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Case Study

MAS Holdings: Providing design to delivery solutions to the global apparel industry

By Carlos Cordon, Donald A. Marchand and Atul Pahwa

24 pages

June 2005

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Reference: IMD-3-1527

MAS is an apparel supplier to the world’s leading brands. Beginning January 2005, a quota-free international textile trade regime will replace country-specific textile quotas for goods entering WTO member states. Small apparel manufacturers are not expected to survive – Chinese firms could corner as much as 50% of the worldwide market. The case looks at how MAS should be organized to best meet customer demands in a rapidly changing, fashion-driven industry where both speed and flexibility in operations are critical to success. How vertically integrated should MAS become? Should it invest in building a retail brand? Or should it go downstream and bring raw material suppliers in-house? Or instead focus on configuring its supply chain to optimize its existing business processes? How should MAS manage and deploy its IT systems to improve knowledge sharing and information management capabilities across the organization, and perhaps strive for a competitive edge?

Keywords

Clothing, Textile, Nike (Brand), Supply Chain, Information Technology, Design, Manufacturing, Vertical Integration, Horizontal Integration, Joint Venture, Product Development

Settings

December 2004

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

Related material

Teaching note, Video

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