3DRC: State of the DPC Landscape | Kalypso | PI Apparel

Greetings everyone, good morning, good afternoon, good evening across the globe. My name is Drew Sakata. I'm thrilled that you could join us today, uh, for the 2023 State of the DPC, uh, landscape presentation. Um, I'd like to take just a moment as we get started here, uh, to thank everybody who's calling in who's already an active member of the 3D Retail Coalition, the group that's sponsoring today's webinar, um, and maybe spend just a moment to talk to you a bit about the mission statement of this group for anyone who might be unfamiliar, uh, before we get into the content, the core content for today's presentation. Um, so, uh, a bit about the 3DRC. It is— the 3D Retail Coalition was a collaborative group of global retailers and brands that have been brought together to advance the adoption of 3D technology in the apparel, accessories, and footwear industry through the end-to-end supply chain from design through supply chain. The mission of the group is to provide direction, resources, and networking for the team. We have nearly 35 active brands represented, including 17 of which are on our steering committee and our, our innovation, education, and technology committees. We also host an annual challenge called the Grand Challenge that we'll be reporting results on early next year. We're going through the phase of that. It's very exciting about the future of AI in our industry, some really great content. I want to thank MarketKey, our partners at Target, including Sandy, who many of you know, who were founding partners along with Calypso on this initiative. And if you're interested in joining the 3DRC as a member, please follow the link below. You can also Google us to join the group. So with that context set, maybe I'll take a beat to properly introduce myself. So my name is Drew Sakata. I'm a principal in the global retail lead here at Calypso, where I've spent most of the last decade or so helping bring digital solutions to product problems in our industry. Really thrilled that you could join us from across the globe today for this webinar on the state of the DPC landscape. To guide us through today's content, and I've invited two heavy hitters from my team to join me, both of whom have led major digital transformation programs inside some of our marquee accounts, and who also happen to moonlight as project managers for the 3DRC Education and Innovation committees. The first is Ms. Chelsea Snyder. She's an industry designer, Academy of Art professor, and fashion technology educator who's turned to the dark side in management consulting on our team, um, and is— who is coming to us live from Portland, Maine today. Hello, Chelsea. And all the way across the country, uh, on the other coast in Portland, Oregon, um, is Mr. Esteban Garza, whose decade-plus career as a technologist, uh, transformation consultant, and trusted advisor to leaders in, uh, footwear and apparel industry has spanned the globe. Clients from Amsterdam to New York, North Carolina to San Francisco. It's Mr. Esteban Garza. Hello, Esteban. So near the end of today's session, I'll be coming back to facilitate the Q&A, which you can contribute to by dropping your questions in the live discussion box as we go. I'll be gathering those and facilitating the Q&A near the end. But for now, I'm going to turn it over to the team who's going to take it away on the results. Chelsea, Esteban, over to you.

Good. Thank you, Drew. So let's get to it. We can go to the next slide. Perfect. So we're going to kick this off with a story. Once upon a time, there was Ashley Jones, a director at Amazing Apparel with many years of product development experience that is appointed as leader of their digital product creation program. Ashley, having successfully led multiple transformation initiatives, feels confident. You know, she's ready for this and is excited about driving innovation, reimagining their ways of working, increasing speed and collaboration. But fast forward 2 years, she's struggling. You know, she now has a team of very enthusiastic, digitally trained product developers and designers, and they have completed many successful proofs of concepts and a few pilots across multiple categories and seasons. However, you know, it's been very hard for the team to move beyond experimentation to a meaningful, you know, proof of concept and ultimately to value at scale. You know, senior leadership seems very supportive of their vision and the roadmap, but key stakeholders have faced maybe a few challenges onboarding their team, rolling out new processes, and overall, I mean, just getting buying. And as you can imagine, as a result, you know, she hasn't been able to get the necessary budget to continue growing the team or exploring other capabilities. And I mean, does this feel familiar? You know, have you or somebody you work with closely experienced this? You know, I don't know, does this hit a little too close to home? So we have a question for you.

So what do you think is the main reason Amusing Apparel's DPC program hasn't been able to scale? Could it be lack of organizational change management support, lack of executive sponsorship, lack of proper governance framework, weak business case, availability of technology solutions? Lack of DPC resources and talent, or just the right DPC tools enabling product creation processes. So keep these in mind as we take you through the results, because we are going to visit the story at the end and talk a little bit more about what, what could be those pain points for her.

So keep it in mind. But anyways, as Drew said, we're Chelsea Snyder and Esteban Garza from Calypso. We're very excited to be here and share some findings and key insights of our latest digital product creation research. Um, I'm sure that a lot of people here familiarized with Calypso's annual DPC survey, uh, and may have seen results from our previous years. But, uh, for those who are not, I'll briefly provide some context. You know, in 2016, we started seeing a lot of, you know, interest in, uh, from our clients and other people, um, in the industry on digital capabilities. You know, everything from 3D product design and material scanning to the use of digital assets for e-com and marketing. And back then, every— everybody was at a different stage, uh, in their digital product creation journey. Um, so we decided to do a survey to have a better understanding of, of adoption, you know, asking our contacts, what are you investing in, you know, what is important to you. Um, and we oriented that survey towards a digital trade framework that categorizes these capabilities and discover, create, make, and sell. So we could measure maturity within the industry. Now, like, instead of doing the maturity assessment that we've done previously, what we've realized this year, especially through our client work, is that most people are already doing something in the DPC space, and we wanted to adjust our approach to capture how they're scaling. If, if they have achieved that value that they're working towards, you know, how, how have they been able to grow and adapt? Uh, so that was the goal for 2023. And this year we partnered with Fashion Innovation Agency and the London College of Fashion, uh, and over 100 people across the regional industry participated. Now, um, going to the next. Yes, uh, we split the survey in 5 key topics such as materials and components, uh, concepting and ideation, uh, and on the right side you can see the breakdown that showed the different functions, business types, and market segments that were, uh, that we were able to capture insights for. Overall, you know, very balanced. We have representation from all the different business units that support DPC and from value brands all the way to luxury. And today we're going to deep dive into, you know, where people are going, what are some of the challenges that they are facing, and how can we set to overcome them together? But let's get started with a summary of the 7 key insights that came out of this year's research.

So the results we're going to take you through today, we've grouped them into 7 key sections. So keep these— keep in mind that these are just key points. If you do want us to take you through a deeper dive of the results, we're happy to facilitate some time and, and take you through a deeper dive. But Yeah, these are the, the, um, top 7 key summary insights, and we'll go ahead and, um, jump right in.

So this is a comparison of 2022 and 2023 of the, uh, of the challenges and barriers to entry. This is focusing on what people are, are still experiencing as they try to scale. And what was fascinating to us as we were compiling results and focusing on these top barriers that we have tracked over the years is a drastic difference in the top 4, you know, where people are struggling, especially if you compare them with previous years. We are getting into more details in a bit, sure, but just look at the change management 2022 versus 2023. You know, we are almost a 40% difference and jumping to number 1. You know, I believe We all recognize the importance of OCM. You know, we've noticed that it is the first resource to get cut when there's a restructure. People think that it's not as important, or they try to figure out who's going to pay for it. But the thing is that there's increasing change fatigue, you know, with companies going through several transformation initiatives at the same time. So adapting to the ongoing state of perpetual change is forcing them to strengthen their change management strategies to guarantee success. There's also the scarcity of 3D talent in the area, creating a gap on hiring people into these roles that has jumped to 52% in second place, and increasing scrutiny of business cases to get sponsorship and funding, we uncovered a lot, you know, but I believe the biggest takeaway here is that there are new challenges, you know, that are arising and some of the existing ones that we are all familiar with have shifted with the current market conditions in this, you know, post-COVID world. I don't know, anything you would like to add here, Chelsea?

Yeah, I say we just jump right in and get into the details of the survey.

Good.

All right. So as Esteban highlighted, one of the biggest shifts that we found from last year is the organizational change management being under-addressed. So this is not a surprise. As brands are identifying more and more solutions that have potential to improve their, their businesses and workforces. But they're definitely in result experiencing a, a very large amount of change. Change fatigue is a term that we hear quite a bit these days, and it's really important that in long-term roadmaps There is a plan for OCM. Um, support and structure for impacted teams is key so they feel supported and have time to embrace the change and make a meaningful impact to the business. Communicating up to leadership, communicating down to functional teams, communicating out to vendors, external partners is going to be key for a really strong organizational change management plan. Um, and then like I said, just having your teams feel supported will then result in much better adoption of these tools that they're finding coming at them at a very increasing rate. And then the next one I wanted to talk into was that scarcity of skilled talent. So this also is not a surprise. There's rapid developments in technology. In result, universities, colleges are still catching up with these changes in the required skills that, that are needed by businesses. So we're finding the knowledge base of new technology is still lacking. And I just want to mention too that the 3DRC Education Committee has recognized these skill gaps and the need to help provide a little bit more clarity on what the need is for both universities building robust programs that facilitate these tools that businesses are required to use, and then also to help with hiring and what type of skills should be required within the talent you're bringing into your businesses. So there we've created a certification matrix, and it's ever-evolving, but we'll be providing visibility to that soon through the 3DRC website.

Now, number 3 is ROI and profitability. We've noticed that, you know, as ZPC is integrated into many people's product development processes, you know, they're struggling to continue the funding. You know, in order to secure budget for their program, they need to hardline back into an ROI. Some leaders find it hard to understand that digital product creation is a multi-year investment, that it is hard to calculate a strong, specific ROI. As I'm sure you— some of you have experienced, it's almost impossible to say, hey, you know, if I replace a physical sample with a digital one here, it will save us 40%. And not only that, but it gets more complicated because, because there, then there's the question of who is paying for the DPC work, you know, is it the business because it impacts key processes or the IT department because of a technology element, you know, and, and if the DPC program falls under IT, the validation of return over investment becomes super important because in DPC, there are so many capabilities that it is challenging to calculate a very strict one for one. You know, when a lot of the funding comes from the IT side, uh, and they're driving progress, there needs to be a very close partnership between them and the business to make sure that everybody understands requirements, the value that this is bringing, uh, so everybody understands the bigger picture and roadmap that supports it. So with this like near-term pressure for ROI, companies will need to bring you build stronger benefit cases to keep sponsorship support. But regardless of who is the ultimate sponsor, you must create a realistic business model, you know, with inputs from key financial advisors. And remember that you will be measured against, you know, this performance. So getting cross-functional buy-in to financial drivers is critical. And there's more of an intense scrutiny, you know, to refresh and refine business cases. You know, we very often, we find that retailers did a great job maybe building a business case and tying it to a roadmap, but then 2, 3 years down the line and it was never updated even after key assumptions or priorities changed. So something to keep in mind. Now, foundational Number 4 is just we're focusing on technology and how many retailers, you know, are not taking full advantage of those key foundational platforms, you know, that enable digital product creation. You know, we're talking about PLM, digital asset management, product information management systems, MDM, you know, and let's be honest, you know, when you compare of the really cool 3D tools and technology, PLM is probably the least sexy one, but it's essential. You know, PLM continues to be the single source of truth for product, material, and component information. And it should be used to manage and provide visibility and transparency to the cross-functional product creation process. You know, it is, It is because PLM manages critical data throughout the product lifecycle and across, you know, the supply chain that it provides that infrastructure, you know, for an end-to-end digital transformation. And we just need to acknowledge, you know, that it is now only one in a big set of platforms serving retailers with product data and digital assets. And we also need to think about them, you know, systems, you know, capable of taking all of these countless assets that are developed on a seasonal basis and making them available to an entire organization. You know, and while 87% of people say that all of these platforms are critical, you know, most companies are still relying on SharePoint, on Box, on Dropbox, or similar repositories to store and share these assets. And believe me, you know, it may sound impossible or distant, but I've worked for clients who have reached their file limits in SharePoint, and it's not fun. And what's worse is that 40% of respondents report that, you know, they don't have a strategic vision to connect the technology that is already at their disposal. So we find this disconnect, you know, between having the technology and understanding how to make it work to achieve their vision. And just don't forget that technology should support the solution, not provide the solution. Because ultimately the goal, you know, is, is to have this data that begins as a concept at the very beginning and is aggregating, flowing downstream through the diverse end users, um, and available to all kinds of functions at different points in time. So yeah, I'm sure you all work with people who are still relying heavily on emails, disconnected spreadsheets, local drives, and It all adds up, you know, creating barriers for adoption. Next we have AI.

Yeah. So through the survey, we definitely discovered that AI is still in its infancy. 80% of the respondents indicate they don't use it in any form, although it being at top of mind with promises of solutions to help with menial tasks, helping to fuel creativity, and can really, you know, be used as a tool to help enhance one's business. However, we found that there are definitely concerns around using the tool and really navigating through how to, you know, best use AI and in a responsible way. So Intellectual property is number one concern. The ethics, ethical considerations of using AI is one of those top concerns as well. Quality control, cost and resources, regulatory compliance, you know, all of these are things that are worth concern. 'cause again, it is in its infancy. People are still learning how to navigate the tools, you know, whether they're tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E 2, Midjourney, ones that are basically out-of-the-box solutions where there is a lot of unknown waters to be charted through there. However, we're hearing a lot about it. It's definitely something that I can see in future surveys. You know, hearing a lot more about both navigating through the tool and also ways that it can be most efficiently and effectively used. Although it can help enhance the work that we do, it still requires a human brain to use it properly and, and really bespoke it for one's business. So definitely a a tool of the future, it's emerging, there's definitely a reason for concern in terms of how, you know, one navigates it through their business. But yeah, again, it's not surprising to hear some of these results that we found here. And so why are people deciding to take the leap into DPC? I mean, as we know, that it does have its challenges, but according to the survey, 90%, 96% of the respondents said agility and speed to market is the top reason for adopting DPC. So improving product designs at 72% and fostering innovation So definitely a lot of potential that we've seen use cases for. And then achieving sustainability targets, linking your data into digital products. There's a lot of potential there. This is another topic definitely at top of mind, sustainability, with a lot of legislation going underway in the next few years. And then attracting and retaining talent. So, you know, definitely using tools that are starting to be— that we're seeing a lot of people using these days. It's definitely important to provide those tools within your business so that users can do their jobs most efficiently and effectively. And then a lot of the digital product creation tools have the potential to improve customer experiences. We also found respondents saying improving employee morale, shifting business models, and attracting more vendors and partners, and lastly enabling automated manufacturing. So, Not as many there. Again, lots of potential. But yeah, these are the top strategic imperatives for adopting GPC.

So next we are showcasing, you know, the unrealized gains and how, you know, in reality, not many people have truly gotten closer to market. You know, as you saw in the previous slide, you know, by nearly unanimous choice, improving agility and speed to market is the top DPC strategic priority. You know, 96% of people agree, as Chelsea said. When, you know, we first met with executive leadership to develop, you know, a vision and ask, you know, what are you trying to to achieve with your DPC program? How can DPC support your, your org strategy? No matter the market segment and even business type, it's always speed to market. You know, brands want to be closer to trend. They want to understand how some of these capabilities can save some time. You know, it's a key benefit that everybody is aiming for. What was the most interesting about the speed to market priority is that less than 4% of people, you know, who responded to the survey have actually made significant changes to their calendar. There's a huge, you know, disparity between the top value and the realization of that value for digital product creation. You know, it's something that, that we definitely noticed at multiple clients and that is almost in line, you know, with the OCM situation. I guess there is change fatigue and sometimes it feels like we're changing for the sake of changing and no one has been able to create or propagate these changes to their development calendar just to realize that the vision and get the value. Sometimes, you know, it's the lack of executive sponsorship or just the level of effort. As you know, it takes a lot to take weeks or even days off a development calendar, you know, and the reality is that most organizations are finding it hard Now, sustainability has been a big one, you know, and I think that you have, you have seen in the news the impact of climate change, the pressure from the public, governments, and consumers, you know, it has made sustainability a huge priority. You know, in this current market, laws are changing across the world. Companies are forced to think, how can we protect our business? Making sure that we are sustainable, making sure that there's traceability. So it jumps to be a top priority. So now retailers are taking it more seriously or at least prioritizing it more as something that they need to be able to impact and track. It's something that 60% of people indicated that this is a metric that they are trying to capture as part of their DPC programs and align them with their strategic goals, maybe in the form of how they produce physical samples or how they reduce shipping costs or simply not relying on printing paper to validate CAD work. It's something that has been part of benefit cases from the very beginning, but that almost became an afterthought when put it next to your speed, agility, or sample cost reduction. So let's shift it a little bit. And now, lessons learned. Now that we have— what have we learned from all of this? What are the big takeaways? I guess first and foremost, Change is nonstop. You know, every day in the news we can hear of a retailer restructuring, going through a rework, merging with another, being acquired. You know, people working in the retail industry are tired, you know, having a hard time managing their workload while adjusting to these transformations, new ways of working. So as Chelsea said, you know, organization change management is key to enable them. And we need to figure out how to invest in this, you know, prioritize resources that will help push things along, assess change impact, drive the communication strategy, among other things. You know, this is key to realize the value of the DPC investment. From, you know, also the market is full of fancy cool toys, a lot of trendy technologies. You remember the NFTs craze a couple of years ago, and I'm sure you've seen the countless of articles out there reporting how the NFT market collapsed. And not too long ago, retailers believed that this would be their future. So it's very interesting to see the tides turning and make sure that you have a proper process or framework to evaluate new technology. And don't let these little shiny tools distract you from your goals and roadmap.

Yeah.

And also— Oh, sorry, go ahead, Chelsea.

No, I was just gonna speak to one of the other points around near-term pressure for ROI. You know, it's— DPC has a lot of challenges. It's a huge investment, but it definitely comes with you know, many benefits and returns. So it's definitely, um, something that it's, you know, not surprising to see that near-term pressure for ROI and building stronger benefits case just to keep, um, sponsorship support and keep the ball rolling, of course, and really growing and seeing results from, um, from all the work, time, and investment that everybody is putting in.

Yeah, that's right. I guess in relation to the scarcity of talent and skillset required, uh, we are finding, you know, that companies will need to explore new talent and organizational structures to enable DPC. You know, they're looking at freelancers and third parties, developing new, new ways of working, redefining job descriptions to get the right talent. Um, And maybe also going back to what Chelsea covered earlier, as AI comes, you know, and brands realize how much value it may bring, it's going to be super important for companies to look at these risks and understand what it means for, you know, for them. They really have to have their ducks in a row when it comes to legal aspects of, you know, leveraging these technologies. So just doing your homework. And I guess the only— the last thing that I would add around foundational technology is just figuring out how to connect your software together and build your ecosystem, you know, it's a very important part of accelerating your growth, especially if your goal is to automate processors or enable more advanced data-driven capabilities. So Now, having shared our latest research, you know, let's revisit the story of Ashley, an amazing apparel. You know, we asked you, what do you believe is the main reason, you know, their DPC program hasn't been able to scale? You know, what are they missing? You know, after this summary of our findings, what do you think is the right answer? Is it OCM or the right sponsorship? A governance framework, a solid business case, the latest technology, or just simply talent? Thoughts? I would say that, you know, actually it's just a trick question. You know, it's a little bit of everything. I think, you know, we can all agree that executives all over the world, you know, are aware of BPC. They know that, they know what it is, they know it has revolutionized the industry and that they will be fools to ignore it. But in the past, maybe there were not enough case studies and success stories to give executives confidence, but now there are countless, you know, so that's not an excuse. And we can also agree that technology has come a long way in the last like 5 or 7 years, you know. 3D authoring tools are capable of a lot if used smartly and with proper standards. So maybe these are not necessarily blockers, you know, but the rest could totally, you know, be hindering your, your progress and keeping a DPC team from realizing their full potential. You can be a very smart and talented group of people and still not make it work. Because you're missing all or some of these elements. Because, you know, very often companies fail to recognize that even a proof of concept requires a holistic cross-functional strategy, a solid data foundation, different talent and skills, and more importantly, new or updated processes. So overall, a highly functional program includes everything you see on the right side. And there is no perfect solution or combination that fits all organizations. It truly depends on their strategic goals and processes. And again, if this feels too familiar, remember that you're not alone. This is how all the industry feels. But assessing the current state is the first step towards the right direction. And, you know, as one of Calypso's principles likes to say, you know, you have to slow down to speed up. We need to take a moment to understand where we are, what we're missing. Do we have the tools to address challenges and barriers? And only that way you can truly move faster. And maybe the reason why your program is not moving as fast as it could is because you haven't taken the time to assess these elements. So this is a lot of what we do as Calypso. So let us be your, your DPC. Doctor, we can diagnose you and write you a prescription, you know, which is usually like almost always a mix of these, these elements.

So yeah, please reach out. Like, like I said earlier, this is just some key portions of the survey. We're happy to walk you through and schedule some time to share additional findings. You can scan the QR code that you see here. And yeah, like Esteban said, if you feel like you're spinning, not making progress, we can definitely help identify and address those pain points that you saw in the previous slide and set you up for success. So yeah, taking questions now.

Fabulous. Thank you both for walking through all of that content. A lot of really interesting nuggets and insights in there across the full sort of people side of the change management challenge, the skills gap that we're all trying to address. I know, thanks for getting the plug in there, Chelsea, on the work of the 3DRC Education Group. I know that there's a lot of exciting work coming through there. That space. And we know that there's a lot of change that's happening in the technology space that's causing us to have to reevaluate how do we focus on what is near and keep an eye out for what's next, whether that's AI or other capabilities. So really appreciate you walking through the content for us. We do have a few questions that have come in as we've gone through. And maybe we can start with a few that were based on the sort of survey demographics and research methodology. So could I ask you guys to maybe take us through the content? I think it was at the beginning, there was a slide on research methodology that describes sort of who the respondents were and what a little bit of the demographic breakdown was. I know— maybe we can just pause here for a moment. And I could ask you to do a quick voiceover of it again and then I can add a little bit more color on top.

Sure. So from our research methodology, like I said earlier, like over 100 people responded to the survey and I can tell you that I don't have the exact number of, let's say, brands, you know, that, that answer, but I can assure, like, we didn't send the survey to more than 2, 3 people from the same organization. So if you do the math, you have at least 30, 40, maybe I would say even 50 brands who responded. And like I said, it's anything from value brand to high-end, more luxury retailers. And from a functional perspective, These are, I mean, on the left side here, you can see that all of the people that it's very balanced across it. When we say product creation, we're talking product development, design, technical design, we just group them all. DPC just means that they're reported being part of a DPC office or something of some sorts. Executives, any kind of C-suite, respondents and, um, yeah, self-operation sourcing people. So it's a little bit all over, you know.

Yeah. Appreciate you touching back on those. So, um, I think looking at the, the backside of the data, what we saw, um, part of what we have to, to balance here is not everyone can disclose the, the organization that they work for. So, Of those 100 respondents, there were 35 brands who identified themselves by name as being different. And then there were another probably 50% of respondents who felt like they weren't able to disclose their company name. So that's why we go for this demographic profile. But you can see here that it's a pretty well-distributed group across these different subsets of the industry.

Okay.

Thank you for touching back on that. Maybe we can go back to— to the lessons learned slide and just sort of keep that up as we're talking through some of the other questions that have come in here. Let me take a look through the document questions. So a number of people as we were going through made comments about the fact that the real challenge from your, your list, Chelsea and Esteban, is not A through G, but it's actually H, all the above. And I think that they're certainly right on that, Ian. Thanks for calling that out. And maybe Esteban, I could ask you to take us down to the slide near the end that had the lessons learned, the 6 lessons learned on it. Maybe that's what we can keep up in the background as we go through. So a question from Chris, do you have any recommendation for how brands should should be using foundational technologies to manage DPC assets. So perhaps that's a kind of DAM-related conversation. Any thoughts on that, Esteban?

So I'm going to be— I'll give you the consultant answer and say it depends. But in reality, you know, it's every— every organization has different, you know, platforms to begin with and serving different purposes. I guess the— and the thing is that, you know, PLM, DAM, or any other kind of repository could be used, you know, smartly to manage the digital assets. The one advice that I would just give you is to really take a step back and think of enterprise architecture as a whole, you know, and try to understand, you know, what the lifecycle of these assets and the associated data with it, you know, how it is, map it out. And so you can, you know, better understand if it makes sense at the beginning when it's only a concept and a sketch, you know, and as it evolves into, you know, like a low-res image and then a high-res image and then a 3D asset, you know, it make more sense to move it from one repository to to another, especially when you want to make it available for an entire organization and different set of functions. So I think my advice is, you know, well, the question is like, how do you, you know, any advice or any recommendations? It's just think of that, you know, enterprise architecture, map it out, develop a concept, conceptual architecture that will help the organization understand how best to enable the asset flow. And a storage, of course. Chelsea, I don't know if you wanna add anything to it.

Yeah, I, I think it definitely comes down to how they're organized and considering who is using these foundations and how they flow into the, the main focus, you know, of the product being created. So naming conventions, of course, are incredibly important. And yeah, linking, linking it to familiar areas that users are, are using those foundations, I think, are things to definitely consider.

Yeah, great.

And I think one other model that I'll share that we've seen across a number of clients is the need to distinguish between work-in-progress assets that you're rapidly iterating on as a collaborative team versus assets that you'd consider to be finished that are going out for distribution and end use. And the fact that, you know, the structure for addressing each of those, managing each of those assets is often quite different, requires different configurations, different optimized workflows. So, you know, if you're wrestling with that, it may be because you're trying to do too much in a singular configuration, a singular So give a little bit of thought to that. I've got a few other questions that are coming in here, so I'll keep us moving. Jesse, hello Jesse, asked the question, as someone coming from the design side and looking to lean further into the world of DPC and 3D, how do you see the design partnership evolving in the DPC journey? So what does it look like for the design role, either from, you know, a print pattern and graphic kind of perspective or a product design perspective evolving in the world of DPC?

Yeah, I mean, I can start by answering that. I, it definitely entails learning and becoming familiar with new tools and definitely collaboration that, you know, one isn't normally used to. Within a digital space as opposed to a physical space. And, you know, an example is the ability for designers to actually work within a 3D garment rather than a 2D sketch. But the result of that is a collaborative asset that can then be handed over to your tech design partners and allow the ability to evaluate things like fit before even going into a physical garment. So, um, I think that's definitely, uh, a one example of, you know, how you see a designer, um, role changing in that, that digital space. Um, you know, the level of pattern knowledge and construction of garments does vary, um, for designers. So you're not always going to be expected to create a garment from the ground up, but that goes back to why that collaborative ability is going to be really important with your tech design and vendor partners, so that you have the ability to not only iterate but also explore things like fabric combinations, colorways, and then be able to push them out to, to any the rest of your teams that are, um, that have the need to see those assets. So, um, yeah, lots of potential, but definitely some change. Um, and, uh, yeah, there's a learning curve, but lots of potential.

Very nice. I think, um, in general, the kind of observation I'd make about the evolution of roles, uh, in this space is really the evolution of working singularly versus working collaboratively and being able to work in a linear way versus a collaborative and parallel way. So the idea that tech designers and designers and production teams can be working together in parallel on singular assets globally, collaboratively, iteratively with vendor partners partners is a pretty significant shift in the way that we work. So on that topic, I'd like to address some other questions that we have here about kind of reimagining operating models, processes, calendars. There are a few here that I think are interrelated, both from William and Lindsay in the chat. So the question is, you know, the The current processes are built on a physical way of working and physical workflow, but DPC's sort of reliance on that manually driven process that's existed for a long time keeps us from kind of reimagining that potential future and harvesting the speed to market that we've been talking about. And I know there was a statistic in the— on the slides about only 4% of people have actually realized that transformation in speed and time. Can we talk a little bit about what has caused that, maybe what stood between people and being able to make that operating model change, and what kind of bits of advice we might have for clients who are trying to compress their calendar and get closer to market using digital capabilities?

I mean, I can just start by saying that for sure a lot of those unrealized gains come from that attempt of brands of just keeping their old processes and just introducing a new technology, a new tool, you know, because that's never, never going to work. People need to realize that this is not just the same process but just 3D. Like, it's not the case. You need to reimagine completely the way that product creation teams collaborate, and not just internally but with their vendors and partners and just acknowledge that even something as like a review of a sample will change the timing, the people involved, the expected input from functions. It's all different and you need to start by taking a look at those process. And like I said, technology should support the solution, not provide it. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think being creative, you know, not being creative with the tool, but being creative on how you use the tool and, you know, who and how you can bring these solutions into your workflow and how they can enhance them. Again, you can't replace it with processes that were built for physical product, you know, there's a lot of potential. And it's going to be different for every business. Every business works differently in their physical processes, and so they're going to work a little bit differently within their digital processes. And, and being open to the change and being creative, I think, is really important as well.

Love that. So maybe we can give a few tangible examples of transformations that are enabled by working in this more digital way. A few come to mind for me that I'll rattle off, and maybe I'll ask you, Chelsea and Esteban, to give some thought to it as I talk through it. So first, it's really difficult to develop fabric in parallel to developing product if you expect for those things to show up as physical samples, right? In the world of physical samples, you have to have the fabric to then cut and create your samples and then review those samples. In a digital world, your ability to develop, explore, swap, and create fabrics in parallel to your silhouette creation process and to rapidly simulate what those things look like over time allow you to bring both of those activities much closer together and much closer to market. Similar with the application of prints, patterns, graphics, your ability to apply those in real time on a product that is already in motion through the development cycle, not having to wait to print yard— you have to send artwork to a mill to print yards of fabric, to send for cut and sew, to get a sample, to then say, I wish this scale was a little bit larger, I wish this placement was a little bit offset, I wish this Pocket was done on a bias. Those kinds of things you can explore in a 3D space in real time collaboratively and in parallel, as opposed to having to do those things in a sequential fashion. I think the other one that comes to mind for me is being able to fit. So your ability to do fit on body from the beginning and in an iterative way is really different and can be done much faster than you could with a typical physical sample where you only have maybe one physical sample in your entire headquarters. You can now have a digital sample that exists in multiple locations where you can be applying it to potentially a marketing campaign, you know, draft as you're working through its fitting. As you're finalizing its print placement, as you're finalizing its silhouette and trim. So the— for me, one of the most significant unlocks, not just in the sample creation time, which is usually how brands first pull a few weeks out of the calendar, is by just saying we're not going to physically sample, we can take that time out of the calendar, is also being able to do work in parallel. So Chelsea, Esteban, any other kind of immediate thoughts about tangible ways to get closer to market or reimagine your product creation process using DPC?

Well, I think everything that you mentioned are pretty given examples that, you know, when you see a lot of these digital tools, you can get excited and understand that you can use them for those purposes. One thing that you, you did say was they're different. And so I think it's important to keep in mind that this difference does take time and learning to see in 3D and understand how to leverage those functionalities in a different way, because it doesn't always come as easily to everyone. So I think along with those tangible examples, you know, it's just that, that change management and being able to facilitate time and learning on how, how to see in 3D or how to use these tools so that you have built these new processes that were normally built on physical.

Nice. Okay. And I do think, you know, one of the other challenges, practical challenges that our clients are facing who are attempting to harvest that time out of their calendar and get closer to market to be more responsive. There's also an element of scale that it's really often difficult to do that if only a small subset of your business is working in a digital way. So being thoughtful as you're developing your product or your transformation roadmap to say, hey, can we take a subset of our business and operate in this much more nimble way, as opposed to saying we're going to take some product from this category and some product from this category, it makes it very difficult to actually move your entire category closer to market. We only have a few more minutes left. I want to pivot to talk about metrics, ROIs, and things that teams can use to help build that sharper business case that they need to secure the funding that we've been talking about. So question from, from Ian, um, as organizations are going through this transformation, is there any high-level approach to metrics to success, both hard and soft metrics that we, that our clients tend to be tracking? I'll say, you know, an observation that I've made over the years, some of the really early claims were about sample reduction, and that seems to be playing a less and less significant role as organizations are starting to see what the real transformational benefits of their operation could be. So while that's still important, it's fairly easy to measure, it's a good indicator of how the organization is making the transformation, it's often kind of a midpoint metric as opposed to a final metric that actually leads directly to your bottom line. Chelsea, Esteban, any other thoughts on metrics?

I mean, I guess the key is just truly to tie them onto, tie them to your strategic goals. You know, as a company, sometimes it's very helpful to look at it in like categories, like, you know, strategic, like sustainability, talent retention, financial, when you're like more like sales revenue, cost reduction, improved demand projection, maybe. From an adoption perspective, you know, is organization vendor readiness, you know, uh, product line depth. And, and, and then even look at operational, you know, if you want to look really at improved workforce efficiency or execution, you know, uh, of design and development. But, but in reality, I mean, it's, it truly, you know, depends on, you know, what is important for for key stakeholders and what is going to allow you to, you know, to show value of the VPC program.

Yeah, I think that's great, Osman. Thank you. I think one of the things that you touched on there was productivity and efficiency of the team. I think many in the industry are feeling right now after having gone through quite a lot of workforce reduction initiatives across across the industry in the last few years that people are being asked to do more with less people. And one way of doing that is to work more efficiently. And this is often a way to, you know, where DPC can step in to help to make that happen. So I think that's great. A few other quick observations from my side. I do think the ability to do voice of consumer testing with your 3D assets that are true to life and getting a read from the market more important now than ever, where your LY product data isn't really predictive of what your future sales are going to be. Being able to use these digital assets to drive that is really important, and that can drive, uh, yeah, reduced risk, improved profitability, less inventory on hand. That's all really critical, practical sort of metrics for success. And I think that there's a whole world of improved consumer engagement, both through Web3 applications, online digital mobile applications that can be things that your team— whether that's virtual try-on or it's just sort of immersing yourself in the experience of the garment. There's quite a lot that you can do in that space that I think is practical, tactical, and directly related to DPC too. Looks like we're coming right up on the, on the hour mark for the session. Chelsea Esteban, thank you so much for walking us through the content today. Thank you everybody who dialed in live and who's watching in playback. If you're interested in knowing more about the content that we've shared today, please feel free to reach out to any of us on the screen. I'm Drew, Chelsea Esteban from Calypso, We'd be happy to be— what did you call it, Esteban? Your DPC doctors?

Yes.

Happy to help diagnose your program's woes and help you get on the right track. So with that, thank you everybody again. Talk again soon.

Thanks everybody.

Thank you.

Bye.