PLM at The Beaumanoir Group

So the group Beaumanoir is established in France since 1985 and is a leading fashion for men and women in France. And then we started to run stores in China and to settle down in China 6 to 7 years ago. So now we are having about 900 stores in China under the brand Cash Cash, and a year ago we also brought another brand called Bonobo. And we are thinking about bringing the other brands of the group, namely Morgan, Massity, Brial, and Mimi's Cottage. So the story in China is a very exciting one because of very strong growth. And we are also, on top of our offline, we are also having, of course, e-commerce. So we are on Taobao, Tmall, which is today making the highlight in the newspaper with the IPO of Alibaba. In New York and running our own website as well for Bonobo and Cash Cash. And just a quick word about myself. So I'm in this company for about 4 years and currently I'm having kind of a CEO kind of role. So I'm taking care of part of the back office and the purchasing team. So design and everything related to purchasing. And as well, I oversee Cash Cash in Southeast Asia where we have about 50 stores and the brand Bonobo where we currently have 4 stores. Well, actually, when I was asked to oversee the purchasing department about a year ago, because I'm from finance and IT background, I realized that there was really a lot of missing processes and we were having a lot of inefficiencies in the way we build our own collection. One thing I forgot to mention is that unlike many other fashion industry, we don't choose the collection collection from France. So it's not in one international collection, it's two international collections. So one for France and Middle East and one for China and Southeast Asia. So yeah, the way we were working was really with a lot of inefficiencies. So I wanted, I wanted to have a software that could also be a guideline for me to review the processes. Of course, also visibility of the collection was not there. It was mostly using some paperboard and then putting some pictures. So not a very scientific way of being able to evaluate the collection, the mix and match, making sure there is no double product within the product family. Anything manual, Excel sheets, a lot of problems like what you can run into when you exchange Excel sheets. I mean, this is not the latest one, oh sorry, I made a change but I forgot to send it to you. So it was very, very manual and the group was having a small tool but nothing that really could help us really move forward in my eyes. I would say the biggest one was the interconnection between the teams. In the purchasing there is the design team, the product managers, and then we have the sourcing team. And the interconnection between the three was really bad because relying on the people's desire to communicate, and in China, this is not often the biggest and stronger desire of people. They like to do their own things on— well, that's human being, but particularly in China. So I would think that, yeah, the interconnection between the team needed a lot of adjustment. Well, actually it came from me because I was looking for a tool at that time. Because I was new to this kind of industry, I didn't know even PLM would exist. I mean, I never heard about such a tool. I was just looking for something that could cover up my needs. And then I looked around and I asked around at the headquarters what they could offer, what they could bring to help me out. At the beginning, I was even thinking I would do my own tool, I mean, ask my IT team to develop something. And that's when I heard about Samtric and that the PLM tool existed, this one and other ones. And then I figured that it was probably a very interesting way to sort out my problems. Well, I'm sorry, again it's me. Yeah, a champion for China. and I've been asked to also be the sponsor for the implementation of PLM in France. So we're running in parallel two teams, one in China, one in France, and we're trying to build up some bridges between the two PLMs. So I'm the sponsor for this task. What is your role in China? That's going to sound quite maybe strange from Europe. In China, we are a very small company. So decision process is very simple, I would say. So what I did was quite simple as well. I looked at the product that they were using in France. That was a beginning of something, but really not up to my expectations. And then I looked at competitors on the market. Suntrick was the first one that I contacted. I contacted another one, which the name eludes me. and I talked to them and I looked at what functionalities they would have and which one would match the best our requirement. At that time there was not really international competitors in China, and I had the occasion to meet the CEO of Centric who wanted to, was very willing to get into China market and use us as a lighthouse Plus, this product really was in line with our expectations, and we got some good deal because we were to be used as a lighthouse. So actually, it was a very quick process. I started looking in September for a tool, and mid-October the decision was made, and it was to go to Centric. There was also, prior to my work, some comparison of tools that had been made by headquarters, So the filtering has been already processed 1 or 2 years ago. They didn't move ahead with it because other projects, other priorities, but I didn't really start from scratch because I had already 2 companies that were pre-selected at the time that they were looking for a PLM. What was the main challenge in getting the project started? As I said, it's just their desire to start something in China and to have their shareholders really on board with that project. That meant for me a guarantee that they would be very willing. We had a common interest in success, so that was very important. And even though you have to follow a project with, you know, detailed plannings and so on, for me a very key thing is the trust and, you know, the interaction. And I could see a very strong desire to to help us. So I felt that I could trust them to bring this to a success in China for us. Well, we decided from the beginning to run it in two phases. So the first phase ended mid-July, so we went live mid-July, and now we are entering phase two. So Phase 1 was basically to enable us very quickly to start with our spring/summer collection. So up to now we have about 800 model colors that have been entered in the database. So this was an ongoing process during the 6 months of the, of the project that we also started building the model color and the expertise of the people. And now Phase 2 is going to be a lot of fine-tuning. Of course, seeing what are the user requests and what they can help us to smooth the process, and also to put Bonobo, because the decision was to put the biggest brand first and Bonobo second. And last but not least, we have of course some suppliers in China. 15 of them are our preferred suppliers, partners, so we're going to implement PLM with them so that we can have a faster communication for quotations, samples, and everything. So again, a phase to externalize, if I may say, the PLM to our suppliers. To be honest, the biggest challenges I expected was that the people would still hang on to their Excel sheets. And that was really a strong worry that I had because I know that people often feel very comfortable with that. Actually, this has not been the case, and to my surprise, there is a very strong buy-in to the system, even stronger than I expected. And now the challenge is to match the expectations of the users. For instance, we still haven't put inside the assortment plan because we are waiting for the next version which is going to come up in December. And users are really asking us, "When is it going to happen? Because I still need to have Excel sheets and I'm not happy about that." So they want it even faster than what we can accommodate. Another challenge, which is more linked to the fact that we belong to a group, is that there is a desire from the headquarters enables through the PLM more exchanges of model color between the two collections. So this is something we have of course implemented, but with some, still a lot of manual work because we need to recreate the model color in our PLM, and in France they are also starting to use the PLM but not as advanced as we are in China. Because we are smaller, so it goes faster. So we have to find a way to run one PLM between two locations and with two collections, and that is not always very simple. So I would say now this is the biggest challenge that we have. Well, I would say it's a side benefit, but we had to rework all the processes and with a target because I wanted that project to be very fast. And I said that's going to be 6 months and that's it. So it was a little bit over 6 months, but overall very close to that timeline. So during that time, we had to rework all our key processes, which was definitely not simple, but a big help to, to smoothen things out. Well, I would say expectation is that they bring us some new functions and new help in our build-up of the collection, but for the time being it's a bit too early to say because we still haven't gone through all what the PLM can offer. So I would say at this stage we're pretty happy with the tool and the help it can bring. We were hoping that it could help us a little bit more in managing quality, but it's not exactly the purpose of the tool because it's after the purchase order. But aside from that, I'm expecting to see some good functionalities so that we can link the assortment plan with the stage of where we are in building up the collection. This we have not seen yet, and that is really something that is very useful. And in the reporting, because a lot of the reporting we're still doing very manual, so to see a performance of product and market share, we're gonna have some new challenges in building an assortment plan by region. So I hope that PLM can develop some strong functionalities in reporting. Some of them are maybe already there, but this is really the next stage that we need to explore further with them. Yeah, very good. I mean, I'm not sure there's going to be as much easy buying in France, but this is always a concern when you implement a new software. But actually, after my 15 years in Asia, I've never really seen any problem from user. I mean, in Asia First, if you implement something that is a well-known software, let's say SAP, there is no problem. The user will get into that because they're going to think about, oh, this is a famous product, it's going to look good on my resume, and this is something new and we can do something better. So there is a natural desire to get into a system. So that is not exactly— I mean, in France or in Europe, you have to manage the change and so on. And so on. You have, of course, to do that in Asia, but not as much. Yeah, well, I've nominated somebody as the project manager, and she's the reference person for the PLM. Next to her, there's a girl who is doing the training, and also spying, meaning when we started the software, I wanted her to go see all the users and make sure they are using it and what kind of problems they have and so on. And then after that, we have one user really in their dedicated field that is also supposed to help the others, like a user in design that is supposed to help the other colleagues if they have problems with the software. So pretty straightforward, I would say, but what is very important is that it comes from the top, that we want that system, and that our product offer director, for instance, who is a new one who just arrived, what I ask her as soon as she gets her bearings around is to get training on PLM and to use it, and to use it in meetings, and to make sure that From the top, there is a strong and clearly defined desire that this tool has to be used. I would say more as a process, yeah, definitely. I would say yes and no. The desire in the future is yes. For the time being, there is a pilot running for CashCash in France. And we're working in parallel because we need first to see how we're gonna work with one PLM for Cash Cash France and Asia, and then once this is settled, then the desire is to have the other brands as well joining the PLM. So ultimately yes, but for the time being, still work in progress. I would say the biggest thing is because we need to be— the time to market needs to be really, really short. Also, we need to be able to develop quick fashion and so on. So a tool that can help the process to be very clean and very clear is key, is key for us. And not only for us, but I think for every company in the fashion industry. Because I worked in— I know Seb, for instance, is having a PLM. I worked for more manufacturing industries before. I would expect the time spent on the processes and the validation to be much more in-depth than what we're doing. Again, you have a time-to-market issue, and we have to issue a collection within a very, very short period of time. When you work for— I mean, SEB is not a very technical product, but still quite technical— the time-to-market takes much longer, and you need to ensure that every step, every process have been really thoroughly checked and validated. We are not doing high-tech, so this is much lighter, much faster. I don't expect a non-fashion industry to implement PLM in 6 months, or they would have their processes already very structured, but that would be for me unrealistic. But in fashion, it's definitely possible. Looking back, it's just what I would have done differently is maybe to take more time prior to the implementation in China to see how that could work with France and with establishing a common PLM. But well, we also had some needs to be fast in Asia, so we couldn't have spent too much time anyway. So doing it afterwards is always more complicated, but difficult to change the need for speed in Asia. Well, the only advice that I can think of is to be very clear on where are your key problems in the chain if you are in fast fashion, and then decide which tool can address them better. I mean, I'm not saying that Centric is, even though they are quite good on the market, there may be some others that are more adapted, but to do a thorough first assessment of where you stand and what you need is for me what helped us to later on to be very fast in the implementation because I had a very clear view on where our problems were and what I wanted to address. When that is not that clear, that can be a problem. The second one was also to be— to look at how you're going to interact with your ERP system because that has a lot of implications later on, namely where do you put where do you put your PO, who is the master for the PO, and who is the master for all the main database, like product. Product, that's obvious, that has to be the PLM. But it's not always easy when you are running it with SAP, for instance. So a job with the interaction and interconnection with the other system is also something that has to be done prior to getting into the PLM.