Multi-Channel Commerce & Retailing

If we look at the way traditional product development was done, it was mostly one geography, one company and one/two units playing major role. However, with the advent of technology, globalization, expanding markets, this phenomenon evolved. It evolved into what is called today as collaborative product development , spanning across almost all industries, changing the definition from company to enterprise and adopting newer methodologies while keeping essence of the product development same i.e better quality, short development cycles and more market share.

Coming back to the answer of the question, why there is still room for further discussions?
The answer is simple : It’s innovation. The evolution of product life cycle has also changed the way organizations work today. Innovation has became the key differentiation and the one who is not vigilant and innovative, will be crushed by the competition.
Being innovative does not mean that one has to bring out innovative products every time. Innovation is not limited to the product but it is also about process, tools and methodologies which go into the development of product or enable product development.
A same product which takes 12- 15 months of development , if can be brought to market, say in 6-7 months what it would reflect? It would reflect that even with the same product and reducing development time one can still expect to gain higher market share. This reduction is only possible if one finds innovative ways of working.
Having said all this, the products of today are facing another challenge which requires strong innovation.  Yes, the impact on environment. "The impact of and on Green".

Someone in the offce was discussing that green regulations are more inclined towards discrete manufacturers and are not well suited for retail manufacturers especially in the textile industry. The opinion was from the various regislations like WEEE, RoHS being very prevalent and impacting strongly discrete manufacturers. All was well till the time EU brought out REACH. With REACH in place now, even textile industries have come under radar as well. Retailers, in europe, have been advised to have certifications for their products to ensure that they do not contain restricted substances as advised by REACH.
Had a chance to look at some of the certifications for textile industry. The one which is very prevalent is Oeko-Tex® certificateand the other one which is picking the pace is from Bureau Veritas, known as "C-Mark" certification.
Some of the European private labels have recently started incorporating certification marks on their clothes. US manufacturers still have to catch up or at least start thinking on those lines. I know REACH is still not  very prevalent in US at the moment but sooner or later it will be adopted.

Well, the only reason for doing all this is because it is need of today, for better tomorrow. Not only the final product needs to be environment friendly but also the whole process needs to green enabled. Which means the paradigm shift from “cradle to grave” to  “cradle – Re(recycle, remanufacture, redesign, rethink)- grave”.
“Re” is what is forcing us to think differently , think innovative and think Green.