Unraveling a Quick, Efficient and Responsive Supply Chain
With the recent economic downturn, companies have become more conscious about streamlining their supply chain processes. They realize the need to remove the inefficiencies and cut their expenses, improve speed to market, increase responsiveness to consumers’ demand and improve overall supply chain performance.

Responding to these needs, Third Eyesight, a leading consulting firm in the area of retail and consumer goods, recently conducted a series of a full-day workshop titled “Fast Fashion” across three cities namely, Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai. This workshop is a part of Third Eyesight’s ongoing Leadership Series, targeted at the top management and key decision makers of businesses, and is designed to assist companies make the step change in performance required to satisfy the demands of the current consumer.

The faculty comprised Devangshu Dutta (Chief Executive, Third Eyesight) and Ken Watson (Managing Director, Industry Forum, UK), two professionals with extensive international experience and knowledge in the fashion retail and supply chain. Dutta has held senior and top management positions in retail and management consulting organisations in India and internationally over two decades, and is a well-known professional for his expertise in the business of retail and consumer products. Watson is an expert in supply chain issues and has extensive knowledge of international retailing, wholesaling and distribution and manufacturing, and has worked in all areas of the retail supply pipeline from fibre through sourcing manufacturing and wholesaling to retail in Europe, Middle East, Asia and North America.

The workshops in all three cities were well attended by over 100 delegates, including several owners and CEOs of the textile and clothing industry. Professionals from national and international brands, retail businesses, those engaged in design as well as exports (as suppliers or buying agents) were well represented. The retailers and brands included Pantaloons, s.Oliver, Levi’s, Numero Uno, Koutons, Spencer’s, Madura Garments and Reliance amongst others. Gruppo Coin, Hennes and Mauritz (H&M), Mothercare, Monsoon Accessorize and Carrefour represented for international companies, and a number of Indian exporters and buying agents also participated.

The workshops were structured to have a balanced mix of knowledge and insights being imparted to the participants along with experience sharing, case studies and discussions and interactive team activities.  The participants derived in-depth knowledge about fast fashion business models of various companies such as Zara, Primark, H&M and Topshop and their application in the Indian context.The simplicity with which the concept of fast fashion was presented and the hands-on approach to the subject was much appreciated. A root cause analysis was carried out to identify the drawbacks in the current traditional business model and how it could be improved.  The participants were amazed at the immense potential of the concept of Fast Fashion to improve business while the concepts itself are practical to implement. By the end of the day the participants had clear visibility of end-to-end supply chain processes and how lean thinking could be applied to strip out waste and duplication.

Delegates summed up the day by saying:

Third Eyesight and Industry Forum have conducted workshops on this subject for over 5,000 participants in across the world and will soon be presenting the workshop in Hong Kong on 6 October 2009 in partnership with APLF’s Prime Source Forum.