News Briefs

European fashion leader Lindex has selected the Aptos Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. With Aptos PLM, Lindex will streamline and automate critical processes involved in the creation and management of its collections, resulting in faster time to market, increased emphasis on quality and sustainability and better collaboration within the organization and with suppliers.

Based in Gothenburg, Sweden, Lindex is one of Europe’s leading fashion companies, with approximately 4,000 employees. Founded in 1954, Lindex operates 440 stores in 18 markets and has online sales worldwide through third-party partnerships. With an assortment that spans womenswear, kidswear, lingerie and cosmetics, Lindex offers inspiring and affordable fashion. Since 2007, Lindex has been a fully owned subsidiary of the Stockmann Group. 

As demand for Lindex’s collections has grown, both in its own channels and in partnership with global fashion platforms, Lindex recognized the need to centralize product information and allow its design, product management, planning and buying teams to access a single source of truth for all data throughout the product lifecycle. 

After conducting a comprehensive evaluation of third-party PLM software applications, the fashion leader found its right fit with Aptos. 

“Lindex was looking for a PLM solution that offered a modern and scalable technology platform, advanced functionality specific to the fashion vertical, and robust support and tracking for sustainability initiatives,” said Elisabeth Hedberg, Director of Design, Purchase & Production at Lindex. “We found that — and more — with Aptos PLM. We were impressed with the fashion know-how of the Aptos team as well as the system’s ability to facilitate improved collaboration across our end-to-end product development processes.

“We have production offices in Europe and Asia,” Hedberg added. “Our employees at these offices need to work closely with our design and buying departments as well as our suppliers to ensure the styles we produce meet our high standards for quality, fit and sustainability.

“Once it’s fully deployed, we expect Aptos PLM to be utilized by internal and external stakeholders, resulting in vast gains in productivity, collaboration and visibility for all parties involved,” Hedberg said.

The solution will also support Lindex’s sustainability programs, which focus on driving circularity in the fashion industry and taking action for the climate.

With the tool, Lindex can assess the environmental impact of its designs and suppliers in real time and better meet consumers’ demands for environmental impact transparency and accountability.

“Lindex captures the hearts and minds of women everywhere by offering affordable, eco-friendly fashion,” said Richard Willis, regional vice president, EMEA and APAC, at Aptos. “With Aptos PLM, Lindex can optimize every aspect of its product development processes and better manage the vast complexities of its global enterprise. We are proud to provide Lindex with a powerful digital foundation that can empower its business to get higher-quality products to customers faster and more profitably, while respecting the planet.” 

Amazon Prime Day is nearly here and already the company is announcing a flurry of deals and partnerships. The latest gets Amazon Prime members a free, year-long membership trial with delivery service GrubHub (normally $9.99 per month).

U.S.-based Prime members get waived delivery fees on orders over $12 along with access to other rewards such as a donation match on Grubhub+ orders through Grubhub’s Donate the Change program. 

"Being able to give Prime members one year of Grubhub+ and no delivery fees from restaurants is our way of saying 'thank you'," said Jamil Ghani, vice president, Amazon Prime. "The value of a Prime membership continues to grow with this offer, and this year is shaping up to be a great time to enjoy the convenience, savings, fun — and deliciousness — that membership provides."

[Read more: Amazon to Begin Drone Deliveries this Year]

Ariella Kurshan, senior vice president of growth, Grubhub, said that both companies have transformed lives through convenience. 

"With the new Grubhub and Amazon offering, Prime members now can enjoy free delivery from hundreds of thousands of restaurants across the country, when they sign up for a year of free Grubhub+,” Kurshan added. “I'm thrilled that new Grubhub diners from Amazon can get even more delivered to their door with their Prime membership."

H&M is looking to overhaul its data infrastructure, focusing on sustainability and security in order to improve the customer experience and supply chain enablement. 

The company tapped Google Cloud, leaning on its tech offerings to implement a core data platform, data product, and advanced analytics intelligence and machine learning. These new capabilities will allow H&M to access more data from multiple sources, including in-store, online, and its ecosystem and suppliers. 

[Read more: H&M Group and Amazon Launch Tech-Enabled In-Store Shopping Experiences]

"H&M Group has a long history of innovation across all our brands and always wants to build meaningful relationships with our customers,” said Alan Boehme, chief technology officer, H&M Group. “We are now further accelerating digitalization as we believe in sustainable growth powered by advanced analytics and tech.”

Eva Fors, managing director of the Google Cloud Nordic Region, said the company admires H&M Group's commitment to innovation. “We are excited to move forward in our journey together."

Kroger is getting a tech overhaul, improving access to product availability data across its 2,700 stores in 35 states. 

Through a partnership with Omnicom Media Group, Kroger’s retail media arm — Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM), powered by 84.51° —  is enhancing data visualization and daily access to valuable insights, feeding SKU-level store inventory data to a new open operating system that will allow brands to quickly redirect media spend and improve KPIs in a supply-strained landscape. 

In addition to product availability data, the platform will also display fulfillment rates from e-commerce orders as well as market basket insights related to SKUs purchased together and substituted. 

This will give media planners day-to-day visibility into SKU inventory data at the physical store and digital shelf levels. Through this increased access, users can leverage consumer’s shopping behavior insights to optimize spend based on product availability. Additionally, they can avoid low-inventory products, and move toward items with high repeat purchase behavior. 

"Kroger Precision Marketing is committed to bringing more transparency to the media supply chain to help brands be more effective in their advertising," said KPM SVP Cara Pratt. "Our collaboration with Omnicom aligns with our mission to make brand advertising more accountable."

Omnicom Media Group chief activation officer Megan Pagliuca said the collaboration enhances account teams' ability to reduce media waste, meet brand performance goals, and ensure a positive consumer experience.

Oracle has expanded its merchandising procurement capabilities with the introduction of Oracle Retail Supplier Evaluation Cloud Service. The new cloud application enables retailers of all kinds to access and evaluate the governance of suppliers based on their ethical, environmental, safety, and quality performance practices. By being able to make more effective, sustainable, and responsible sourcing decisions as part of the merchandising procurement process, retailers can better manage risk across their supply chain, protect their brand image, and more easily identify greener and more ethical sourcing options.

For example, using its Supplier Evaluation dashboard a fashion retailer realizes its production of denim is resulting in a high level of chemical pollution and consuming 10,000 liters of water per item. By reviewing its suppliers’ environmental and ethical credentials, the retailer can adjust its providers to make more responsible sourcing decisions that reduce water waste and chemical pollution.

“Consumers are increasingly prioritizing environmentally friendly and ethically sourced goods. To continue to succeed, responsible and sustainable sourcing needs to be at the forefront of a brands continued innovation efforts,” said Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail. “Oracle Retail Supplier Evaluation will enable businesses to make effective and responsible decisions across their supply chain and confidently communicate this supplier information to their customers, ultimately building brand loyalty and increasing revenue.”

Oracle Retail Supplier Evaluation will be generally available July 14, 2022.

Consumers and shareholders putting their wallets on sustainable retailers

Shareholder and consumer expectations are putting a new level of accountability and pressure on executives to bring sustainable products to market. In fact, nearly 60% of consumers recently said it’s important that retailers’ brand values, such as sustainability and ethically sourced materials, align with their own. McKinsey and Company estimates that two-thirds of the average company’s environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) footprint lies with suppliers, and those companies with strong ESG credentials can drive down costs by 5-10%.

Oracle Retail Supplier Evaluation augments the Oracle Retail Merchandising procurement process by giving buyers additional data to evaluate existing suppliers or identify new ones. With the cloud service, retailers can enable vendors to report their compliance through scored assessments, audits, certifications, and change management practices. This operationalizes supply chain ESG performance as part of the standard merchandising procurement process. With better visibility and insights across the supply chain, retailers can assess how changes and alterations will impact their ESG score and enact change management processes to help ensure smooth integration of new suppliers with limited disruptions.

Increased visibility and governance across the supply chain

“Because consumers expect businesses to operate with people and planet in mind, they expect companies to be transparent related to the impacts of their businesses,” said Jordan Speer, research manager, IDC Retail Insights. “To earn loyalty, retailers need to operate ethically and with transparency, pulling back the curtain to allow the consumer to see how the sausage is made. It requires work to provide that visibility, but it unlocks a treasure chest of new opportunity that creates competitive advantage through differentiation. Consumers will pay for products and services that are produced sustainably. They will pay to connect with the brands and people involved in creating and producing their products.”

With Supplier Evaluation retailers can help ensure more sustainable products through:

• Assessments: Users create or utilize pre-defined assessments to measure a supplier and their supply chain against various standards, policies, or retailer-defined needs. Suppliers are invited to complete relevant assessment(s) as a part of their onboarding, re-evaluation, or new policy workflow process.
• Audits: Retailers can further evaluate a supplier by scheduling and conducting on-site facility audits and visits, collaborating on non-conformances, monitoring, workflow corrective actions, and determining an overall conformance score.
• Governance: Documents can be tracked for readership and acceptance, and later the adoption of new policies, standards, and regulations. This centralized location can house policies, standards, training material, processes, guidelines, and regulations for employees and external suppliers.
• Changes: The workspace includes news and urgent action notifications to visibly inform all applicable users of changes, expectations, and activities.
• Certification: Once vendors are evaluated, users can register and upload certified evidence, validation, and conformance that the facilities meet the industry standards, specific declaration, and or the criteria set by the organization.
• Performance: Retailers can create critical processes to help ensure that all appropriate steps, activities, and measurements have been completed during registration, re-evaluation, new policy roll-out, and ongoing performance. Performance dashboards enable monitoring each assessment, audit, certification, and adoption against each supplier, facility, and supply chain. Scores can then be aggregated by a supplier, category, standard, and policy.

RIS’ sister publication Progressive Grocer recently revealed its list for the 16th annual Top Women in Grocery recognition program. This year, the company's judging panel sifted through 1,158 submissions and selected 401 honorees.

The program includes several tiers of recognitions, including Grocery Trailblazer, Rising Stars, Senior-Level Executives, Store Managers, and CPG Trailblazer.

Here’s a quick breakdown of this year’s winners.

2022 Top Women in Grocery Trailblazer

Progressive Grocer selected Mary Ellen Adcock, the SVP of operations for The Kroger Co., as its Grocery Trailblazer. She is responsible for all supermarket stores and divisions, leading the company’s consumer experience strategy — the grocer has 11 million shoppers per day. 

Additionally, Adcock oversees operations for 480,000 associates across nearly 2,800 stores. She focuses on asset protection, process change, productivity improvement initiatives, and enterprise food safety.

Read a Q&A Between Progressive Grocer and Adcock Here

Progressive Grocer also highlighted several leaders within its Senior-Level Executives list, including Ahold Delhaize USA, Food Lion, The Giant Co., Albertsons Cos., Avocados From Mexico, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Campbell Soup Co., The Coca-Cola Co., Dollar General Corp., Giant Eagle, Hy-Vee Inc., The Kroger Co., Meijer, Publix, Sam’s Club, and more. 

Get more details about these winners and find the full list here.