Forthcoming Legislative mandates in France, Germany, the EU, and Canada have the
Apparel and Footwear Industries nervous.
In a world where FOB has been the reigning supply chain mantra for the past two decades, how are brands now going to Pivot to provide the end consumer ESG and CSR data from Tier 1 to Tier X?
On Tuesday May 30, Oakley, a leading global brand of sports performance equipment, sunglasses, ski/snowboard goggles, footwear, spectator apparel, watches, backpacks, and other accessories will share their successes and challenges with direct to consumer supply chain transparency at the PI Apparel Supply Chain Forum in Amsterdam.
Xavier Laforge, Oakley Global Quality Manager, will discuss in conversation with Jo Anne Benson, Pivot88 Senior Director Product Solutions, Oakley’s three-year supply chain transformation journey. Oakley chose Pivot88’s PAAS to enable bi-directional communication with all tiers of their supply chain to solve the serious challenges faced today.
“Digital means transparency. Digital allows us to trust and connect with our supply chain, our design and development teams, our legal teams, and our customers,” Laforge explains. “All of us need a combination of this data, and Pivot88 is allowing us to surface this information as and when we require it. I can’t imagine how we could ever have done this manually.”
“By having our suppliers and factories input all components used on our finished products, we not only have the carbon footprint of finished goods, but we know Tier 1 to Tier x of our supply chain,” Laforge says. “Now we are integrating this to our ecommerce Product Information Management (PIM) system so that we can be 100% transparent with our end consumers. No more spreadsheets!”
According to Pivot88 CEO and Co-Founder Stephan Boivin, digital monitoring and digital dialogue with those who make up your manufacturing and distribution networks are the most effective way of maintaining relationships to solve problems at scale.
“When I launched a sourcing office for one of the Toyota Group companies in China, I found transparency to our supply chain very challenging,” Boivin explains. “Monitoring manufacturing quality and sourcing in remote locations, specifically in Asia, was very difficult. There were no digital tools then, so in 2009 I decided to create Pivot88.”
The technology platform operates in 11 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish.
“It used to be supply chain management solutions were about operational efficiencies. Managing the process, improving quality, ensuring on time delivery in full, but now that’s no longer enough,” Boivin says. “Supply chain data is now required by multiple departments in any given brand. Now it needs to be delivered to the end consumer. That’s why we put the end consumer in the centre of everything we do for the supply chain. And we know just how to do that because we were born from quality. Now we are so much more.”
“Pivot88’s solutions are easy to use, combining technology with deep insight into business needs,” explains Sven Matzen, Pivot88 Account Management. Matzen joined Pivot88 after a 30-year career managing raw material innovation and supply chain activities at Under Armour and Polartec. “Efficiently managing the materials flow within a segmented supply chain requires tools that not only provide visibility into quality, sustainability and social compliance, but also allow communication between all partners,” Matzen says.
“Conversations with your production partners is essential to understand they are delivering quality goods on time from sustainable resources,” says Benson. Before joining Pivot88, Benson led the effective implementation of the platform at The Gap and Under Armour. “Pivot88’s AI technology & collaboration tools de-risk your supply chain providing actionable insights on resilience and transparency.”
Hear Oakley’s journey, their success and their challenges:
Tuesday May 30, 2023 at 2:05 PM (CEST), Room 1
PI Apparel Supply Chain Forum, Postillion Conference Centre, Amsterdam
More about the conference and the talk can be found here.
Adidas, Hugo Boss, Oakley, The Gap and Under Armour trust Pivot88 to de-risk
their supply chains. And their factories do too! That’s because we understand your
evolving challenges as you continue to navigate through an ambiguous future. We
lead a digital revolution with technology that transforms by putting your consumer at
the center of your supply chain.
Powered by AI, Pivot88’s turnkey PAAS can be configured to aggregate your data to
provide real time actionable insights empowering you to solve the significant and
important challenges our industry faces today:
- Supply chain resilience, transparency & sustainability
- Multi-tier supply chain visibility, traceability & collaboration – Tier 1 to Tier X
- New & ever-evolving legislative mandates
- CSR & supplier compliance
- Real time chain of custody mapping
- Quality, lab tracking & inspection
- On time performance (OTIF) & booking compliance
We know technology is not enough. We understand how hard it is to work differently
and build meaningful relationships with suppliers and vendors. We share best
practice and thought leadership to ensure you trust and connect with your supply
chain partners to create certainty in a time of uncertainty.
Co-Founders: Stephan Boivin, CEO; Isabelle Pilon, COO
