Omnilytics launches Fashion Academy to propel brands forward

• Supported by Zalora, Nichii, Marshmallowscarf and FashionValet
• Brands immediately gain access into the Omnilytics Prime Dashboard

OMNILYTICS, a fashion analytics and insights company, launched its Fashion Academy on April 30, supported by Asian fashion brands - Zalora, Nichii, Marshmallowscarf and FashionValet.

Aimed to help fashion brands navigate every step of the business journey from planning, designing, buying, producing, launch and marketing to promotion and clearance, the Omnilytics Fashion Academy (OFA) offers over 50 targeted chapters with a strong focus on real-life practical applications, powered by live data from the Omnilytics retail dashboard.

“We understand the glamorous allure of the fashion industry has motivated many aspiring fashion brand owners to launch their brands. This often comes at the expense of establishing solid business fundamentals leading to only 47% of retail businesses remaining in operation after four years.

“The businesses that survive beyond the four years often plateau with no strategy to grow beyond the ceiling. With that in mind, we launched the OFA to increase the overall level of commercial awareness of fashion brands so that these brand owners can employ the right skills and tools at every step of the journey,” said Omnilytics chief executive officer Kendrick Wong (pic).

The OFA offers 11 modules with over 50 targeted chapters and is written by industry experts with a combined experience of over 30 years, honed from real-life trial and errors, learnings and successes from global apparel brands such as Topshop and Levi Strauss as well as homegrown brands across Asia like Twenty3.

The OFA module includes the A-Z of the fashion journey; business planning, merchandising planning, designing, buying, shipping & logistics, marketing, launch, visual merchandising, operations, product performance review, and promotion, sales & clearance.

Speaking at the launch of OFA was Giulio Xiloyannis, chief commercial officer of Zalora Group. Having been with the fashion e-commerce giant for over six years, he shared his insights on how Zalora achieved the success it has today and the important role that data played in it.

Joining the launch of the OFA was Amelia Teh, head of Intelligence, Omnilytics, Puteri Maizura Razali, founder of Marshmallowscarf, Nadia Norzuhdy, general manager at FashionValet and Barry Ooi, former CEO of Twenty3 and current head of Fashion Analytics at Omnilytics. The industry experts ran a panel session to shed light on managing and building the best assortment plan and merchandising strategy based on their personal entrepreneurial experiences.

Ooi commented, “It’s a common scene where fashion businesses are stuck with slow-moving inventory stemming from a lack of understanding of what their customers are looking for. Brands first need to have a strong grasp of their market and their competitors. Combined with the knowledge of their internal data, only then can they create strong growth strategies.”

What makes the OFA stand out against other fashion programmes is its strong focus on real-life applications. Brands immediately gain access into the Omnilytics Prime Dashboard, a fashion analytics and insights software with real-time fashion data on over 100 million SKUs and 75,000 brands across the world.

It is currently being used by brands like Kitschen and Nichii, as well as globally established names like adidas, Salvatore Ferragamo and Melissa.