Have you come across a person in apparel industry, who isforever in 'crisis manager' mode. Every issue that occurs during any ordercycle cannot be resolved without his involvement in some way or the other. Thisperson is often found running from one department to another, you spot him infabric department, negotiating with fabric manager on when will he get hisstrike offs, you spot him in washing floor, comparing the washed garments tothe original standard from buyer, you spot him in trim store, hunting for trimsfor his urgent samples, you spot him on production floor clarifying the doubtabout the button placement as per buyer requirement, you find him in conferencecalls with the buying agents, you find him doing costing negotiation in buyermeets, you find him in top bosses cabin, giving the case history to justifydelivery extension for a PO, often you find him on phone talking to theembroidery guy, the lace dyeing guy, the zipper supplier, you find himstruggling with the newly installed ERP; oh! We all know the look of pain onhis face while he enters the data for the numerous POS into the system!


No guesses to find out who this person is? We are talkinghere about the ubiquitous, omnipresent individual called the merchandiser inany apparel supply chain set up. So where else can we look for creating adifferentiating edge in our set ups, if not here?


Just imagine this scenario. A manufacturing or buying setup, which exudes professionalism with a capital 'P' from the moment you stepin. You can feel it in the air, in the well maintained greenery, in the neatlyorganized work desks, in the samples hanging near workstations with neatlytyped tags, in the bulletin boards displaying inspiring stories of achievementsof employees, relatively quiet place, or is that too much to ask. a contagioushigh energy environment, full of young people passionate about their work,looking forward to come to work every day, total harmony between severaldepartments, communicating seamlessly, a zero error zone of sorts, havingcustomers addicted to its service levels so much so, that they wont goanywhere even in times of recession, competition or price wars.


As per my thoughts, the apparel industry has already made ahuge beginning by giving these youngsters a channel to focus their immenseenergies. True these 20-30 year olds are not from premier MBAs like IIMs(though that would be the ultimate dream come true scenario when the industrywill attract the best and the brightest ! ), but these kids are smart nevertheless,trained in the MBA institute of life.


The apparel industry has inherent unique challenges andcomplexities of working in a tightly time bound, multi styles, truly global setup. I mean where else can you find a scenario like this- Australian long staplecotton traveled 1000s of miles from Australia to Pakistan where its woven intogreige fabric, then travels another few 1000 miles to Sri Lanka, where itsprocessed into dyed and finished fabric made to order in different colors,again travels a few 1000 miles to Bangladesh, and simultaneously trims arebeing traveled back and forth for various rounds of approvals between Hong Kongand USA and finally from Hong Kong to Bangladesh, to be converted into flatfront pants, then shipped to the US or Europe to be sold on shop floors,coordinated with a shirt which went through a similar journey, made inMauritius and a hat using that same shirts fabric as trim binding, made inTaiwan, all at the same time, and all made to happen within the time frame allottedto get the jobs done !!


I am not sure if many other industries can beat such hugelevel of complexity!!


So the platform is already available. A highly dynamic fieldto be in with ever increasing and stringent demands You cannot find a betterplace than this to sharpen the skills of the young potential of this country.


And yet, let's be honest, do you feel the merchandisers havegot that 'elite' status as yet in our industry, that pride of place which afunction like merchandising deserves. Its the one thread which ties theenterprise together from beginning to the end. This is the place to begin withwhen creating a differentiating edge. This function must transform into theCentre of Excellence model which is already prevalent in other professionallyrun industries.


"Center of excellence" is a concept gaining traction acrossbusinesses. A quick survey of companies in any industry will turn up centers ofexcellence in such areas as IT, finance, human resources, manufacturing,business process, procurement, and, yes, supply chain. Though these centers maygo by different names, they basically are hubs for focusing skills and resources ona specific functional area. The general purpose is to identify, develop anddisseminate technologies and best practices that make the business work better Creating a team of people working as centre of excellence, a platform engaged in finding the best practices, in delivering customer centric process improvements, in putting together the expertise from within the organization to deal with complex situations, in brainstorming and generating new ideas of doing business better, to raise the competency level of how we execute the work day in and day out.

Here is an excerpt from an interview I came across of an executive from Procter and Gamble. At P&G, this translates into developing "machine equivalent" ways of managing work, based on processes that deliver "reliable, predictable, repeatable performance, no matter who is doing the work or where in the world it is being done,"


So how can we apply this Centre of Excellence model in our merchandising context? Well it need not be a formal or elaborate structure. We can simply begin by having a group of individuals in a company to form a team of sorts with the objectives outlined above. This could be as simple as an email distribution group!! The purpose will be to share ideas and knowledge for the benefit of the entire organization. These will be the internal consultants of sorts who will be obliged to freely share the knowledge, resources, information and best practices accessible to one and all in the company.


And the idea is not to copy other industries best practice and ask the question 'why can't we do what they do? The key is the learning process itself - that helps develop ideas and practices which are right for your business and your context. The idea is that of a self motivated peer group, who will brainstorm the ideas on how to conduct every aspect of business better and how those ideas can be put into practice there and then.


This core team or group would be the exalted, respected elites of the organizations who will rise above petty politics or vested interests and enable and lead the change in an organization which will bring in the differentiating edge. It could well be a group with a cross functional flavor to bring in different streams of competencies into the thinking process at a common platform. Their job will be to relentlessly pursue the objective of implementing the newer and smarter ways of doing everyday tasks.


I experienced it happening personally during the course of my career. An export house which was primarily a CMT vendor was able to try similar methods and slowly but surely transformed into a preferred supplier partner for a major designer label from U S A What was the success secret ? A weekly meeting headed by the CEO himself, inviting the cross functional heads and merchandisers at a common table to talk about the issues and find solutions there and then


Another example, where by virtue of a facilitation session that I happened to chair, three different units of the same organization came together for the first time, and when we got talking to each other about common problems, we were able to find solutions and expertise right there and then, proven methods of solving similar problems available within the company, so far kept disparate from each other for the sheer lack of platform which could bring them all together with one overriding objective of finding smarter ways of doing our work. Why have pockets of skills or expertise silos of sorts within the same company? Why not get together and share the knowledge first within the company and then maybe across the entire industry.


Coming back to my contention of making merchandising function as the centre of excellence and hence the differentiating edge, lets talk about what is expected of this community to rise to the next level of professionalism, an evolution of sorts into the venerable elites, who could be the deciding factor for whether or not a customer will place business with X company?


Price, on time delivery and quality of merchandise is no longer a differentiating edge. It's given which has to be there if a company even wants to exist and survive in the buyer driven highly competitive environment. Buyers will have thousands of suppliers to chose from, claiming these criteria.


The differentiation will come from the customer experience that you can provide. The sheer feeling or perception that your customer will have of what its like to do business with your company. And this is where the opportunity lies for the merchandising community to make a difference.


After all the customer experiences your organization through the millions of interactions and transactions that occur between you and the customer, right from the R & D inquiry stage to the final shipment. You are the face of the organization, and not only the face, but the middle as well as the tail end of the entire experience that your customer will have of working with your organization. How you can engage and bind and service the customer will determine the future flow of business? You can make or break the bottom line indeed.

I would like to suggest three pronged approach, followed by P&G to applying the COE model to merchandising. First front to manage is the Mastery. We have to ensure that merchants have the sufficient mastery to do the work. This goes beyond training because it must include means of validating that the necessary knowledge has been acquired and can be applied.


The second front is a governance process. There cannot be thousand ways of doing a work. There has to be one standardized way of doing things, not just for systems, but a standardized approach to how we think about steps and the sequence of steps to achieve a desired outcome. That's the only way to make it repeatable and predictable. How far has our industry achieved this standardization of process and thinking is something worth worrying about.


The third front to manage is innovation. We have to have an eye towards how you might redesign, retool ore renew that work. A certain baseline of skills might be sufficient now to do the work, but in a year from today, you might have twice the business pressure and will need to complete in four steps a process that now takes eight - and do it with half as many people.


What cannot be measure cannot be controlled. There has to be a process control method in place too. On the mastery front, we need to measure and see who has the competency, at the level required and to identify where someone may need additional skills. Second, thing to measure is process variability. How far were the SOPs followed and how far deviations occurred must be recorded. The third thing to measure is the outcomes. Are we delivering what the business needs to operate? This is necessary so that we dont end up creating great business processes that end up on a shelf.


At P&G this concept is applied through HPNs. HPNs are a network of individuals from different P&G businesses who meet virtually every month and physically a couple of times a year. "So we have people accountable for applying this approach as they execute the daily work across each of our businesses and categories and markets, "he says. "We think of it as a living network of people that have that capability and responsibility for validating that our machine is operating correctly."


Success is defined as "getting the work down to a handful of approaches that are necessary for the business issues we face," says Barr. "This does not mean one way of doing everything. Even, if we get down to three or four ways to produce a desired outcome, we consider that a tremendous accomplishment."


If we study some of the best companies of the world, it is easy to discern that they are successful because they have very strong SOPs put in place, and are not so heavily people dependent. It is not like if one merchant is on leave, the entire account's work goes haywire!


We are talking about a huge paradigm shift here. The merchandising community must rise up and elevate themselves to the new paradigm. The futuristic view of the role of merchandiser must undergo the following paradigm shift-


  • From that of a 'victim' to that of a 'mentor'


  • From that of a 'mere merchant' to that of a 'project manager' or 'project owner'


  • From 'people' orientation to 'process' orientation


  • From 'swatch card' to 'job card'


  • From 'coordinator' to 'customer relationship manager'


  • From 'crisis manager' to an 'internal consultant, expert, Centre of Excellence'


The merchandising community must elevate themselves to the 'elites' of the organization, leading the change and innovation that will become the differentiating edge. I know it sounds obvious but I cannot think of a better quote to end this discussion, than Mahatma Gandhi's' Be the change you want to see.' You alone are responsible for YOU. So if you won't take the necessary actions, then who will? If not now, then when?


 

Here 'I' refers to the author of the article

About the Author


Anjuli Gopalakrishna has spent more than a decade in the apparel industry, having worked with leading companies including J C Penney Purchasing Corporation, Tommy Hilfiger India Limited and Li & Fung. Her experience includes apparel marketing and merchandising, sourcing of home products, apparel, accessories and leather goods. She has extensive experience sourcing for US and Europe from sourcing destinations including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Madagascar, Pakistan, Taiwan and China. She is a Post Graduate in Fashion Management Studies from the National Institute of Fashion Technology Delhi (NIFT). She is now an independent consultant and trainer in supply chain merchandising to buying offices and garment exporters and also a guest lecturer at NIFT Bangalore.