We’re delighted to present our first Beyond Threads webinar, featuring Kevin Paindeville – Warehouse Solutions & Innovation Director at Bleckmann. Watch it now to get expert insights on how innovation is reshaping fashion and lifestyle logistics and what it takes to stay ahead in a changing industry. Most importantly, Kevin will be discussing how logistics providers can use innovative thinking to deliver a superior customer experience.
Why is innovation in fashion logistics so important?
The fashion industry faces a number of unique challenges and opportunities, including fast-moving trends and complex international supply chains. Adopting new technologies can therefore be critical to helping fashion and lifestyle brands improve their processes and remain competitive. But what does a successful innovation strategy look like in practice? As Kevin explains, it’s all about identifying the ideal time to embrace innovation.
Whether you’re looking to increase your competitive advantage, streamline operations in warehouse management system or expand into a new territory, there are many good reasons to accelerate your innovation strategy. However, it’s important to be clear about your goals and to take a targeted, timely approach. For example, if labour shortages are causing problems, automation can provide a solution – allowing teams to focus on delivering exceptional service at scale. The key to success is knowing exactly when to invest to drive your business forward.
Taking the next steps on your innovation journey
In the fast-paced fashion industry, innovation is much more than a trend – it’s increasingly a necessity to stay competitive. And there are many areas where it can drive significant improvements, from inventory management to sustainability. However, as Kevin points out, innovation is a journey, not a destination. That means it’s important to prioritise the areas where innovation will have the greatest impact, both in the short and long term – ensuring that investment in innovation delivers measurable benefits to your bottom line.
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Transcript
Hello everyone, and welcome to the first episode of the Beyond Threads Webinar series. My name is Kevin Paindeville, Warehouse Solutions & Innovative Director at Bleckmann and I'm glad to have you today to discover what innovation can bring to your business.
Today, we'll see why innovation can be so important in warehousing and logistics especially in the fashion and lifestyle segment. We'll see how you can stay ahead of the competition by using supply chain innovation, how you can sustain your growth, and how you can have happier customers.
We'll start by showing what role innovation can have within your business. We'll present the advantages you can take out from innovation and you will also see when it is the right time to start to innovate in your organisation.
Finally, I will give you a few tips on how to start and organise innovation within your company. In fashion and lifestyle logistics, innovation isn't just a trend, it's a necessity.
The sector faces a lot of challenges and innovation in logistics and supply chain management can help you mitigate them. First, if you're growing, if you want to grow, innovation can help you support that growth by accepting more volume without necessarily slowing down your process.
Second, it can better address the labour shortages you can face. Everybody knows it's difficult to get people today in the . By automating repetitive tasks you can just ask your current people to focus on high, heightened-value tasks. They will feel even better at work.
Thirdly, being seen as an innovative partner, you will set your business apart. It's not only using technology to be more efficient, it's also more attractive and will bring new clients and partners.
Innovation changes how we work, making it faster, easier and more reliable which is crucial to stay ahead of the competition and meet customer requirements.
Let's have a look at the advantages of innovation. Of course, it will allow you to have a competitive edge compared to the competition. You stay focused on new technology, you learn from it, you try to apply it, you will learn a lot from it and your customer will see that.
Second, you will be more efficient when you can implement those innovations and it will lead to cost savings, which your CFO will appreciate.
Thirdly, it can also be sustainable. By optimising the transport route, by reducing the size of your boxes with automation you will also help Mother Nature.
Finally, all those three advantages lead to a better customer experience which in the end is the ultimate goal of innovation: make customers happy.
Innovation isn't just about playing with robots. Of course, everybody loves a robot, myself first but it is also making meaningful changes for customer, for operation and for employee.
So, when is the right time to innovate?' is the question a lot of brands think about. The answer may be different for everybody but a few signs can help you to identify when it's the right moment to innovate.
First, Look at your growth. If you notice that the growth is slowing down, because you increased your cost because the volume is so high you can't handle it with the current way to process it's probably the right time to look at your process and innovate.
If your customers are less happy than yesterday it is probably also the right time to look at your process and innovate.
Thirdly, if you look at the competition, if everybody is investing in automation and innovation, if you want to stay in the competition, you have to innovate.
It's not about investing millions. Sometimes a small, incremental change can make the difference. The only thing is to identify how to innovate and when to innovate.
So, we saw the role of innovation, the advantages of innovation we saw when it's the right time to innovate, let's see how, practically, we can start innovation.
There are many ways to organise innovation in organisations, but let me give you a few tips.
First of all, you need to dedicate a team, or at least a person, entirely dedicated to innovation.
Don't let that person be overflowed by the day-to-day business, it won't work. He or she needs to be focussed on innovation. So now, great, you have a team or at least a person able to manage innovation.
The second point is: identify opportunities for improvement. Look at your processes, where you're facing challenges. It might be there: room for improvement.
Thirdly, target the high impact areas. Look at the hours you spend on your processes, identify the big part. There, a small change will have a huge impact on your business.
Fourthly, collect and challenge the ideas. Don't think all ideas will come from the innovation manager, it won't be the case. Of course, he or she will have a lot of ideas but it will be better to collect all the ideas throughout the organisation. By doing this, you will have a bigger chance to implement innovation. So, collect all the ideas in the organisation, put them into a funnel and then start digging into all of these initiatives.
Fifth step: when you analyse further down a specific initiative, validate the assumptions. Validate with the business, validate with your peers. And challenge your business case, make presentations internally, ask for feedback so that the innovation team can reorient the focus based on the real needs of the organisation.
And a top tip: brace for the roller coaster ride. Because innovation is a real ride. Some days, you will be desperate because nothing goes as you expect. Some other day, you will feel like a gold medal winner at the Olympics. So, embrace the ride and let's start. So, remember: the goal is not to implement automation, robotics, AI, whatsoever because it's fun or trendy. The goal is to identify the right tool for your process, your customer and your employee. That's what it's all about.
As we come to the end of today's webinar, I want to thank you for your attention and I want to leave you with one important sentence:
Innovation is not a destination, it's a journey.
So, let's be prepared for it. If you have any questions or feedback about this webinar, reach out via LinkedIn. You can also follow us via social media and I invite you to follow, in the coming months, the three podcasts we will post about innovation. Stay tuned for the next episode of the Beyond Threads Webinar and until then, let's keep on innovating together.
