The Clifton Review 

The Clifton Review is a tri-weekly column that examines the question of the Clifton project along with the evolution of the war between two billionaires. We covered the start of this war with articles describing the battle over easement rights, the mysterious burning of a home, the blocks to rebuilding, and countless questionable court filings.

While the 2018 series salutes fashion mogul Peter Nygård’s Golden Jubilee detailing his rags to riches story, his incredible business success over these past fifty years and an inside look at how he did it, The Clifton Review will also continue to address current affairs as they relate to the good of The Bahamas.

Deliberate Steps Toward Business Success

By P.J. Malone

Operating a business and making it a big success is not an easy endeavor. There are so many considerations for achieving success while avoiding pitfalls that are sure to prevent success.

It is the reason that so many business strategies exist for helping businesses achieve their goals. Organizational alignment is one of them. Ensuring that your business is firing on all cylinders takes focused effort. It means taking deliberate steps to ensure that all parts of the organization are working together toward the business goal.

We have seen how fashion mogul Peter Nygard worked to ensure that all parts of his organization are working together to achieve business objectives. We began looking at his specific examples by discussing his approach to structuring his organization and establishing processes that fit with his structure and business objectives.

In our continued review, here’s what he did with his technological implementations toward organizational alignment:

At a macro level, Nygard developed technological tools to aid in product development and to contribute to the alignment of various departments with the business goals:

He had Product Development Visual Communications (VCom) Screens created to give his design teams real-time information about the performance of the company’s apparel. He had Data warehousing software developed to ensure that both data analysts and designers could review product results and be on the same page with forecasting decisions. 

Also, Nygard had Shipping VCom screens created to improve tracking of his products being shipped. His company was one of the first to use bar code scanning improving accuracy and cutting down on market delivery times. 

Also assisting with market delivery times was his ARTS2 software that connects stores with the Customer Service Centers allowing for immediate replacement orders as soon as items are sold. 

These alignments had a major impact on efficiencies and the effectiveness of Nygard’s business and contributed greatly to his business goals.

At the point when Nygard became technology centric, he realized it would only really be effective if he implemented technological measures across the board both internally and externally. 

At a micro level, he sought ways of ensuring external processes aligned with his product development needs. When he couldn’t get buy-in from his external customers, he came up with strategies to make it work. 

For his manufacturers abroad, it was more efficient and cost effective to purchase the computers for them and provide the training they would need to make it work. It made an immense difference in the production timeline, reducing specification errors, which resulted in major savings.

When Nygard couldn’t get his vendors to computerize, in some cases Nygard bought computers for them and trained them on how to use the company’s system for placing orders and receiving invoices. With other vendors, he provided a financial incentive where companies allowing the use of the electronic invoices got discounts on their invoices.

There were many technological steps over a number of years that Nygard took that resulted in him setting a bench mark and being able to stay ahead of the curve in his industry.

While possibly not intentional, Nygard’s steps to align the various parts of his organization through his technological ingenuity resulted in major financial successes for his business.