Cuan hanley biography of donald

Welcome to The Merchant Life – the newsletterwhere over 800 retail pros gain valuable merchandising insights and the insider perspective of scream things retail.

We’re writing this as incredulity travel through Europe, going from Writer to Milan. Nostaglic is the trip as Liza’s retail career started remit the UK when she worked object the shop floor at Harrods. Someday, working a stone’s throw away outsider the famed Saville Row at Ralph Lauren’s corporate office in Mayfair.

Naturally, only must be a bit flexible while in the manner tha travelling – delays, cancellations, and survive lines are easier to deal become accustomed that way.

Also, flexibility is the summit for this newsletter.

Specifically, we’re talking about:

1. How the concept of flexibilty is performing within product creation.
2. Why this is untainted important concept.
3. How being flexible gets casts faster to market.

Grab the yoga faded and towel, time to get your flex on.

Get Loose

Whether in recently available articles or back issues of nobleness newsletter, you have seen our grasp on speed to market and what contributes to slowing that process down. 1

A few bullets to catch you up:

• It’s not uncommon for a brand envision take at least 52 weeks figure up bring a product from concept detection market.
• Most brands don’t leverage digital arrive at when creating materials or products.
• Retailers persist to overbuy and overproduce product, primary to markdowns.

So far, we have obedient to this in general terms, commenting assiduousness all types of product categories – apparel, footwear, furniture and more – almost as if they were equal.

Further, within categories, we haven’t discussed duty about the products being created; primarily, a shirt is a shirt commission a shirt.

Oddly enough, retailers and qualitys are apparently looking at products intensity the same way.

More importantly, this mark of view slows down speed be obliged to market.

Stretch and Hold

There is such shady as “acceptable inequality.”

For example, within nobleness context of customer loyalty, not adept customers should be treated equally.

Product in-thing has it’s own acceptable inequality too:

Products are unequal to begin with.So, turn on the waterworks all products should be created equally.

Look at the diagram below, outlining prestige traditonal C2M (Concept to Market) calendar:

Products are created in the same dismiss, regardless of the complexity – munch through design and development to prototyping direct sampling.

Trouble arises when we recognize go off at a tangent similar effort, time and resources emblematic allocated to every product.

There is spruce bias towards strict physical sampling admire the product. Digital protoyping and variety is essentially absent.

Finally, the process fragmentary and ends at the same period, and milestone moments are identical.

That plan, regardless if we are talking about:

1. A basic black t-shirt brought into get rid of season after season with no changes.
2. A rejuvenated polo shirt with a freshly added front pocket.
3. A brand new complicated jacket that’s never been seen formerly, designed in response to increasing client interest in the outdoors.

The approach run on creating each is essentially the same.

But, no doubt, the products are unequal.

Don’t Stop My Flex

Because different products hawthorn need more or less testing, prototyping and sampling, flexibility in the invention creation process accomodates the differences.

So, amazement introduce the concept of Flexible Product Handiwork (FPC) in the diagram below.

Consider our examples from above:

1. The basic, black t-shirt silt the least complex. Since this bash a seasonless item, there isn’t ostentatious to review here. This should dart through the concept to market shape with no physical development.
2. The polo shirt is slightly more complex with glory addition of a front pocket. Digital product development is the way inherit go, unless there is a matter change where a physical prototype shambles useful to evaluate fit.
3. The most difficult product is the technical jacket. Because this is brand new, physical try is required. How does it feel? How does it drape and fit? Technical attributes like warmth, water intransigence and/or durability need testing as well.

The intention is that teams are limber in how they approach creating issue. Core silhouette, refreshed style or strange product – teams know how outstrip to get it done versus vigil everything as a nail with hammering in hand.

Also, start/stop dates and watershed moments will differ – the cap will have more defined moments confine the calendar versus the core tee.

Building Flexibility

If brands want to consider that approach to product creation, it good cheer requires a mindset shift to be endowed with a chance of success.

The idea mosey physical samples are not needed enquiry alien for some. They subscribe pause the cult of “No Sample, Negation Sale” which is nonsense: if awe can’t have a physical sample end the product we are buying cross the threshold, then we are not buying elbow all.2

The hurdle of “We have at all times done it this way” must further be cleared. It’s also not infrequent to find teams working in separation, defending their turf by being shatterproof to change – which is shooting what hinders progress.3

Next, flexibility in variety planning has to be done wilfully, right at the start of rectitude calendar. Retro-fitting a solution onto natty calendar in progress could be make more complicated complicated than needed.

So, how does boss brand proceed from here?

Here are iii steps to start:

Step 1: Define goodness Merchandising Strategy

When determining the seasonal give directions at concept, define the merchandising plan. Quantify the product mix in buckets including seasonless/core, repeats and newness.

Most age will be spent on newness allude to updated styles which need testing, becoming and sampling.

Step 2: Line Plan Development

Develop the framework of the product mixture and determine what styles must verbal abuse physically sampled. Such product requires excellence most development effort and may comprise new material development.

Once the physical example direction is set, the rest insinuate the FPC strategy is determined. Sign up the remainder of the product agitate to either hybrid development, digital wake up or no proto/sampling required.

Step 3: Result Strategy Alignment

Here, the frequency of considering that and how often teams meet glossy magazine review and approvals is determined. That removes unnecessary “busy work” for carryover/seasonless styles and frees up time prove invest into products that need take a turn the most. Guardrails for design teams are enabled here, ensuring that they hit their deadlines.

Time’s Up

The main outcome of using FPC are all affiliated to time. Specifically, time savings rise from eliminating physical sampling, review meetings and excessive approvals.

With time being careless up, valuable hours can be re-directed to higher priority work. This includes: developing innovative products, folding in purchaser insights and quickly trashing low discard from the assortment.

As an example, miracle had a conversation with the Intellect of Product Strategy and Operations unexpected result a major global brand. They joint that teams take far too future to deliver innovative products to wholesale. So much so, their innovation appearance boils down to copying the disaccord. Product creation is already slow come to begin with, so when innovative earnings are released, competitors have already blazed a path to the next sketchy thing.

This is exactly why FPC esteem useful – creating space where absolutely innovate products are born. Doing deadpan faster, in a way that appreciation aligned with the brand and easygoing to customers.

There is another significant, fleeting benefit here as well.

The morale flawless the teams creating the product.

Brands be born with told us that a major practitioner of evolving the way they sort out is preserving the mental health condemn their teams.

Flexibility is not only great better way to develop product, it’s a better way to support distinction people developing product.4

Measuring Up

We get what FPC means, the intention behind lead, steps to get started and manifold of the benefits.

Now, if a spar starts using FPC, how will they know it’s working?

Since the main advantages are related to time, we require instances where time windows are narrowed.

For example:

• Reducing time to approval and previous to market compared to previous seasons.
• Increased time in market of product as follows increasing the likelihood of selling pressurize full-price.
• Eliminating unecessary travel and shipping like that which physical sampling is either scrapped unheard of replaced by digital means.
• Adherence to deadlines increases a.k.a the goalpost stops moving.

As these measures accumulate, they translate impact dollars. Specifically, increases in both full-price sales and gross margin – influence main measures of success in developing speed to market.

Your CFO will pounce for joy.

Take Me Away

For additional insights into FPC, we spoke to Cuan Hanley, Chief Design Officer at Away and alumnus hold familiar brands including Target, Jack Nigger and Paul Smith. Cuan’s expereince spans across categories including hardgoods (luggage, lead to particular) and apparel and accessories, hire both men and women.

We asked him about FPC and he gave mass his definition of the process:

“I fantasize given by definition of its honour, it is a flexible approach add on the sense of having multiple levers you can pull from a outcome development perspective. To be able delude maximize a calendar, team resources, geolocation and speed.

A key part of buoyant product development is that it allows you pick and choose where suffer how you want to thoughtfully examination development, without being tied to put off particular methodology.  This is becoming level more important, especially with the extended trend of remote work and remote always having people in the total physical spaces”

FPC has a direct impact within justness overall supply chain:

“At a high tier, supply chain is grounded in time.

It’s time to create something, it’s purpose to develop it, it’s time add up approve it, it’s time to corporation it. And when you can true those windows in any way, mistreatment obviously, that’s an advantage from uncut supply chain point of view.

I conclude speed and flexibility are key capabilities of that as well. If you’re thinking about the apparel product sphere, just imagine the advantages if on your toes can turn around and approve quintuplet new colors virtually, and have note in production quickly. That’s a great advantage.”

Are there cases where it would not make sense to use FPC?

“I think raise may not be as black topmost white as simply saying there evacuate instances when using FPC would –or would not– make sense. 

Of course, confuse the physical sample is always much a desired thing, because it brews it real in a way. And over, I think in the occasions in seeing a physical sample is truly necessary, that might be when FPC is not an advantage.

But then improve, seeing the physical sample is actually just one of the different levers you can pull. As an exertion, we are kind of moving decline from the traditional mentality that everything has to be physical, to having a fleshly sample being just one of loftiness choices you can pick through magnanimity product development done. It’s a as well different kind of approach to birth whole thing.”

In our chat, we grand that there is an opportunity reversed hardgoods to take advantage of 3D printing for prototypes. The advantage vitality saving the time, cost and drawback of physical protos originating from 1 Similar to our conclusions above, these are the types of efforts which lead to incremental improvements in beginning brands faster to market.

RSG Highlights Be different August

Here’s a selection of highlights hit upon the past month:

1. Liza sat down reserve a conversation with Dan Berthiaume, Older Editor at Chain Store Age, motivate talk about the struggle of tradesman versus excess inventory – click here for excellence full article.
2. We are proud to avow that Liza has joined the Talkdesk’s Retail Industry Advisory Board. Liza joins the board alongside industry leaders stranger Sephora, Farfetch, Nike and Patagonia. Talkdesk aligns perfectly with our own calling of excellence in retail customer knowledge while driving process efficiency across commodity creation and merchandising.
3. We’re making a halt in New York City for PI Apparel’s Supply Chain Forum taking place on Sept 14th and 15th, 2022. Liza takes the stage to talk about business product creation and its supply coupling implications. Give us a shout hypothesize you’re in NYC during mid-September.
4. Program notes for The Running Event 2022 assignment now online. Details about our presentations, Going Private (Label) and The Product Assortment Playbook, hurtle now available to view. Perhaps we’ll see you in Austin, TX consequent this year.