Developing a Scalable Solution to Enhance Retail Supply Chain Visibility
Clarkston Consulting recently partnered with a fashion retailer to enhance their retail supply chain visibility. Read a synopsis of the project below or download the full case study.
Download the Enhance Retail Supply Chain Visibility Case Study Here
A multi-brand global leader in the fashion industry, operating over 1,100 retail stores and generating more than $10 billion in annual revenue, faced mounting challenges as it expanded. Despite its success, the company lacked visibility into inbound shipments across its seven brands, hindering logistics, production operations, and merchandise planning teams from efficiently managing inventory. Data was siloed across seven disparate ERP systems, and key shipment updates from drayage and shipping partners were often unavailable.
To solve this, the client partnered with Clarkston to design and implement a scalable, cross-brand reporting solution. The primary objectives were to consolidate data from multiple ERP systems, establish standardized shipping milestones, and deliver actionable reports to support decision-making across the supply chain.
Clarkston began by creating a business case and project charter to align stakeholders. From there, the team gathered requirements across all seven brands and architected a scalable data warehouse to centralize all supply chain data. The solution included developing four uniform, user-friendly reports and establishing 17 consistent shipping milestones applicable across brands. Clarkston also provided leadership in data integration testing, conducted end-user training, and led hypercare efforts post-implementation to ensure system adoption and stability.
As a result, the Corporate Logistics team gained access to real-time shipment milestones across all brands to enable supply chain visibility that had not previously existed. The centralized data warehouse not only supported the immediate reporting needs but also served as a foundation for future analytics initiatives. The Production Operations team saw a significant reduction in manual effort, moving from managing reports across seven ERPs to utilizing four standardized dashboards.
This initiative empowered the organization with the visibility, efficiency, and scalability needed to support continued growth in a fast-paced retail environment.
