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A start to a New Year, and the topic of conversation always revolves around how we can do things better this year. A common conversation amongst brands and retailers is how to manage risk and gain visibility in order to prevent risk during the sourcing process for products. It seems that only the smartest leaders are putting their budget where their concerns are, into technology solutions to manage the enormous amounts of data necessary to minimise risk and losses. A fine example of this, can be seen with Brown Shoe Company. Learn how they modified their supply chain strategy and became awarded as company of the year, for being true leaders and innovators in industry.

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A Good Start to 2015 for Brown Shoe Company

Brown Shoe Company will be celebrating with a fantastic start to 2015, having been honoured with an award as a company of the year. The awards honour those who are true leaders and innovators in the industry.  CEO Diane Sullivan will accept the American Image Award for the company of the year on April 27th in New York City by the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA).

Brown Shoe Company a US based footwear manufacturer with worldwide operations modified their supply chain strategy in 2012 by implementing ecVision suite. ecVision was chosen to help them collaborate with their suppliers, allowing them to gain greater connectivity with its vendors and factories. “We believe that making it easier to share data with our suppliers will improve execution in our supply chain”, explains Chuck Gilreath, Senior Vice President, supply chain and strategic sourcing for Brown Shoe.

Brown shoe can more easily share data with vendors during negotiations, resulting in a more fine-tuned product that may cost less to produce. “For example, “Chuck says, “I can tell a vendor what I need on a certain product, and the vendor may say, ‘I can do that for $4, but I could make the price $3.80 if you let me make this one change.’ Anything you can do to collaborate and share more information may present opportunities for suppliers to buy something less expensively, or to offer an alternative that might make more sense for us.”

Gilreath sums it up nicely: “The better our suppliers can execute, the better we will be able to execute. Collaboration is the key to getting us there,” he says.

A big congratulations to Brown Shoe Company.

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