What separates the winners from the losers? In part, it’s the ability to harness the power of real-time sales data to understand the latest trends and respond to rapidly shifting demand signals. Retail demand planning is key for winning companies to be able to do two things:

• Quickly get the right products to the consumers who want to buy them
• Quickly get out of the products that are not selling

To do this, companies must embrace a digital future, as the supply chain models of the past aren’t adequate in today’s real-time world. The industry’s most successful companies are adopting a digital supply chain that shares information across their entire organization and enables them to deliver the products their customers want, every time, driving full price sales and minimizing markdowns and stockouts. Companies such as Zara, H&M, Xcel Brands and others exemplify the trend toward a digital supply chain with retail demand planning capabilities, and other fashion companies are scrambling to catch up.

But what exactly is the digital supply chain, and what advantages can it bring to your company? In order to understand this, it’s important to look at its current and future state.

This white paper outlines why most successful apparel and fashion companies are adopting a digital supply chain, one that shares information and enables the delivery of the products their customers want, every time, driving full-price sales and minimizing markdowns and stockouts.