7 ways fashion ERPs enhance procurement processes

Fashion brands often find themselves under immense pressure to deliver products on time, but such endeavours depend on nailing procurement.

While most companies recognise procurement as an essential function, far too many still rely on generic systems that don’t properly support procurement professionals in the way they need.

Procurers fall short when their approaches can’t keep pace with supply chain demands, vendor relationships and the need to balance quality, cost and ethical considerations simultaneously.

The linchpin between these considerations is robust ERP systems, but when said solutions weren’t built for fashion, bottlenecks persist, leaving procurers scrambling to make do.

The consequences of poor procurement processes

Practically all ERPs provide the ability to issue purchase orders, but these systems are designed to work across most industries. This isn’t ideal for fashion because there are key factors that aren’t always accommodated for procurement.

When purchase orders become unwieldy in generic ERPs and vendor communications break down, brands face several consequences:

• Production delays lead to missed market opportunities
• Margin erosion from inaccurate costing and last-minute changes
• Compliance issues that damage brand reputation
• Supply chain bottlenecks cause inventory problems

These challenges ultimately compound and result in lost sales, frustrated teams and compromised financial performance.

Fashion ERPs bridge the procurement gap in the fashion value chain

ERPs are considered the beating heart of an organisation because all departments fundamentally rely on these systems to operate effectively.

When these solutions are tailored specifically to fashion, they become far more powerful and allow brands to mitigate disruption, enforce better compliance and improve their margins.

To help illustrate this, we’ve listed seven key benefits below:

1. Simple and flexible order entry

One of the major problems brands face with traditional ERPs is creating purchase orders en masse for each item variant (e.g., t-shirts in red, blue, size S, size XXL, etc.) due to the sheer volume of products needed each season.

Every product (including variants) in a collection requires materials that must also be ordered (e.g., fabrics, dyes,) which demand more purchase orders.

Fashion ERPs help streamline this aspect of operations by allowing purchase orders to be created through intuitive matrices and ratio curves, turning hours of work into minutes.

They also offer user-defined aggregated views, allowing teams to gain control over their order lines and make product-level changes with a single click rather than navigating through multiple screens or documents.

This approach crucially eliminates error-prone manual processes, reduces administrative burden, and ensures consistency across all purchasing activities.

2. Seamless vendor collaboration

Given the above, vendor relationships are critical to success in fashion. Tailored ERPs strengthen this connection through dedicated portals where suppliers can actively engage in the ordering process.

For instance, they facilitate effortless sharing of tech packs and product specifications while enabling vendors to update critical information like measurements and HTS codes directly in the system.

This level of collaboration streamlines communication, reduces confusion, and builds stronger supplier relationships that general-purpose ERPs simply can’t match.

3. CSR validation and compliance

More and more, consumers are demanding that brands operate ethically, making CSR a business imperative rather than just a nice-to-have.

Fashion ERPs address this need by setting classifications, capturing certification documents and enforcing purchasing policies based on vendor compliance, even at the individual production site level.

By blocking orders from non-compliant vendors, these systems help protect brand reputation and ensure ethical business practices throughout the supply chain.

Again, this functionality isn’t commonly found in most ERPs because it’s less relevant for businesses in other industries.

4. Advanced sample procurement management

Fashion brands rely on samples to guide their decisions and this is another area where traditional ERPs fail to support procurers.

Individuals in these roles require different approaches to bulk production.

Fashion ERPs allow custom purchase order types specifically designed for prototypes, size sets, and salesmen’s samples, each with its own costing structure and tracking capabilities.

This specialised functionality ensures samples are properly managed, accurately costed, and clearly distinguished from regular production.

5. Margin protection and control

Fashion is notorious for tight margins and with the economic climate the way it is, brands need any edge they can gain to protect profitability throughout the procurement process.

With capabilities for top-down, bottom-up, and mid-out calculations, fashion ERPs allow brands to set prices that maintain target margins while adjusting individual cost elements down to the variant level.

By tracking purchase costs against pre-set targets, these solutions help teams stay on budget and avoid the unexpected cost increases that can devastate seasonal profitability.

6. Streamlined production ordering

It isn’t just purchase orders that are difficult for procurers to work with. Production orders are another consideration that traditional ERPs struggle with in fashion.

Tailored ERPs resolve many of the challenges associated with production orders here by allowing group management and flexible processes.

For instance, they offer the ability to create master production orders, distinguish between sample and bulk production types, and automate order creation through intuitive wizards.

Another valuable benefit is the option to group planned production orders based on selected dimensions and size ratio curves, helping optimise production runs in ways normal ERPs can’t.

7. Smarter procurement planning

Fashion’s complex Bill of Materials requirements mean that procurers desperately need solutions that account for raw material lead times and minimum order quantities.

Tailored ERPs offer better planning tools that allow teams to preview grouped order lines before converting them to purchase orders, with the ability to split by dimensions, periods etc.

Crucially, they offer visibility into raw material requirements for planned purchase orders, enabling teams to make informed decisions about timing and quantities.

Fashion ERPs aren’t a cost, they’re an investment

With all the above in mind, it should be easy to see that traditional ERPs simply weren’t designed to handle the nuances of fashion procurement.

This is why fashion ERPs, like our own K3 Fashion, were built. We develop solutions that specifically help procurers and other fashion professionals with their core challenges.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can support you with procurement, feel free to drop us a line today.