Vertical Calendar to Kill the Middleman

"Can you give us an outline of what the meltdown meetings were and why they differentiated a vertical company from a wholesale company? To be a truly design-led company, I knew we had to do things much differently than they were done in wholesale. The vertical retail model works on a nine-month calendar, which let us be a year or even two years ahead of our wholesalers since we didn’t have to make samples and show them to middlemen or fashion magazines. This led to developing something we called ‘the quarterly meltdown meeting,’ which became the single most important meeting at lululemon because it set the direction for every other department. In descending order, our line plan was built based on a series of rankings from the sales of the last quarter. Each new ranking was built onto the ones listed before it: • Inside each category (i.e. pants), we ranked styles in percentages sold from best to worst. • We readjusted rankings by what could have sold if we had perfect inventory, delivered at the perfect time. • We readjusted again based on what could have sold if we had perfect styles (i.e. the right number of styles in the perfect length, width, or fit). • Then we’d readjust the rankings again, using new or old styles to use up any excess liability fabrics or trims. All excess fabric must be used up in the next season’s line plan. • From there, we’d readjust to show how a future-focused design team would rearrange the ranking based on their knowledge from working in the stores, leading design meetings, forecasting books, and competitor’s designs. What styles go or remain in the line plan is determined by the head of design and not the buyer. This is a control system. Before the era of lululemon, a buyer was incentivized to order what worked the previous season (buyers are naturally risk-adverse and beholden to finance who wants what is best for accurate financial reporting but not what is best long-term demand). A design-led team might eliminate a good-selling item because the style negatively affects long-term brand value • Finally, we’d readjust to show, “What the production manager would change given fabric, factory bottlenecks, import duties, or opportunities.” What if there is only enough fabric for four styles but the line plan asks for fifteen? What factories are easy to work with? What mills can guarantee fabric delivery? We looked for bottlenecks…"

"The following are a sample of the operating principles (I have over three hundred) that were critical in guiding our rocket ship trajectory. My next book will outline the entire set. Operating Principles Samples OP: Every piece of lululemon clothing must be able to be put through a hot water wash and a hot dryer and continue to look new for five years. WHY? Athletes are busy, and they may want to wear the same clothing the next day. A hot wash and dry is quick and kills all bacteria. As part of our quality guarantee, we promise clothing will not shrink more than 2 percent after being washed hot water and dried in a hot dryer. HISTORY: Before lululemon, people would buy garments one to two sizes too big, so after a wash, the garments would fit. We decided to make clothing that would continue to look exactly the way it did on the day it was purchased five years later. OP: Our store pant and short boxes must carry approximately 60 percent black or black-equivalent pieces at all times. WHY? Our Guests purchase solid black about 80 percent of the time, but we only show 60 percent black in the store boxes, so the Guests see 40 percent of the stock in an item in multiple colours. Most Guests want the perceived freedom to choose a colour, and then buy black. We show enough colour for the customer to have a choice and to make the store vibrant. To keep the black level at 60 percent, the pant wall person needs to be responsible for scanning the pant wall ten times per day and keeping inventory levels perfect. HISTORY: We found that if we didn’t stock 60 percent black, and we didn’t restock throughout the day, we lost sales because we would run out of stock by two o’clock in the afternoon. The entire concept of the boxes is to know exactly what inventory is on the floor in relation to the back room. We may sell 90 percent black, but the Guest wants choice before choosing black. We merchandise to the psyche of the Guests. OP: All invoices are paid in seven days. WHY? With retail stores, the worst thing that can happen to us is not to get delivery of product on time. The first company to pay the factories gets the first delivery, the best seamstresses and tailors, and access to the best technology, all of which is critical to quality-control and innovation. HISTORY: With Westbeach, I never had enough money to pay on time. As a result, I often got delivery last, the least experienced seamstresses and tailors and was the last to be offered innovation. OP: Every dollar a garment is discounted takes $10 off the company’s value. WHY? Guests subconsciously attach more value to full-priced garments and correlate full price to a strong brand. HISTORY: Customers are trained by merchandisers (who are incentivized by short-term bonuses) to wait for sales and these customers psychologically discount the value of the brand. OP: We value our customers’ time as though they are making $100/hour. WHY? We assume our Guests make $100 an hour, and if they are delayed fifteen…"

"Do you have any new manifesto sayings for the side of the lululemon shoppers? • Brains are designed for human survival. For the most part, the brain isn’t concerned with living a phenomenal life. The human being must consciously choose to override a life of mediocrity. • The brain is not necessarily correct about 80 percent of what we think and sense. We give the brain a bit of an idea, and it fills in the blanks. The brain is often not right. The brain connects immediate perception with all past experiences. • If I wasn’t concerned for my survival, with what would I be concerned and dedicate my life? • I know what is going to happen because I start in the future and work backwards. • Integrity is not right or wrong. It just gives workability and performance • The game of life is not looking good for others; the game is making life work. • The individual is a drop of water, and the family is the whole ocean. • Everyone learns differently, and I must find out what is important to other people. It is the key to having people want to work with me. 19. What was so different about lululemon’s design strategy? Lululemon was never about “enhancement” of women’s bodies. We never wanted to fool anyone. We were not a Spanx-like product that could to remould bodies, and we didn’t pad bras to create an illusion. Lululemon was all about being real a human being. We were comfortable with all bodies. This core belief came from a life of competitive swimming, Olympic clothing, and triathlon, where functional tight stretch apparel is a necessity for competition. The mission statement of “providing people with the components to live a longer, healthier, more fun life” dictated that lululemon was in the longevity business. The mission statement provided designers with a guiding light towards: • Athletic performance • Function before fashion (or more to the point, function is the fashion) As lululemon grew exponentially through the second half of the 2000s, finding the right designers became an interesting process. Big businesses and other large organizations – say, sports franchises – seem to always have three people on top who produce more than the five thousand people below them. This equation is a weird version of Pareto’s Principle where, instead of 20 percent delivering 80 percent, it’s more like 3 percent delivering 97 percent. With designers, I found there was usually one designer who could create consistently more than twenty others. To me, that one super-talented designer brought more value to lululemon than a CFO or head of HR. With financial, administrative, and managerial people, systems are in place where specific roles are quantifiable. It’s the opposite for designers, even those who’ve gone to design schools. Taking it a step further, designers must re-create four to eight times a year and the best can do it effortlessly. We would find the best designers by setting up labs. In these labs, the idea was to observe multiple designers and see who could…"

"But some customers have already grown tired of giving away such a large share of the profits. The Canadian pension authorities have, in recent years, built their own organization to do the same thing as the private equity firms. They simply remove the middleman. Sometimes they do buyouts on their own; sometimes, they co-invest with a private equity firm when purchasing a company. In this way, the pension company gains access to the private equity firm’s expertise without incurring much of the cost. Of course, it is easier for North American giants to dispense with middlemen than it is for the Swedish AP funds."

"“It’s very much about avoiding the worst and second-worst quartile funds, avoiding deadweights,” says Bengt Hellström, head of alternative investments at the Third Swedish National Pension Fund, formerly a partner at EQT."

"But the playing field may be about to change, as average profits in the industry worldwide have steadily declined since 2001, according to the Prequin database. In the peak year, the best European funds yielded a fantastic 43 percent return after fees, while the worst barely achieved 14 percent. Six years later, the best delivered just under 15 percent, and the worst group averaged one percent. This means that in the last group, many investors suffered losses."