting old stock from 39% to 15% of mix.
Results
The transformation delivered on every front it touched: growth, working capital, technology and process.
- Turnover doubled from £430m to £870m in four years, with £100m of profit by 2018.
- £50m of working capital released in six months, avoiding a further £5m warehouse extension.
- On-time-in-full product completion rose from 70% to 89%, independently validated by a published case study by the PLM vendor.
- Store stock accuracy rose from around 80% to 95% with inventory counts cut from hours to about 25 minutes a store, covered by independent trade press.
- Old stock fell from 39% to 15% of mix and full-price stock rose from 61% to 85% over two years.
What made the difference
Two decisions underpinned the outcome. Establishing the enterprise Data Governance Board early, a common data library with defined owners across every function, gave later initiatives, including the PLM platform and the store assortment and markdown AI covered in the companion case study, a shared data foundation to build on rather than a series of one-off projects. And when the first RFID rollout ran into problems, the response was to pause it and run a full vendor RFP rather than push a flawed deployment through to hit a timeline, which is what took store stock accuracy to 95% instead of leaving it stuck below 80%.
Role
Head of Business Transformation (2014–2018), then Head of Central Merchandising (2018–2019)
Sector
Retail / Fashion