Key Takeaways:
- Key Challenges: The shape and scale of the Charles Kirk business evolved rapidly in 2019, going from ten to a thousand customers almost overnight, accompanied by a shift in business model. The company needed to find the right technology systems in order to operate effectively, maintain and grow its customer relationships, and remain competitive without massively increasing headcount.
- The Solution: Charles Kirk realised that automation might be the best way forward. With an existing relationship in place, Charles Kirk engaged CGS, to provide two reliable and agile solutions. Using CGS’s BlueCherry ERP and B2B platforms, Charles Kirk has been able to automate key parts of its business to handle increased product volume and data generation, as well as catering to diverse customer preferences by improving the ordering process and providing a more user-friendly experience.
- Results: CGS’s technology solutions have played a substantial part in augmenting Charles Kirk’s management efficiency, visibility, automation, and communication both internally and with customers. The company has been able to keep its same lean company structure of sixteen while successfully competing in the schoolwear market against much larger businesses.
- What’s Next: Charles Kirk will be strengthening its relationships with current customers, improving its in-house processes even further, as well as seeking to gain new customers in new markets.
In partnership with CGS, The Interline talked to multi-pronged schoolwear business Charles Kirk about how the company’s expansion, business model evolution, and overall efficiency have been fuelled by ERP and B2B software.
Family run for over 30 years, the Charles Kirk ethos has long been to supply the schoolwear market with durable uniforms that are ethically sourced and manufactured, and designed for the adventure of learning. In an increasingly competitive market, the Charles Kirk name has become synonymous with quality, style, durability and longevity. But while the company’s values have not changed over the decades it’s been in business, there have been many other changes over the past few years that, combined, make Charles Kirk an interesting case study for the correlation between evolution, expansion, efficiency and technology.
In 2019, the company was acquired by Coolflow Schoolwear, who had previously been its biggest manufacturing partner, effectively consolidating two business models – and two separate stages of the value chain – into one. Following the acquisition, the business was essentially transported from Worthing in West Sussex, up north to Leicester – the UK’s textile hub.
Despite shortening the distance between sourcing, production, and distribution, the expanded size and the changed nature of the business meant Coolflow Schoolwear – who then began to operate under the name Charles Kirk – had to get a handle on a lot of new challenges. Along with a new logo of a pink flamingo (a nod to Coolflow Schoolwear using the trading name of Flamingo Apparel Textiles) there was also a much larger customer base for the company to service, which necessitated a shift in not just business strategy, but solutions. “Prior to 2019, we didn’t run an ERP system because we had 10 customers, all of whom were on the larger side,” says Sunny Loyal, the Joint CEO of Charles Kirk Ltd. “We could handle everything manually ourselves. So it was a major change in discipline for us upon acquiring Charles Kirk and expanding our business.”
Mr Loyal explains that it was a mammoth task, and an incredibly steep learning curve, to go from ten customers to a thousand essentially overnight. Just as this all happened, so did the COVID-19 pandemic and businesses across the UK in the wider fashion industry were forced to halt their operations. But due to Charles Kirk now being a manufacturer, the business was allowed to stay open under government regulations. This gave the company some much needed time and space to become fully organised, both internally and externally. And a major component of this organisational shift was the implementation of BlueCherry ERP, from CGS, which quickly became essential to the company’s operations.
Fast forward to today, Charles Kirk is now one of the 15 biggest suppliers that make up the school apparel market in the UK – a position the company has been able to secure and then safeguard through an especially difficult first few years, characterised by the global pandemic, supply chain problems in the Suez and Panama Canals affecting fashion’s entire value chain, and mounting pressure on consumers from the rising cost of living and inflation. “We’re on the smaller side – we are after all, a family run business – but in the current turbulent economic times, we are happy with our position,” comments Mr Loyal.
One of the keys to that resilience and agility has been Charles Kirk’s willingness to invest in the right technology to both meet and overcome disruption, and to enable digital transformation on the scale, and at the speed, necessary to achieve the company’s ambitions. “Our workforce is made up of sixteen people, and we wouldn’t be able to handle the sheer volume of products we create, and data we generate and consume, on a daily basis if we did not have BlueCherry ERP in place – it’s been key to automating our processes,” Mr Loyal explains. “Using this software has enabled us to cope with the rapid scaling of the business without having to massively increase our headcount or alter various other parts of the business too. It made the transition from one business model to another a lot smoother.” Making effective use of ERP has also meant that Charles Kirk was able to compete with other companies in the market who already operated on a much larger scale.
But the success of the new Charles Kirk model – supported by BlueCherry ERP – also created a new challenge: effectively servicing a larger, more diverse customer base than ever before. “We realised that we needed to make things more user-friendly for our customers,” says Mr Loyal. “So the intention became to automate, streamline and improve the ordering process by giving them the ability to log into a system to explore new products, place orders, track orders, and easily keep track of business.” This vision led Charles Kirk to select CGS’s BlueCherry B2B solution, which the company is due to go live with very soon, and which was chosen for the ease of data-sharing between the BlueCherry ERP platform, making it a straightforward process for Charles Kirk to populate its B2B portal with up-to-date, accurate product information.
Mr Loyal acknowledges that the schoolwear apparel business is still a traditional one, and there are still many customers who would prefer a conversation over the telephone rather than to use any kind of software. “But at the same time,” Loyal explains, “there is a new wave of retailers who prefer the ease of placing an order online. With the B2B platform, we’ve created more avenues to connect with our customers.” Other benefits that drew Charles Kirk to the BlueCherry B2B solution include an immersive, branded experience, powerful and easy search, quick-view product details, one-click comparisons, scanning tool to capture orders and credit cards, branded Android/iOS mobile applications, and the ability to set up loyalty programmes.
With these new technology foundations, Charles Kirk is also making even bigger strides in sustainability, reflecting their commitment to what is expected by their business partners and consumers alike. With both in mind, Charles Kirk has ensured that quality, longevity, and ethically and environmentally responsible practices are present in everything that they do. For example, the polyester used in their blazers is 100% recycled, and the company’s new 100% recycled sweatshirts are made from an average of 28 recycled plastic bottles each. “Sweatshirts are one product that up until now hadn’t really been addressed in terms of recyclability and sustainability anywhere else in the school market,” Mr Loyal says.
This could be because there is a perception that products that are made more sustainably automatically come with a higher price tag – something that parents may not be willing, or able, to pay. “Importantly, these Charles Kirk items won’t cost parents more, and can even be cheaper in some instances,” clarifies Mr Loyal.
As for next steps, Charles Kirk is ready for growth, with the intention that CGS’s ERP and B2B systems, combined, will help the company deepen relationships with current customers, improve its own in-house processes even further, as well gain new customers in new markets. ”Our next step is to grow our business here in the UK as well as offshore,” says Mr Loyal. This is another area where the CGS B2B platform could be well-suited, as it facilitates stronger, more efficient sales relationships with its multilingual and multi-currency capabilities, as well as giving Charles Kirk robust controls over access to information, ensuring that each customer interaction is branded, curated, and controlled.
“We are close to having everything in place with the B2B system, and having this foundation to rely on will allow us to really focus on marketing and growth going forward,” concludes Mr Loyal. “Success, for us, is now all about making the most of our new business position in the schoolwear market – and having the optimal technology systems in place has been, and will continue to be, indispensable to that.”
About our partner:
For nearly 40 years, CGS has enabled global enterprises, regional companies, and government agencies to drive breakthrough performance through business applications, enterprise learning and outsourcing services. CGS is wholly focused on creating comprehensive solutions that meet clients’ complex, multi-dimensional needs and support clients’ most fundamental business activities. Headquartered in New York City, CGS has offices across North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.