This report presents their outlook for the future – interwoven with our own interpretation and experience from our client work – under four headings:
这份报告展示了他们对未来的展望——与我们对客户工作的理解和经验交织在一起——以下四个方面:
Sourcing in an uncertain world: the macrostate at play. Apparel executives must continue dealing with a volatile, fast-changing environment along with heightened competition and increasingly savvy consumers. That is driving an urgent search for greater efficiency and flexibility along the end-to-end sourcing chain.
In search of the sourcing caravan’s next stop. In recent decades, apparel buyers have relentlessly shifted sourcing to lower-cost countries – “the next stop of the sourcing caravan. ” Today, the search for the caravan’s next stop is as active as ever, but there are new dynamics at play. Some traditional low-cost countries are losing their attractiveness, while sourcing executives are showing keen interest in newer markets – particularly Vietnam, Myanmar, and Ethiopia. As companies seek to step up their agility, however, there is also fresh focus on proximity sourcing and re-shoring.
Digitization – “the next sourcing country. ” Digitization could enable apparel companies to achieve a step change in performance, transform to a customer-centric operating model, and create transparency throughout their global supply chains. As one participant at McKinsey’s 2016 Apparel Sourcing Roundtable put it: “Digitization will be the next sourcing country. ” But the apparel industry is still at the beginning of its digitization journey: companies need to accelerate digitization and integrate it into their broader transformation. Those that succeed will break down silos between sourcing and product development, shorten lead times, lower costs, and increase transparency to manage sustainability.
The future of sourcing. While the industry will face continued volatility and complexity, the sourcing executives we surveyed also expressed hope that they could achieve mastery in this uncertain environment. Digitization will support them in improving predictability, efficiency, decision making, and accuracy – not just in sourcing, but throughout their business. The time to start is now.