This post is sponsored by Microsoft for National Small Business Week 2016. This series discusses how small businesses use technology to drive their success.
Have you ever had the fantasy to make your own clothing line or accessories? Millions of Americans do, but they do not realize how difficult it is to achieve that dream without the right help. There are a million things that need to go right in order to be successful since the competition is so fierce. Some of the best turn to one small business to make all this a reality.
Nichole Rairigh is the Founder and CEO for The Apparel Agency. It is a product development and production management firm in Chicago that provides per-production services to apparel brands. From concept to consumer, her company delivers thoughtful and innovative turnkey solutions for those that want to create their own clothing line.
For many small businesses, they are not using fancy industry specific tools to run their company since they are expensive and typically geared for much larger businesses. The Apparel Agency’s proprietary templates used for product development are built with Excel or Word in Microsoft Office 365. Since they do not run a specific product development management software, the company uses these as their own internal tools to include the critical and complex information they need to run development and production projects. It is then simply to send these to their clients since they are using the same cloud-based Office 365 tools.
Since their business is worldwide, they frequently use Skype for Business for international client calls. They can also use it to do garment fittings for prototypes with a client when they are remote!
At the company, production managers are using these applications mostly on a phone or tablet when they are at the factories checking up on the status of production. They take a tablets to trade shows if they are presenting a seminar or attending to source for clients.
Using technology to leverage your business? Tell me your story!
