Disrupting the supply chain
ECCO SHOES
At the moment we have a stable team which we ’ re now working on strongly developing .”
Disrupting the supply chain
ECCO bucks the trend when it comes to supply chain operations – it owns and operates almost 100 percent of its assets . A facet of the business , Phillips explains , which gives the company control of where and when its products will arrive in stores .
“ We have an extremely complex network from end-to-end , probably made more complex by the fact that we control every step of the way ,” Phillips says . He goes on to explain that ECCO has around 200 different supply chains for its materials coming into the factories . “ We have five factories that are converting materials into shoes , and we have about 70 shipping lanes going into the first port market . “ At the end of the day , we are shoemakers . That ’ s our core competency , but we believe that because we own the assets we can glue the supply chain together for a competitive advantage .”
ECCO ’ s external operations are being further in-sourced . Over the past year the company has leveraged significant investment in order to purchase new machinery in order to bring more manufacturing components inside its facilities . “ The company likes to control its value chain from end to end , which is quite amazing . It ’ s rare a company is going that direction these days ,” Phillips adds . “ We are bucking the trend and that
58 December 2016