Revolutionising Apparel Sourcing: How Technology is Reshaping the Fashion Supply Chain.

Fashion is changing with technology, but many brands are slow to adopt it in sourcing.
Key areas include AI-driven demand prediction, cost-efficient data analytics, remote quality assurance, supply chain digitization, and blockchain transparency. Embracing tech can optimism processes, reduce costs, and meet customer needs, but it demands investment.



The world is experiencing disruption, with customers becoming increasingly discerning, price-conscious, and seeking personalized omni-shopping experiences. They desire a broad assortment of clothing options that reflect the
ire personality, offer the latest trends, excellent value, and uncompromising quality. Impeccable service is essential to make customers feel special, whether shopping online or in-store. This behavior's is rapidly transitioning from a want to a need,
expected consistently from brands or retailers every day. This, in fact, is the new normal in the rapidly evolving fashion business.



To understand these new challenges and come up with agile and sustainable solutions, brands and retailers are investing in technology and digital tools to improve and enhance customer experience, especially at the front end. However, most organizations are abysmally behind in deploying technology or data integration in their sourcing function. That is a not so surprising trend as most organizations fail to create the sourcing roles as a customer-centric function. Sourcing is often thought of as a bridge to the manufacturer to deliver the required product assortment but not as a conduit to create seamless integration of customer requirements into the manufacturing pipeline.



The enabler of this thought process is incorporation of data, technology and digitization tools into sourcing operations. Technology has
the potential to significantly transform the apparel sourcing process, making it more efficient, transparent, and sustainable. Organizations
that effectively navigate industry challenges and adopt new ways of working from an end-to-end perspective will be in a better position to seize consumer trends.
In this constantly evolving apparel industry, the role of technology in streamlining the apparel sourcing process cannot be overstated. Rom design and production to distribution and retail, innovative technologies offer tremendous potential to optimism processes, enhance collaboration, and improve overall efficiency.
Globally, the adoption of technology in apparel sourcing is far below the desired levels. In India, technology adoption in many apparel companies is limited to working on spreadsheets.



Having spent over three decades in apparel sourcing, I firmly believe that harnessing the power of technology can address the industry pain points and transform how sourcing teams operate and offer business solutions to meet customer expectations.
Some of the key areas where adoption of technology can drive this transformation are mentioned below.