Cloud-based PLM Set
To Take The Footwear
Industry By Storm
By Kaj Speaight,
Senior Manager Industry Solutions at Accenture
There are many challenges faced
in today’s global footwear market
by brand owners, manufacturers
and retailers that can hinder their
success. Across their customers
there is an increasing use of social
media and smart devices which
results in much more ‘connected’
customers which results in much
shorter turnaround of fashions
and trends that must be reacted
to in order for them to remain
relevant in the market place. There
is a great increase in the ‘pseudo’
middle classes in China and the
Subcontinent who have increasing
demands on the quality and price
point of the footwear, wanting
higher quality at an affordable
price point.
In order to address 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 everfaster 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.
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• 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. Cloudbased 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 setup 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.
Preparing for the Future
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
Kaj Speaight is Senior Manager Industry
Solutions at Accenture. He joined Accenture
in 2013 through the acquisition of Prion, a
global PLM services delivery organization.
His main industry sector focus areas
have included retail, marine, automotive,
aerospace and defense. Kaj has worked on
numerous PLM projects in various roles,
including pre-sales engagement, technical
lead and program delivery. He specializes
in PLM strategy for technology and delivery.