Further building operational strength
Operational strength is the foundation of commercial success
The fundamental principle followed by the Group is to keep control over all business-critical processes. High-performance operational processes allow the Group to develop, source, produce and deliver high-quality products in large numbers efficiently, fast and on an industrial scale. This affords HUGO BOSS the opportunity of gaining a competitive edge by swift reaction to market changes, an advantageous value-for-money proposition and high supply reliability. The Group is continuing to focus on optimizing operational processes in line with the requirements of its own retail business.
Integrated production processes ensure design and product excellence
HUGO BOSS has closely integrated the product design and development process with industrial manufacturing and sourcing. By using its own production facilities, the Group secures critical expertise while enabling development activities to be closely geared to subsequent industrial manufacturing. In addition, the insights won from maintaining its own production activities can be drawn upon to profitably manage an external supplier network that guarantees reliably high product quality on the basis of partnerships that have grown over many years of collaboration. Sourcing and Production
IT innovations support retail management
A high-performance SAP-based IT infrastructure uniformly deployed worldwide supports the operational processes of all functions effectively and creates the transparency needed for making entrepreneurial decisions. Currently, the Group is particularly working on rolling out two new systems for improving retail management. The retail merchandise planning (RMP) system provides a fully integrated view of stock flows in the Group’s own retail business, thus permitting system-based planning oriented to the demand of end consumers. The system is currently being rolled out. The retail assortment planning (RAP) system optimizes the range available in the Group’s own retail business based on the capacity of individual stores, the characteristics of the location in question and the individual product life cycle. It will be used for the first time with the development of the 2016 Fall collection.
Start-up of a new flat-packed goods distribution center additionally reinforcing logistic infrastructure
A powerful logistics infrastructure ensures timely and accurate delivery to the Group’s own points of sale as well as wholesale partners. In the past few years, the Group has taken great efforts to optimize its logistics processes in line with the transformation of its business model. The single most important measure in this context was the construction of a new flat-packed goods distribution center near the Group’s headquarters in 2014. In this way, the Group is able to speed up the merchandise supply process and improve the efficiency of critical handling processes through extensive automation and the provision of additional services.