After reading through Sustaining IT-Dependent Competitive Advantage and Custom Made Apparel and Individualized Service at Land’s End, I believe that Land’s End clothing did achieve a sustainable IT-dependent competitive advantage. Land’s End exhibited savvy business foresight and decision making skills in regards to the future of a web-based mass customization platform for consumer clothing. What helped Land’s End achieve this IT-dependent strategic initiative included high levels of IT uniqueness and implementation complexity, as well as a high degree of process change. Furthermore, Land’s End also gained competitive advantage through its use of IT resources like information repositories and relationship assets. The tactics implemented by …show more content…
Land’s End added to their early-mover advantage into web-based merchandising to create a sustainable IT-dependent competitive advantage over the rest of the e-Commerce apparel industry. One IT characteristic that helped Land’s End gain its strategic competitive advantage was the uniqueness of the IT itself. “The uniqueness of both IT in use and under development may be a source of sustainability” (Feeny and Ives 1990; McFarlan 1984). Land’s End was able to custom tailor clothes for the consumer through a series of simple questions without having the consumer report to a local facility to be measured or scanned. The removal of this cumbersome process drastically lowered the barrier for consumer entry. No other automated tailoring systems on the market at that time could provide this service without requiring the consumer go in to a store to be measured or scanned. Further reinforcement of the IT project barrier resulted from a high degree of process change and implementation complexity. To start this custom tailored clothing service, Land’s End had to work with its entire supply chain and distribution team to reassess the manufacturing process. This took several months and many practice trials to streamline. Eventually Land’s End formulated a twenty step process that observed everything from consumer inputs to daily retailer status reports on items sold. To imitate this process, competitors would need to work with their suppliers, providing new machinery that cut garments according to the clothing’s design and facilitate training on how to efficiently use the new machinery. Land’s End clothing used IT resources and capabilities to gain a greater sustainable competitive advantage over their competitors.
By cultivating positive relationship assets, like the partnership with Archetype Solutions Inc. (ASI), Land’s End clothing gained valuable access to technical IT skills and information repositories capable of rapidly processing and analyzing large quantities of custom clothing orders. The accumulation of large information repositories only strengthens the barrier to competitor entry as it takes significant amounts of time to accumulate all of the pertinent data associated with a custom tailored clothing venture. This data can include information on consumer sizing and preferences, supplier operations and processes, and even garment patterns and variations, all of which are component response lag drivers that contribute to the IT resources barrier. Although, this fruitful relationship alliance, leveraged by the IT skills of ASI, could nearly become proprietary information for Land’s End (Clemons and Row 1991). This could create an exploitable avenue for competitors looking to enter the custom tailored clothing market. Once the exclusivity of the Land’s End relationship with ASI is terminated, given the structure of ASI’s contracts, competitors could partner with ASI to gain access to their proprietary information regarding clothing patterns and specifics. Knowing this, Land’s End should prepare for and anticipate the coming competition of
competitors using similar custom tailored clothing IT systems to maintain their competitive advantage over the market.
Technological advancement is another condition that enhances complex linkage. The Apple Company should employ modern technology to link its suppliers. The method of coordinating the suppliers sho...
There in this report the porter five forces has been discuss and that’s shows that in US the competitions is very tough, also threats of the substitutes and bargaining power of the buyer is very high. The supplier power is very low. The new entrant in the market of clothing is very difficult to come as because of barriers.
Additionally, brand equity, the company’s reputation, and Best Buy’s internet presence and website are also valuable intangible resources. In fact, the article mentioned that Best Buy has the 11th largest e-commerce website worldwide. Best Buy’s core competency lies within the company’s focus towards “customer-centricity attained thorough the in-depth data analysis and systematic customer segmentation.” To restate that, Best Buy differentiates themselves from their competition by providing expert advice and service at prices that compete with competition.
How has the use of technology changed its interaction with its suppliers? Wholesalers? Other business partners?
I chose to research two very different apparel retail stores. The GAP, Inc. and Nordstrom, Inc. are very interesting companies to me because they deal with something that is very important to me and a lot of people, clothes. Everyone buys and wears clothes, and these are two companies who have succeeded in this venture. They both started out with the same intentions, to sell apparel through specialty stores, but at this point Nordstrom’s has been more successful.
Offering special products is marked under strengths and opportunity; however, long term sustainability must ease the weaknesses and threats posed by competitors and external markets forces. However, they are several other strengths of this company that outweigh the weaknesses but can easily be threatened. Lululemon has a great brand equity and knowledge in the market which has helped them development a customer loyalty. While Lululemon’s strengths is challenging, limiting their products to a special market, with higher than normal prices opens the markets for competitors. Lululemon has several weaknesses, they only offer a specialty product and it mostly aimed to attract woman. The company’s profitability has decreased over the recent years, showing the necessity for Lululemon to sustain its economic growth through product diversification and geographical expansion. Many of their competitors have grown, mostly likely due to their global growth and divarication. If Lululemon would expand their market growth this would open up so much more opportunity for this company to grow. One of their weaknesses is there is the dependence on suppliers. This opens a great opportunity for Lululemon, right now they are heavily relying on suppliers around the world and they do not have their own manufacturing facilities. This is causing the company to spend more money of vendors to
The Lululemon 's top five competitors are Under Amour, ADDIDAS, Nike, Bebe Sport and Lucy Active Wear. Competition in this arena is mainly through the quality, brand image, price, and innovation. Lululemon 's rivals have substantial competitive positioning because of being more established with a broader client base and products. Another bargaining power of these rivals is having a strong power in financial and marketing strategy. Nevertheless, Lululemon distinguishes itself in the manner it markets its products and trusts it has a strong loyal client base because of its vertical retail strategy and grass root marketing. It is very paramount for every organization to develop a SWOT analysis since it is a crucial part of the strategic planning process. In this study, we will examine three questions in each component to conduct a brief SWOT
The Home Depot is one company, of many, in the home improvement industry. This market is relatively easy to enter, in fact many materials, previously only at home improvement facilities are now available at e-commerce sites, such as “Amazon.com”. There are multiple suppliers, but those in the industry attempt to negotiate contracts with suppliers, limiting them to whom they may supply. Buyers have a great deal of power as the products sold are easily able to be substituted by products at other organizations in the industry. However, the Home Depot has built its organization so that replication of their processes and systems would be extremely difficult to replicate. They value their employees, their customers, the environment, and finance
Sport Obermeyer is a high-end fashion skiwear design and merchandising company headquartered in Aspen, Colorado. Over the years, Sports Obermeyer has developed into a dominant competitor. Sports Obermeyer's estimated sales in 1992 were $32.8 million. The company holds 45% share of children's skiwear and 11% of adult Skiwear market. Sport Obermeyer produces merchandise ranging from: parkas, vests, ski suits, shells, ski pants, turtlenecks, and accessories. These products are sold throughout U.S. department stores in urban areas and ski shops. With increasing demands and rising competition, Sport Obermeyer needs to have an edge on the market. Starting in 1985 with a joint venture in Hong Kong called Obersport, the company began to increase productivity to meet their new demands. Recently, a number of contractual ventures were added and a new complex in Lo Village Guangdong China have enhance production but increase the level of difficulty on the planning and production stages. The Sport Obermeyer case describes the forecasting, planning and production processes of a global skiwear supply channel. The case provides an in-depth description of the planning and production processes Sport Obermeyer and its supply channel partners undergo each year to develop and deliver Obermeyer's product line. The case will emphasis on the nature of the information that flows among the members of the supply chain and the timing of key decisions and events in order to have a successful inventory line.
The rapid advancement of recent technology is revolutionizing how the consumer shops. Online shopping has become vastly popular and consumers are utilizing this technology with the increasing practicality of the Internet and mobile devices. The apparel industry is cutthroat competitive in the global market. Retailers without a substantial competitive advantage do not stand a fighting chance. Now more than ever, competition amongst companies such as GUESS? Inc. and Gap Inc as well as other leading brands has become fierce. Internet marketers are pulling customers from stores. Smartphones have become the new phenomenon and have increased online shopping. Consumers are more aware of prices and have become better shoppers trying to purchases clothing with deep discounts. As a result, stores are forced to put special offers on items on a frequent basis knowing that consumers can buy that cheaper somewhere else. For this reason, GUESS? Inc.’s prices have declined over the years. Even companies like Gap Inc, known for selling products at reasonable prices, have changed strategy to keep up in the retail market. One factor boosting online shopping is ret...
The fashion industry comprises of two things, firstly retail and secondly services. The company does not need any introduction with production equipment. The company will provide a finished product for retail through its own website and provide a large volume of orders service, as well as contract face to face to discuss customer’s needs, pricing etc.
A different perspective of approaching competitive advantage is its relationship with different business models, the degree of innovation and the information systems present. A competitive advantage is imminent if the current strategy of a company is value adding and is not in the present moment being implemented by its would-be competitors. The sustainability of a competitive advantage
His family owned garment factories across Asia, and had been supplying merchandise to traditional retailers for decades. The fast fashion business was something that he wanted to grow, and he felt that I would be the right person to help him do it. We opened an office in Los Angeles and got to work! I traveled to Europe frequently to shop the market for trends, while working closely with our buyers to ensure that we were producing styles that met their specifications. I traveled to Asia to work with the factories in the development of samples, learning a great deal about the manufacturing process. Despite the economic downturn, I knew that there had to be a way to create a healthy ecosystem, comprising of manufacturers, middlemen and retailers. My goal was to minimize waste and maximize fabric yields in order to increase our margins. In doing so, I was able to bring in $2.5 million in sales in the first year, while establishing partners with all the major fast fashion chains in the
My overview of Sew What? Inc.: The Role of information Technology in Small Business Success case is about an entrepreneur by the name of Megan Duckett. In 1992 she opened her cutting, sewing, and Fabric Company. The company centrally located in her kitchen, which expanded to her garage. Although she was a small part of the business sector her motto was developed based on customer satisfaction. The Fabric Companies motto was to face adversity with a head-on approach. Therefore, if any obstacles were to arise the companies objectives are to eliminate the problem as soon as appear. The company’s policies remained established on facing a difficult task, excellence performance and more modern day practices for conducting business.
This industry has generally always remained in brisk business despite a downturn in 2009 that led to a fall of a whooping $18 billion business globally. The growth of Fashion Accessory business in India, specially, has been generally lukewarm since then. A company which was working under this sector was considered as useless during this t...