Shortening Lead-Times to Create an Agile Supply Chain for Esprit
1. Introduction
The last decade has witnessed a significant transformation that fast fashion has become a key feature in current fashion industry. Although it was regarded as a niche concept offered by a few winners such as Zara and H&M, fast fashion has now been adopted as a key operation mode by many brands in the fashion market (Baker, 2008), using advanced and more efficient supply chains to be more responsive to changing trends towards customer demand. Hence, Fast fashion brands perform relatively better than other fashion brands in various aspects. (Mattila et al. 2002: 340 – 351)
Esprit is a fashion brand owned by Esprit Holding Ltd., manufacturing apparel, accessories, footwear and housewares under the Esprit label. In the previous fashion market, Esprit is generally recognized as the originator of fast fashion. As one of the pioneers in the fashion industry, however, Esprit has lost its way in recent years. (Best Retail Brands, 2012) "In essence, Esprit is a strong and profitable brand, but the brand has gradually lost its soul over the past few years,'' Ronald Van Der Vis - chief executive of Esprit admitted. (News.com.au, 2011) The company is now focused on a brand revival with significant investment planned for marketing and the retail experience, as well as plans to exit some European markets and sell off the U.S. business. (Best Retail Brands, 2012) The most notable action is that the company has appointed Jose Manuel Martinez Gutierrez, who was group director of distribution and operations at Zara, as the CEO position in September 2012. This evidence shows that Esprit is going to struggle with fast fashion leaders like Zara and H&M.
From an operational perspective, agile supply chain strategies have been relatively well studied, and can yield significant value to firms through faster supply chain. (Fisher and Raman 1996) Esprit has started realizing that how to make its products and services to reach customers in the shortest time is most
The last decade has witnessed a significant transformation that fast fashion has become a key feature in current fashion industry. Although it was regarded as a niche concept offered by a few winners such as Zara and H&M, fast fashion has now been adopted as a key operation mode by many brands in the fashion market (Baker, 2008), using advanced and more efficient supply chains to be more responsive to changing trends towards customer demand. Hence, Fast fashion brands perform relatively better than other fashion brands in various aspects. (Mattila et al. 2002: 340 – 351)
Esprit is a fashion brand owned by Esprit Holding Ltd., manufacturing apparel, accessories, footwear and housewares under the Esprit label. In the previous fashion market, Esprit is generally recognized as the originator of fast fashion. As one of the pioneers in the fashion industry, however, Esprit has lost its way in recent years. (Best Retail Brands, 2012) "In essence, Esprit is a strong and profitable brand, but the brand has gradually lost its soul over the past few years,'' Ronald Van Der Vis - chief executive of Esprit admitted. (News.com.au, 2011) The company is now focused on a brand revival with significant investment planned for marketing and the retail experience, as well as plans to exit some European markets and sell off the U.S. business. (Best Retail Brands, 2012) The most notable action is that the company has appointed Jose Manuel Martinez Gutierrez, who was group director of distribution and operations at Zara, as the CEO position in September 2012. This evidence shows that Esprit is going to struggle with fast fashion leaders like Zara and H&M.
From an operational perspective, agile supply chain strategies have been relatively well studied, and can yield significant value to firms through faster supply chain. (Fisher and Raman 1996) Esprit has started realizing that how to make its products and services to reach customers in the shortest time is most