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Learn how product digitization can transform your business

High performance digital supply chains. Innovative, direct-to-consumer engagement. Data-driven authenticity.

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVES

The New Challenge For Fashion Brands: Making Apparel Recommerce Sustainable

The most shocking fact about the apparel industry is the heavy environmental impact it is having on our world: the global clothing and textile industry was responsible for nearly 100 million tons of waste in 2015 - a figure that could jump by at least 50% by 2030 [Global Fashion Agenda]; and, according to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, “the equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second.” And this is just...

March of the Math Men

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“Success comes from standing out, not fitting in”
Who didn’t love Don Draper? The quotes come thick and fast.
“Change is neither bad nor good, it simply is”.
Well, ad agencies, and thus ultimately brands, are all certainly getting to live out that little quote in full. Don Draper, and his acolytes, creating perfect worlds for the world to aspire to - out. Billion dollar data centres running zillions of machine learning driven algorithms - in.
I grew up in New York and have...

Demystifying Digital Transformation

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For more than a decade, I’ve been focused on digital transformation at scale. An inevitable change, supercharged into reality during the pandemic of 2020. With omnichannel consumption among U.S. consumers increasing by 50% according to the Nielsen Omnichannel Shopping Fundamentals Report, nearly half of all consumer goods purchased last year were via an eCommerce channel.

Digitization and specifically, the intersection of direct-to-consumer engagement and supply chain, is a fascinating and rapidly evolving area of the industry. Over the next several months,...

EXECUTIVE ROUNDTABLE

Building Your Brand Protection Strategy: Fighting the Counterfeiters with Data Driven Authentication

Authenticity in consumer goods is a problem for all of us, not just the original manufacturer missing out on potential revenue, but also the end consumer who may be unwittingly buying a fake item. We aren’t just talking about a random handbag or pair of athletic shoes, increasingly counterfeits are showing up in food, beauty, and autoparts. The result: the cost of counterfeits has moved beyond the loss of trillions of dollars per annum to now also include the loss of lives. These counterfeiters or grey marketeers are not Robin Hood types but organised criminals with little to no care for you or me.

#EarthDay2021 -- Scaling Sustainability as a Business Model

In my #EarthDay2020 blog last April 22nd, I cast a vision of a future where sustainability initiatives held a key seat at the table, central to the way global brands would do business.

Now on #EarthDay2021 we’ve experienced over a year of wholesale disruption of the global supply system. As Bill Gates laments in his recently published ‘How To Avoid A Climate Disaster’ (which by the way should be required reading for everyone), what we’ve experienced with the pandemic is but a taste of the disruption to come on a sustained basis unless net zero can be achieved by mid century. So while much discussion during the pandemic has highlighted the importance of data intelligence, from real time and end-to-end traceability, to improve supply systems resilience and agility, I feel #EarthDay2021 should be a call to action. We need to come together globally to transform business models — making the elimination of emissions a central value driver — shifting away from the current trajectory toward a catastrophic climate future.

Retail 2021 — You're nobody 'til somebody kills you

Own Brands seem to be flipping from substandard alternatives to powerhouse superstars. Is this it for the consumer goods industry as we know it?

Who didn’t love ‘The Tipping Point?’ Just thinking of that book takes us back twenty years, to when people thought Malcolm Gladwell was cool and sketchy statistical manipulations dressed up as science were helpful. The term itself though, and that feeling we all recognise when a seesaw pitches up and over, is still extremely evocative. Today, in 2021, we find ourselves at the tipping point for Own Brands (private label) and the near- to mid-term future of fast-moving consumer goods.

One Product Identity, Many Tagging Technologies Here’s Why...

Today, consumers expect end to end traceability, authenticity and engaging experiences from consumer product brands — from packaged goods to apparel items to pharmaceuticals. How do consumer brands deliver on these expectations? Not only deliver on expectations, but manage them throughout a product’s life cycle?

Over the past year product digitization has become the norm rather than the exception. Increasingly brands are turning to digital identities to track and trace products through the supply chain. Where it gets complicated — and what you will learn in this blog — is in the number of different tagging options brands now have when digitizing products. Choosing the right one can be overwhelming.

Let me guide you through the range of tagging technologies and their applications so you can make the right choice for your business and your customers.