The Way Things Work: Organizations

QuickStep Fashion, a specific application from Lawson Software, has recently been released for the apparel, footwear, textile, and accessories industries. Lawson Software provides software and service solutions to 4,000 customers in manufacturing, distribution, maintenance and service sector industries across 40 countries. The fashion industry’s supply chain consists of an extensive web of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and of course, the valued customer. When a company has to outsource, they lose a considerable amount of time within the production and distribution area. They cannot directly control what they are producing and miscommunication does happen due to geographical distances .

The fashion business is a quick paced industry where companies have to be able to respond quickly to changes in their market demand. Lawson is making it possible for companies to see its entire supply chain, giving it direct assess to each step. It aids businesses with the changing styles and designs. This organizational structure also manufactures an extraordinary amount of products in a short life-cycle, even for large volume orders and business transactions. Since this software is able to receive information directly from the customer, delivery times are shortened as well. Data entry is accurate in terms of company inventory and other financial statements.

Keen Footwear is a company that has been introduced to this program recently and their director of operations, Joe Zitomer stated, “As we’ve grown and matured, we needed a faster, more reliable database, more sophisticated functionality, and dependable scalability, Lawson’s applications met all of those needs.”

Timeliness is key to success in the fashion world. The overall goal of this new implemented program, is to operate as efficiently as possible and hopefully grow to such status that other companies will want to use this system. This collaborative enterprise is the new way to do business in an industry where taste (in fashion) comes as quick as it goes.

This is an expensive operation. If a business controlled all aspects of the supply chain, would quality be degraded? Would a company be overwhelmed with its responsibilities and tasks? Perhaps the fashion industry is the only industry that should use such a system due to their extreme versatility and be still be able to enhance profits.