Abercrombie & Fitch hastens international expansion with GT Nexus cloud solution

Supply chain management tool allowing distribution centres to become far more efficient

International fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch has improved the efficiency of its international distribution and expansion with the deployment of a cloud-based supply chain solution from GT Nexus.

Abercrombie & Fitch, which has over 1,000 stores in 20 countries, has used the solution since 2010 and has been so impressed that last year it renewed its contract with GT Nexus in an effort to expand commitment to its cloud supply chain, which now spreads across four continents.

"Abercrombie & Fitch began working with GT Nexus in 2010. We implemented the TradeCard procure to pay programme to support payment of our international merchandise vendors," Jennifer McFarland, senior supply chain manager for Abercrombie & Fitch, told Computing.

"Joining the platform enabled us to put more of our capital into international expansion."

Deployment of the solution, a transparent workflow environment for purchase orders, invoices, amendments and settlements, has enabled Abercrombie & Fitch to automate large swathes of its invoice payment procedures, relieving pressure on the firm's international finance offices which had trouble keeping up with vendor volume as the firm expanded.

Now, it can automate almost 90 per cent of invoice processes owing to the adoption of the cloud-based solution which, as McFarland explained, was simple for the retailer to get up and running.

"We were able to get POs and invoices on the platform within 90 days, and we had 86 per cent of our vendors live and operating on the platform within six months," she said.

Use of GT Nexus has therefore played a part in aiding Abercrombie & Fitch in expanding its global operations, as demonstrated by the opening of a flagship store in Seoul, capital of South Korea.

McFarland described how the solution has helped the firm, which also incorporates fashion retailers Hollister Co and Gilly Hicks, open up distribution centres in far flung areas of the world.

"As we have grown internationally, we have opened up international distribution centres to support out international stores. Each time we open up a distribution centre it was an additional level of POS, invoices, shipments," she said.

"So we started to see these transactions explode throughout the years, and we were able to open up our Hong Kong distribution centre and support all of the POs and invoices without adding anything in our accounts payable department, so that was one key success we have seen," McFarland concluded.