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Fashion Industry

To meet the changing demands of consumers, production, and supply networks, fashion retailers need to rethink their strategy and optimize operations. Our fashion consulting team lives and breathes fashion, bringing decades of experience with major-brand clients.

Fashion consumers have responded to the pandemic by shifting to value, buying online, and breaking longtime loyalties to try new brands that meet new priorities. We help you respond to this consumer-driven environment, finding bold ways to reduce cost so you can invest in essential digital capabilities.

Taking a broad view of your core business and supply chain, we partner with you to identify the right use cases, first proving the benefits before transforming a specific customer experience or operational process—covering brand, product, pricing, store concept, and store execution.

Increasing Market Share by Revamping Operations

Like many players in the larger retail industry, fashion companies need to reduce the immediate gap in earnings before interest and taxes. They must then prepare for the future by focusing on aggressive cost management end to end—for example, by pursuing programs for the cost of goods sold, right-sizing corporate headquarters, creating more agile merchant teams, and increasing suppliers’ share of risk. These efforts are critical to funding the investments needed to remain competitive, such as digitizing production, resetting the distribution footprint, and creating new digital consumer pathways. To ensure success, we help clients attract the tech talent who will drive change and heighten the customer experience across digital channels.

How We Help Fashion Retailers Digitize Without Compromising the Art of Fashion

Most of the fashion industry is still catching up with digitizing core processes. Selecting technology solutions is important, but attention to the people whose work must adjust to those solutions is equally critical. This balanced approach intertwines new technologies with human creativity to ensure that your talent continues to drive fashion innovation.

Our team is ahead of the curve in helping clients create compelling designs that capture the next trend while also operating faster and more efficiently. By customizing our approach to your business and employing BCG X, our tech build and design unit, we selectively optimize processes in both the back and the front of the house, including:

  • Design and 3D Sampling. Algorithms aid designers by organizing images and fabric patterns and analyzing them. 3D sampling allows designs to be developed and fitted virtually before making prototype samples.
  • AI-Supported Demand Forecasting and Allocation. A transparent and data-driven demand-planning model uses multiple variables—such as brand, line, and store performance—and time periods to create store level targets that produce solid, bottom-line impact.
  • Creative Merchandising. Digital showrooms let your customers combine items, create personalized outfits, and see the look in real time—while also driving your brand’s overarching digital strategy.
  • Advanced Clienteling. Optimized segmentations personalize customer experience, boost retention, guide customer relationship management, and help you target segments of one, so you can meet consumers when they are most inspired to buy.

Our Client Work in the Fashion Industry

BCG’s fashion consulting teams have conducted more than 850 projects globally in the past five years in the fashion industry and luxury market. Some examples of our client work with fashion retailers include the following.

 
 
 

Our Fashion Industry Solutions

 

Our Partnerships with Associations and Influencers in the Fashion Industry

BCG on Consumer LI Showcase

Follow BCG on Consumer on LinkedIn

Companies operating in today's Fashion industry must optimize performance, tap into new opportunities and transform to meet consumers demands. Follow BCG on Consumer on LinkedIn for the latest industry insights and news.

Our Insights on the Fashion Industry

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Remaking Fashion & Luxury for Sustainability

Demands for more responsible practices can’t be ignored. Yes, Sarah Willersdorf acknowledges, making changes will be costly. Not making changes? Ultimately, even more so.

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Fashion’s Big Reset

Recovery from the COVID-19 crisis requires a radical business redesign. Brands must cut operating costs, boost e-commerce, and invest for the future.

Meet Our Fashion Consultants

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