The coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity – casestudy Schiesser AG

The coronavirus pandemic presents manufacturers and retailers with new challenges and great uncertainty. All processes in the chain are involved, including pre-order planning. Would buyers still come to the showroom? How will consumer behaviour evolve? How will pre-order quotes and demand be affected in the long run?

This called for a change of approach. Many events have relocated to the digital world. And the discourse is more emotional than usual. During the months in which business largely came to a standstill, many companies had time to scrutinize their business model and dedicate themselves to certain issues. For many, coronavirus became a driver of digitalisation. New virtual sales processes, digital meetings and training sessions work better than expected.

There was a clear prevailing opinion among everyone we spoke to:
– show your strengths and be visible
– carefully review product lines
– introduce customers to digital options and create specific collections. Presumably due to working from home: the focus is now on casual – there is an emphasis on comfort, relaxed silhouettes and lounge and leisure-inspired styles. Many of our clients have confirmed this.

We spoke with Engelbert Fleischmann, Vice President IT & Digitalization at SCHIESSER AG in Radolfzell about coronavirus as a driver of digitalisation and how MobiMedia tools can support this.

Webinars with online fashion shows on a virtual platform and video conferences with individual client meetings – the innovative platform’s new approach to technology has demonstrated its practical benefits in recent weeks. On top of this, there are cost advantages and faster processes.

The Quintet24 workbooks also exist in Quintet. We are now going to present our shows in Quintet24 and the sales staff prepare the offer for the clients in Quintet at the same time. We are adjusting our sales processes to provide the best results for everyone.

When it comes to digitalisation in the clothing industry, there are some very big differences.
We have already digitalised and integrated a lot – even before the coronavirus pandemic. When we do something, we do it properly.

We have a very good partnership with the team at MobiMedia, especially when it comes to the speed at which we implemented the project. We have great trust, but we also set high standards. It all has to come together, you need a sensible structure in which all digital processes operate in an integrated way. Digitalisation must have genuine added-value.

What we’re now doing more and more – and this also speaks for Quintet itself – our retail team is processing our orders directly in Quintet. This type of order entry is quicker and requires fewer resources than data entry into the ERP.

And our key accounts team also use Quintet for customer-related forecasts. We still have a long way to go and have other ideas that we will implement with MobiMedia. I’ll simply say: intelligent customer forecasts alongside normal forecast planning. We want to provide our sales team with a very clever tool.  We also have a few things on the agenda with the MobiMedia team for 2022.

Please read the full interview -> here (pdf)