Hela Clothing, a Sri Lankan firm that provides apparel design and manufacturing, has selected SAP S/4HANA digital transformation solution for fashion and vertical business to help digitise its end-to-end processes and further support the company’s rapid growth.
Sri Lanka’s apparel industry contributes significantly to the country’s GDP, accounting for 15{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the country’s exports and providing approximately 300,000 direct and 600,000 indirect job opportunities. To mitigate the damage of the global pandemic, businesses have invested in technologies such as cloud computing, automation, and data analytics.
Despite the COVID-19 situation, Hela Clothing is an example of a Sri Lankan company that has managed to stand out in the industry with its innovative research and development (R&D) centres.
In recent years, Hela Clothing has been investing in digitisation projects to strengthen its capabilities to better serve clients worldwide and contribute to the development of the garment sector in the country.
The apparel solutions provider for global brands in intimates, children’s wear, and sportswear has chosen SAP S/4HANA to help deliver the digital transformation needed to keep up with constantly changing market conditions. Ruwanthi Fernando, Chief Information and Process Officer at Hela Clothing, said in a press release statement:
“We are fortunate to be experiencing exponential growth even during the pandemic. And we believe that the digital transformation journey we are currently on will help us consolidate the gains we have made, as well as propel us to the next level by facilitating greater innovation and accelerating our growth even further.”
Moreover, Hela Clothing has signed up with Microsoft Azure for an enterprise agreement to implement the SAP S/4HANA landscape and further build on the solution in the future.
Tapping attune Consulting to Implement SAP S/4HANA Digital Transformation Platform
In collaboration with SAP solutions provider attune Consulting, the SAP S/4HANA for fashion and vertical business project will be implemented over the next 16 months and will cover Hela Clothing’s locations in the US, the UK, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Fernando explained:
“This SAP platform is one of a number of steps we have taken to empower next-level management at Hela Clothing. Having the right digital capabilities in place is integral to our business especially as brands demand greater transparency in their supply chains and rapidly evolving market conditions require real-time decisions.”
“This is why we have set up a dedicated project office with a dedicated team to implement the SAP solution with the guidance and assistance from technology experts, attune Consulting,” he added.
Recently acquired by privately-held global SAP consulting company Rizing, attune Consulting has been helping organisations in their transition to the digital age by leveraging the latest SAP technologies.
attune Consulting’s co-innovation partnership with the German software giant has resulted in the SAP Fashion Management application — a solution designed to bring all business operations onto a single platform to create cross-channel, integrated fashion companies.
Meanwhile, Sanjeev Walgampaya. Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific at attune Consulting, said that one of Hela Clothing’s main objectives is to stay ahead of the curve in terms of technology and processes in order to match market expectations. He stressed:
“And by choosing an ERP solution in SAP S/4HANA it would enable it to meet current business and management control requirements while providing a robust digital platform to expand the solution footprint in the future. We are excited to bring our experience in implementing SAP fashion solutions at over 70 global companies to Hela Clothing.”
As of March 2020, the SAP S/4HANA for fashion and vertical business solution already has 21 customers in the Asia-Pacific Japan (APJ) region and 121 projects worldwide.
