Following a management buy-out in 2006, established tailor T.M. Lewin has undergone significant expansion, adding new stores and concessions and improving its e-commerce offering. Underpinning that growth has been the adoption of fashion business system CIMS from Prologic, which delivers up-to-date stock information throughout the supply chain, enabling T.M. Lewin to maximise its products’ potential and drive up sales.
Jermyn Street
T.M. Lewin was established in 1898 in Jermyn Street, London. Today, the company offers a range of menswear products that include men’s shirts, suits, ties, cufflinks, casual wear, and outerwear, as well as a distinctive range of womenswear, including shirts, suits, knitwear and accessories. With almost 75 trading outlets currently in the UK and Ireland, made up of stores and concessions and plans to open more in the UK and overseas, T.M. Lewin also plans to drive a growing proportion of revenue from its online business as the company adopts a strategic multi-channel retailing policy.
In 2006, T.M. Lewin went through a management buy-out that has reinvigorated the established brand. The new management team developed an aggressive growth strategy that has seen over 20 stores added in between mid 2007 and end of 2008 and the outsourcing of the warehouse operations.
However, it was also recognised that successful expansion could not be achieved without a radical overhaul of IT systems, from distribution to stores and e-commerce. Mike Trotman, Chief Financial Officer at T.M. Lewin, explains, “Following the management buy-out, it was apparent that if T.M. Lewin was to realise its ambitious expansion plans it was essential for the organisation to become a more professional retailer, supported by real-time, accurate information at every point of the business.”
Reducing risk
The company needed to achieve far greater visibility of stock across its retail estate – all the way from the warehouse to stores – and to ensure seamless delivery of home shopping via telephone and online.
“The strength of T.M. Lewin is through a very solid product at an affordable price. But given the huge value of stock in the supply chain, it was essential to have far greater insight into stock location throughout the business to improve operational control, drive performance improvements and support strategic expansion initiatives,” Trotman says.
T.M. Lewin reviewed its pre-existing systems to assess whether or not both technology and vendor could support the company’s growth strategy. “T.M. Lewin is a multi-channel retailer but the biggest part of the business remains store retail, which will get bigger and bigger,” he says. “The management team felt it was essential to work with a vendor that had a track record of working with retailers of this scale and with experience of the fashion marketplace.”
Furthermore, the pre-existing technology was a series of point solutions, requiring complex and time consuming integration with the added risk of dependency upon multiple source vendors. “This approach did not fit in with T.M. Lewin’s objective of a low risk implementation,” he says. “The company was already in a position where fundamental changes had to be made to reduce operational risk. With over 50 stores and no stock visibility, T.M. Lewin had enough risk. There was no need or desire to pioneer the integration of diverse technology.”
Instead, the company reviewed the market and opted for Prologic CIMS, a single solution that delivers the complete stock visibility across every retail channel. “CIMS offers a one-stop-shop,” Trotman says. “Furthermore, Prologic has a great track record working with fast growing companies in the retail fashion area. That was very important to T.M. Lewin in reducing the risk associated with IT change.”
Process driven
To support the company’s risk-averse strategy, it initially contracted Prologic to undertake significant consultancy work to assess its operational requirements and confirm that CIMS would be the right solution for the organisation without the need for expensive and time consuming adaptation.
Having worked closely together to do so, in March 2007 T.M. Lewin began the CIMS deployment in conjunction with Prologic. During 2007 and 2008, CIMS Merchandising and Store solutions were implemented across the business.
Following a smooth deployment, one of the key changes the company had to make was the introduction of new, streamlined processes – a move that represented significant cultural change for an organisation that had relied on informal processes to date.
“Store staff were used to calling the warehouse to reorder on an ad hoc basis. It was a major shock to move to a stock replenishment system based on daily sales information from the EPoS system,” Trotman confirms. Once the new processes were in place, however, the company was able to transform its level of stock availability in store.
“T.M. Lewin has performed really well this year in a difficult climate and that has been at least in part due to the fact that CIMS has enabled better, more professional retailing,” Trotman says. “T.M. Lewin has always had a strong product but the company is now far more proficient at distributing that product across the network.”
Delivering benefits
T.M. Lewin has used the information provided by CIMS to transform its product distribution and maximise sales across each retail channel. “Successful retailing depends upon having the right stock in the right place at the right time,” he says. “CIMS has enabled T.M. Lewin to understand what products are performing well and what needs to be optimised to drive incremental sales.”
The company has used its new, in-depth insight into stock location and sales performance to define specific measures for stock availability by individual store and through its other retail channels. Stock replenishment is now driven using real time information from the CIMS EPoS system to ensure availability is always within a defined percentage of the measure.
“Sales are now also analysed by stock availability in each outlet, which enables T.M. Lewin to ensure consistent performance. The company is now far more proactive in retail management, moving stock to the right locations based on demand to boost sales across every channel,” Trotman confirms.
Ensuring stock is located correctly, minimising out of stocks and reducing unwanted inventory has delivered significant value to the bottom line. T.M. Lewin has seen sales increase by 20% in 2007/08, in part as a result of maximising the potential of its best selling lines.
Trotman concludes, “In a difficult economic climate it is the efficient, highly focused retailers that will thrive. Detailed performance understanding across every channel is essential to maximise all sales opportunities. With CIMS, T.M. Lewin has a flexible but solid platform for growth that will support the expansion of a highly professional, multi-channel retailer.”