DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY THROUGH DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Digital supply chain start-up, SupplyCompass, has unveiled its new full-service platform at the start of 2020, that empowers fashion brands to design and deliver better products, effortlessly. The cloud-based software is set to transform the fashion industry, by digitising global supply chains and making sustainable sourcing easy for brands and every player in the supply chain. The full-service platform launch follows £1.5m investment in SupplyCompass last year, which launched in the UK in 2018.
The new design-to-delivery platform brings huge improved functionality for fast-growing fashion brands — making designing, developing and producing sustainable collections quicker, more efficient and cost effective. Through SupplyCompass, brands get instant access to a global network of trusted manufacturers and can develop sustainable collections and gain complete control over production — all in one platform.
New platform features
Through the SaaS platform, fashion brands are able to design collections, collaborate across teams, create tech packs in minutes, find world-class manufacturers with leading certifications, get instant costs, receive quality samples first time, manage all production and ultimately have supply chain transparency and traceability – all from one dashboard. With better sourcing practices, SupplyCompass helps brands and factories improve collaboration, drive efficiencies, increase visibility, gather data and reduce waste.
Sustainability at the core
In a challenging time for retailers – 1,875 high-street stores shut last year – competition is fierce, and brands are increasingly understanding the importance of investing in innovation and digitisation across business models, process and supply chains. Yet fashion businesses are struggling to keep up; while 88% of consumers hold brands accountable for helping them make a difference, just 1% of new products labelled as sustainable in 2019*. More than ever brands need agility to react fast to this global crisis – something SupplyCompass believes can be brought about by new vetted supply chains and a digital solution.
SupplyCompass empowers brands to build better products: better partnerships, better process, better for people and the planet. The new full-service platform enables brands to design for sustainability at the start, finding the right materials from the right sources and designing for end of life. Through the platform’s holistic solution, brands can control up to 80% of the product’s environmental impact, by discovering sustainable and local materials and using efficient processes – reducing waste and keeping supply chain costs down. Find out more with the SupplyCompass video.
Flora Davidson, SupplyCompass Co-Founder, comments: “The current way of designing and producing goods is unsustainable for people and the planet. We believe that real change and transformation of the industry will only happen with the right combination of technology and collaboration. Through SupplyCompass, we are building the best supply chains and long-term production relationships with commitment, collaboration and transparency at the core, setting a new standard for sustainability in the fashion industry.”
Gus Bartholomew, SupplyCompass Co-Founder, continues: “We believe that for sustainable sourcing to enter the mainstream and become the only way to source, it needs to make business sense. If designing and producing sustainably was easier, more efficient, and more cost-effective than conventional ways of sourcing, then everyone will do it.
“SupplyCompass enables brands to meet the increasingly demanding needs of their customers by removing supply chain uncertainty so that they can focus on disrupting and innovating. We are helping them digitise their whole product development and production management, whilst allowing them to plug and play into pre-vetted, responsive and sustainable supply chains, so they can be agile and responsive to their customers’ needs. Our vision is to build the new operating system for supply chains and set the gold standard for global sourcing, with sustainability at the heart.”
The SupplyCompass difference
SupplyCompass has worked collaboratively with both its brand and manufacturer partners to build the new platform and drive the much-needed change in the supply chain. Unlike other sourcing platforms, SupplyCompass is equally engineered to provide an efficient, sustainable solution for factory partners and brands alike.
SupplyCompass has handpicked the best manufacturers and suppliers around the world to be part of their network of over 200 carefully selected partners (see manufacturer map). The majority of their network is in India, with some strategically placed partners in Portugal, Nepal, China and Spain. The team personally visits, vets and monitors every single one to ensure they align with SupplyCompass’s values and meet environmental and social guidelines.
About SupplyCompass
SupplyCompass is the sourcing platform for design and production teams. British co-founders, Gus Bartholomew and Flora Davidson, spent two years living and working in India to build the foundations of the company, which allowed them to develop the expertise to set a new gold standard in the industry. SupplyCompass is backed by some of Europe’s leading venture capital firms, including Episode 1, Mumbai and London-based Unicorn Ascension, Ascension Ventures and Andy Chung and Philipp Moehring from AngelList.
With offices in the UK (London) and India (Mumbai and Hyderabad), SupplyCompass has delivered over 1m sustainably made products to date for leading brands around the world. Their approach is working; SupplyCompass has found their process saves brands valuable time and money – on average, 25% saved in production costs and 40% less time managing production. Fashion companies are matched with a manufacturer within one day for free, with pricing based on a commission structure depending on the order value and manufacturing costs.
SupplyCompass reimagines how fashion supply chains will function – through:
● Supplier network: from small and slow → to agile, reliable, instant access supply chains
● Product development: from hard to stay ahead → to quick to market
● Materials: from limited choices → to unlimited sustainable options
● Production management: from manual process → to concentrating on designing
● Sustainability: from a challenging addition → to sustainability as standard
● Speed to market: from try and keep up → to be a category leader
● Cost: from unavoidable sunk costs → to new-found cost efficiencies
