There is still unutilized saving potential in procurement, without making compromises in the quality of the end product or breaking ethical principles. This, at least, is the conviction of Per H. Storm Danielsen and his consulting company Newtrims AB. He has set off on the way to show the apparel industry new, more intelligent ways of how to realize solid margins despite growing cost pressure.

Danielsen knows: “When companies aim to optimize their production costs, most of them focus their purchasing activities on the manufacturing costs and the cost of main fabrics. Only few have already realized that the costs for trims and accessories, like buttons, zippers, labels, packaging etc. still make an average of 20% of their production costs and that these items offer well-hidden saving potentials.”The consulting company Newtrims has specialized on activating these hidden saving potentials in trims and accessories.

Per H. Storm Danielsen and his team of experienced advisers have a profound background from being a supplier to the apparel and fashion brands in the main European markets. According to Danielsen the most important assets of Newtrims are their self-developed, digital cost analysis tool called Strategic Trims, their extensive global supplier network and their comprehensive database. These are vital tools for benchmarking and discovering long-term saving potentials of their clients. And the results are impressive: “In all our completed projects we have managed to reduce the number of suppliers significantly and, in combination with a clever optimization of logistics, to generate more than 25% savings in trims and accessories”, says Danielsen.

Read more in the print issue 7/8 of textile network, released on July 4th 2016