March 5th, 2024

First AI Summit hosted by S.OLIVER GROUP: Fashion is Tech

The S.OLIVER GROUP is always on the lookout for the new, the different, the better. This was impressively demonstrated at the first AI Summit of the fashion company. In 30 inspiring live demos, nine technology partners – Assyst & Style3D, AWS & Slalom, Centric Software, Google Cloud, Microsoft & Fashable as well as SAP – showed employees a wide range of existing and potential use cases for artificial intelligence along the value chain of a fashion company: from the overarching perspective of a group to collection development, B2B orders and logistics processes through to B2C applications, returns and replenishment. The event kicked off the concrete implementation of the AI strategy and motivated employees to get actively involved and take the future of fashion into their own hands. Because one thing is already clear: fashion is tech!

The highlight was already implemented use cases, which S.OLIVER GROUP employees presented to their colleagues themselves:

– How our design teams use AI in the design of prints and in 3D product development

– How 3D styles can be created and modified from the s.Oliver 3D library

– How logistics uses predictive AI order forecasts to determine resource requirements

– How web crawling facilitates market analysis & Customer Life Cycle Value forecasts help to predict the purchasing behavior of individual customers and improve the individual approach

– How we use artificial intelligence to optimize the marketing of articles (dynamic pricing)

“Our strategy at the S.OLIVER GROUP is clear,” CEO Jürgen Otto announces with conviction: “Innovation and artificial intelligence are our companions in not only optimizing processes, but also taking the customer experience to a new level. Creativity and technology – these two elements merge into a powerful engine for us. Every day is an opportunity to strengthen our competitiveness. We are not just part of the game, we are reshaping the rules. We take our employees with us on this journey, because they ultimately make the decisive difference.”

The S.OLIVER GROUP has deliberately focused on involving its employees – right from the start of development. Thomas Herbert, Director s.O Technology S.OLIVER GROUP, sums it up: “The spirit of optimism is palpable. AI offers us countless possibilities: It increases our performance, makes our work easier and expands our knowledge. We need the entire workforce and their different perspectives in order to use it effectively and examine specific potential applications. The AI Summit is the ideal starting point for us to enter into an exchange with the different departments, identify specific use cases and continue working on the topics in initiatives and projects. It is a common path on which we are shaping the future – and I am full of anticipation for what lies ahead!”

The keynote speech by Prof. Dr. Yasmin Weiß from Technische Hochschule Nuremberg made it clear how important it is for employees to take the future into their own hands. Her research focuses on how artificial intelligence will change the way we work and the demands placed on us humans. She explained: “We live in a world of constant change. We need to gain security IN change, as there is no longer any security BEFORE change. We can do this by remaining curious and open, acquiring expertise in new technologies and at the same time strengthening our human skills, which distinguish us from increasingly powerful machines. These include, in particular, empathy, human creativity, intuition and strategic thinking.”

The HR department already has an eye on the future and has identified key future skills for the S.OLIVER GROUP that will take us forward – both professionally and personally.

Ultra-Modern Infrastructure as a Starting Point

The S.OLIVER GROUP’s technological infrastructure is also ready today for what tomorrow will bring: the Digital Core, the central IT landscape, consists of five state-of-the-art systems that communicate with each other in near real-time. These include SAP S/4HANA, which was implemented in 2022, Centric PLM, Board Intelligent Planning and Scayle, the newly launched e-shop platform. Logistics processes will also be taken to the next level in 2024 with the new Logistics Service Center.

This technological platform, combined with the passion and enthusiasm of our employees, offers the S.OLIVER GROUP and its brands the ideal basis to develop and take the next development steps.

Read the Original Press Release.

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ABOUT S.OLIVER GROUP

Since 1969, the S.OLIVER GROUP has developed into a multilabel company. In addition to the brands s.Oliver and QS, the brand portfolio also includes comma, LIEBESKIND BERLIN, COPENHAGEN STUDIOS and lala Berlin. The Group employs around 4,700 people internationally.

Centric Software® (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-replenishment platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in consumer goods like fashion, outdoor, luxury, home, multi-category retail, grocery, food & beverage, cosmetics & personal care and consumer electronics, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products.

· Centric PLM™, the leading PLM solution for consumer goods, optimizes product execution from ideation to development, sourcing and manufacture, realizing up to 50% improvement in productivity.

· Centric Planning™ is an innovative, cloud-native, AI solution delivering end-to-end planning capabilities to maximize retail and wholesale business performance resulting in a 110% increase in margin.

· Centric Pricing & Inventory™ leverages AI to drive margins and boost revenues by up to 18% via price and inventory optimization from pre-season to in-season to season completion.

· Centric Market Intelligence™ is an AI-driven platform giving insights into consumer trends, competitor offers and pricing to boost competitivity and get closer to the consumer, with a proven 12% increase in average initial price point.

· Centric Visual Boards™ pivot actionable data in a visual-first orientation to ensure robust, consumer-right assortments and product offers, increasing product portfolios by up to 90% using the same resources.

Centric Software’s market-driven solutions have the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition appears regularly in world-leading analyst reports and research.