Reduce balance sheet liability. Change the way you provision workday apparel

Many large organisations perceive the need to have their workday apparel branded, warehoused and available for immediate delivery as the only way to operate a workday wardrobe.

Whilst in some cases this may be beneficial, for example in extremely high demand cases, for workplace safety requirements such as the provision of high visibility clothing, or where custom made clothing has been produced in bulk, this should not be seen as the only method large organisations have available to implement and operate the supply and distribution of workday apparel.

This perception also often impedes organisations from introducing workday apparel due to high outlay costs and potential liability.

To make the point, consider the following liability example;

Warehousing one polo shirt in two colour options for both male and female.

• Size set:  8 sizes for male (XS – 5XL), 10 sizes for females (6 to 24).

• Variants: 36 style/colour/size combinations.

Let us assume we hold a minimal stockholding of 10 garments per size.

• Stockholding: 360 garments

• Average cost: let’s assume a cost of $25 per polo shirt

Liability for one polo shirt in two colours, male and female is $9000!

It is easy to understand how organisations can incur hundreds of thousands of dollars of liability when offering a substantial warehoused range of apparel across an organisation. For many, this approach is unnecessary, and, in some cases, is a tactic some uniform supply companies use to secure customers into long-term arrangements.

There are many benefits to the clever development of a just-in-time workday apparel range drawing on local stock supplies wherever possible. It enables the flexibility to modify or update the range of garment at short notice, the benefit that there is no stock liability and the surety there is no potential to incur write-offs due to unused or unwanted stock.

When considering your workday wardrobe ask yourself, is there a need for your people to have immediate access to workday wardrobe or is there a more financially prudent way, one that will meet your needs in either a blended or just-in-time format?