I can easily say that all fashion businesses we’ve come across over the years want to improve the way they do things. They want to cut lead times, improve quality, maintain a tighter control on costs and do more without increasing overhead. They want to automate, collaborate with teams and vendors, and use the latest technologies available. To do this, they know they must upgrade the software and tools they use that are antiquated, cumbersome and limiting.

The executives and department managers making these decisions are certain that using new technology will make their business grow faster and be more profitable.

Despite all this conviction, why do we see so many fashion companies sit on the fence for so long before taking the leap? The comment we often hear is, “We are too busy right now.”  You know how the saying goes, if I had a penny for every time I heard that…

The reality is that the world of fashion is chaotic and fashion teams all over the world are indeed busy. Busy fighting day to day operational battles. Ensuring new collections are on time, styles designed, costed out, getting inventory right, battling sampling and production issues, quality, vendor constraints, cash-flow, sales, and the list goes on and on. All this with limited resources and never enough people to do all the work at hand.

It’s for this very reason I don’t blame fashion executives for saying they are too busy to implement technology because I’ve seen what they are dealing with from the inside.

However, if you continue to develop collections and produce styles in the same way, with the same tools how are you ever going to have time? In fact, you will end up with the exact same set of issues repeatedly.

The reality is you will always be busy. You will never have enough time because while today you’re dealing with one thing, tomorrow another challenge awaits. One of the aims of technology is to do more with the same set of resources and gain leverage.

My VP sent me this image the other day and I thought it a perfect depiction.

At WFX, we have implemented Cloud PLM and ERP solutions at hundreds of fashion brands and manufacturers all over the world. Over the past couple years, we partnered with NetSuite and brought a WFX Cloud PLM + NetSuite ERP offering to dozens of growing fashion businesses. In each instance, the businesses we partnered with were strapped for time and resources. The only difference is that they made technology and improving the way they work, a priority. Today, those who embarked on that journey are more successful than they ever were before.

Here are a few fashion businesses who took the leap in the past few months with WFX – Everlane, OVO, Belstaff, Toast, Vision Brands, Spell & the Gypsy, Maliban, Afflatus, PhongPhu…

In summary, we’re all busy. In fact, when Arvind from Oracle NetSuite asked me to write a post, I almost told him “I’m too busy!” 🙂 

Don’t let ‘busy’ get in the way of improving your business.