Technology Trends in Apparel

April 23rd, 2007 at 07:15am David Bush - Iasta

Apparel Magazine just released it’s 1st Annual Top Technology Trends Report, authored by Michael Barret, Retail Research Director of AMR Research. The report had some interesting findings.

The four most important business initiatives for 2007 are:

• Reducing product costs to improve margin
• Reducing lead times for new products
• Business intelligence / analytical capabilities
• Increasing supply chain agility

Companies plan to support future growth primarily through-

• Increasing sales volume of current products
• Introducing new products or categories

About half of the companies surveyed will increase their budget in this fiscal year.

About a quarter of companies plan to add enhancements to existing applications in the next twelve months, and about one sixth plan to select and implement a package in the next twelve months. Furthermore, a significant percentage of companies, especially in the mid-market (43%) plan to add enhancements to their current sourcing platforms in the next twelve months. Similarly, 52% of these mid-market companies plan to add supply chain collaboration capabilities.

Does this mean that this will finally be the year that e-Sourcing suites, especially on-demand e-Sourcing suites, start to make a significant impact on the apparel marketplace? Considering that these suites considerably reduce sourcing cycles, assist with supply chain agility planning, can be used to source existing and new product categories, and contain extensive collaboration capabilities, I think it only makes sense to see growth within this vertical. Iasta already works with some of the largest companies in this industry but there are numerous large and medium size companies in apparel that have no eSourcing solutions. I think most in the industry would be surprised to see some of the reverse auction results that are happening in direct material/product events every week.

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Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Reverse Auctions, Technology, e-Sourcing Marketplace