CASE STUDY
The Client
The Garmspot Group is an African multinational textile conglomerate redefining the textile value chain across Africa through its three distinct profit centres: Garmspot, Garmprint and Garmtrade. Garmspot, their fashion e-commerce platform, sells a wide collection of brands as well as its own range of clothing and accessories, and ships to countries from fulfilment centres in Africa and Europe. Garmprint, their apparel printing service, is Africa’s leading supplier of customised clothing and branded merchandise for businesses and individuals. Their third arm - Garmtrade provides fabrics, finished garments and souvenir items to individuals, brands and corporate organizations.
Their Business
In Africa, three economies dominate e-commerce: Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. Nigeria holds the highest number of e-commerce sites with 40% of all African online stores headquartered in the country. Technology adoption, mobile broadband penetration and supply chain advances are some of the factors driving this market. The vertically integrated value chain for the group starts with Garmtrade. Here fabric and unmodified garments are sourced (the group aims to produce locally in the future) at wholesale rate. These get sold in bulk to businesses or transferred to Garmprint where they are modified and/or printed upon. Garmprint also allows its customers to bring or buy other personalised items that can be modified. Garmspot retails internally developed line as well as partner brands on its e-commerce platform.
The Challenge
With the growing adoption of e-commerce services on the continent, and more competitors entering the market, the group were looking for a strategy partner to help them solidify their position as market leaders now and in the future. They understood the importance of adopting analytics in their operations but were at a loss on how to gather more accurate and relevant data that gave insight into market opportunities and threats. In addition, they sought a redevelopment of their operational processes so as to become more efficient and accountable.
Our Approach
We started by first understanding how their business, how the various profit centre worked in synergy to create value. This was done through site visits, individual interviews, collective meetings, surveys and reading their previous business and operational plans. Once we understood the client, we set out to understand their market. In an industry and region starved of reliable data, we had to come up with innovative methods of understanding the status quo. In addition to this, we conducted site visits to competitors, embarked on primary research and developed, in intricate detail, a view of how the industry operated. Equipped with data backed insight, we set out to highlight opportunities and threats to our clients. On how to take advantage of the opportunities that existed, we joint heads with the client and other key stakeholders to decide on the best course of action. With regards to the threats, we set out priority levels and strategic processes and partnerships that had to in place to mediate against them. These included the introduction of more smart KPIs and adoption of technology. The business and operational processes of each profit centre were also evaluated and made more effective, based on local market factors.
Our Impact
The Garmspot group now better understand their business and have developed a vision that is shared across the entire organisation. They have put in place processes and strategy to help take advantage of a growing market and are now better able to benefit from the economies of scale. New partnerships have been developed and, by better understanding their consumers, they are set up to better serve them.
