If given the choice of more design seasons, faster speed to fruition, or more flexibility in your process as a whole, which would you choose? If you choose speed, then you’d expect to lose flexibility due to standardized processes. If you choose more designs, then you’d expect to sacrifice speed due to a need to identify so many more suppliers and materials. If flexibility is your selection, you can expect to have fewer designs due to the timeliness of additional processes.

 

What if you didn’t have to sacrifice one for the other? What if the solution to address this opportunity were already available? What’s holding you back from diving in?

 

According to a 2016 supply chain survey by IDC, retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers say that the No. one priority in their supply chain moving forward is product quality. Furthermore, that same survey told us that the top forces changing their supply chain were growth, competition and new technologies. This is telling that the industry recognizes the need to compete on the technological level, and in order to be a top tier retailer, the quality component is key to captivating consumers and maintaining brand loyalty.

 

B2B networks for sourcing and design

 

So, what technology enables competitive alignment? It’s the concept and abilities that come with B2B networks as they pertain to sourcing and design. Through a network format, suppliers and designers are no longer limited to the age old relations they had. With an extensive number of new relationships available, pricing on materials becomes competitively leveraged, and more options are available.

 

With digital design, speed to market improves, seasonality can be divided into more product families, and retailers can stay on top of trends and react quickly creating resiliency in their portfolio. When technology enables the sharing of a design or development instead of waiting for a sample to ship around the world, the design process is expedited, and designs can move from concept to reality in weeks rather than months.

 

Bamboo Rose, a technology provider in the product lifecycle management space is enabling these exact features in their current offering. Through B2B networks and digital design, Bamboo Rose brings these capabilities to life to offer retailers and wholesalers more tools to master their craft.

 

B2B marketplaces

 

In the era of modern technology, retailers can leapfrog their business forward. By eliminating archaic business practices and plunging feet first into the deep end, retailers and wholesalers can take advantage of the expediency digital designs can bring, and improve the cost margins of the products that make it into stores by leveraging the benefits of B2B networks.

 

To learn more about these tools, and working with Bamboo Rose, see the IDC paper, “Digital Development and Sourcing,” sponsored by Bamboo Rose.