Process Innovation in the Global Fashion Industry

Process innovation is an improved way of doing things across the entire supply chain including management, to expand efficiency in terms of cost, quality, and service. While being internal and invisible to customers in nature, process innovations are intermediate outcomes that serve as a means for achieving higher-level performance, rather than as a goal. Yet, by reducing the time and cost to produce a product or perform a service, and increasing productivity and turnover growth, process innovations add value to fashion firms and serve to highlight their products. In this chapter, process innovations occurring in the global fashion industry are examined using actual examples from global fashion brands in five areas—product development, production, order fulfillment, store operations, and at the service level. Notably, information systems, digital technologies, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) are important tools for process innovation, especially in enhancing supply chain efficiency, obtaining real-time data, optimizing deliveries, and reducing the time needed for production and service. However, process innovation should not be understood only from the perspective of information systems and technologies because it is possible to achieve without them, especially in terms of management. It is critically important for firms to clearly identify challenge areas and execute process innovation either incrementally or radically, with or without technologies, aligning with their existing systems. This chapter concludes by emphasizing the critical importance of constant process innovation for fashion firms to achieve success.

Trunk Club, a subsidiary of the Nordstrom company, began as a Chicago-based startup and is disrupting the retail fashion industry through its innovative and customer-centered retail format. The company, one of the early players in subscription-based fashion retailing, has designed its business model to empower its customers (e.g., young American executives with shrinking schedule availability, who want to dress fashionably but do not exactly know what would look good on them) to outsource their fashion needs. The company innovates the consumers’ shopping process by providing personal styling services based on their needs, size, budget, and style preferences with the help of a team of dedicated styling experts through its website or brick-and-mortar stores across the United States. In addition to incorporating machine-learning and personalized recommendation algorithms, which might be similar to its competitors, Trunk Club values building personal relationships between stylists and the customers, thus providing more a flexible and personal shopping experience to its customers.