This paper has demonstrated that the strategy of integrating design and retail in the
clothing industry has resulted in improved product performance. The result of the
development of this strategy is a change of boundaries in the value chain, a transfer of
design skills from one category of agents (manufacturers) to another (retailers) through
an integration of retail by designers. It does broaden Walsh et al.’s (1988) results,
according to which, the most successful firms are those that invest in design, and also
have other strengths – for example, in marketing and manufacturing. Our findings
underline the importance of the link between design and retail to ensure that products
are successful.
IJOPM
26,4
424
This paper is positioned in the operations management literature on new product
design in the clothing industry, from a value chain perspective. Much of the literature
is dedicated to the relationship between design and the upstream part of the chain, and
more precisely to how the involvement of suppliers in the design process has
contributed to increased performance. However, there is a gap in the literature on the
relationship between design and downstream activities like retail, and the results on
the upstream of the value chain would deserve to be tested on the downstream of the
chain. This paper is a first attempt to do so. The integration of design and retail
contributes to improve products’ performance through a better integration of customer
needs in the new product design process. Having immediate feedback from customers
is quite difficult and time consuming. Firms have to find a way to get such
consolidated feedback. This can be done through surveys, focus groups, customer
support (Goffin and New, 2001), or through retail. Sales feedback is fast and cheap and
it can also be argued that it is more accurate because it is based on actual customer
behaviour.
There is a need in the literature to concentrate on the methods needed to engage
customers in the design process. Another example is the mass-customisation
phenomenon that ranges from made-to-measure shirts to online mass-customisation of
all products (e.g. Adidas, Lands’ End) (Berger et al., 2005). The idea of integrating users
into the design and production process is a promising strategy for companies that are
being forced to react to the growing individualisation of demand. It is about by-passing
retailers and making the final customer the designer.
The research reported in this paper is exploratory. It opens a new field of research,
namely the focus on new product design with a value chain perspective that
concentrates on the downstream part of the chain. The link between design and retail
needs to be tested in other industries: mainly buyer-driven commodity chains where
concentrated retailers play a leading role and drive the value chain, and where
information technologies have already contributed to change the manufacturing
organisation. The food industry is an interesting candidate for exploration.