About the Client

Enabling healthy and active lifestyles remains the mission of this leading athleisure brand, the designer and retailer of athletic apparel for yoga, running, and cycling. With a commitment to empowering people to reach their full potential via physical activity, this Global Fortune 500 company has grown rapidly to hundreds of company-owned or licensed retail stores in more than 20 countries. 

‍

On a Mission to Transformation 

The company’s constant transformation is well-known as it emerged stronger after the pandemic due to its e-commerce expansion, digital community engagement, product innovation, and strong supply chain management. So as the company experienced strong growth, the product operations team realized the need to strengthen its business and plan for future scenarios.

Infusing Agility and Closing Product Gaps 

To support multiple current and planned merchandise expansions, the Director of Product Operations needed two specialized roles to assist the team, requiring retail industry subject matter expertise to strengthen sample management programs and lead relabeling initiatives.

Simultaneously, the company sought to boost the agility of its product organization to assist with successfully weathering uncertain economic times. As the company needed to fill the sample and labeling roles rapidly and smoothly, the company determined that the traditional full-time hiring model was too slow and inflexible. While affording the expensive consulting firm may have been an option in the past, it was no longer a sustainable or cost-effective solution for the execution of a transformation initiative in 2024.

‍

Enhancing The Workforce Strategy with Graphite 

To fill the specialized roles, the Director of Product Operations decided to take a more nimble talent acquisition approach to provide ongoing support for the sample and labeling functions. After investigating the options, the company turned to Graphite’s proven on-demand talent acquisition platform to obtain independent consultants who could integrate smoothly with the company’s internal product operations organization.

Personal, Dedicated Assistance

Upon contacting Graphite, the Director was matched with a dedicated account manager. The account manager explained how Graphite’s platform would seamlessly connect the corporation with a curated shortlist of experienced individuals drawn from its pool of over 10,000 independent experts for both of the needed staff augmentation roles. The experts would offer expertise gained at a range of Fortune 500 enterprises, including prominent athletic apparel brands. 

Eager to onboard individuals who could roll up their sleeves and dive in, the Director and their Graphite account manager partnered to determine the specifications for each role. They were:

• Samples program lead: to lead project management and execution of the company’s sample management program.
• Labeling program lead: to create project charters and implementation plans based on merchandising data for labeling initiatives.

An AI-Powered Talent Acquisition Process 

Finding top talent who could onboard in a matter of days was important to the company. With Graphite’s AI-powered features, the company was able to streamline the talent acquisition process. 

With the company’s needs established, the account manager used Graphite’s AI-driven platform to identify multiple candidates for each role. Next, the account manager filtered the lists and met personally with the most appropriate candidates to determine which independent experts offered the right expertise, pricing, and availability. After creating the curated list of the top two individuals for each role, the account manager presented it to the retailer.

Ease of Communication

With Graphite’s in-app messaging and meeting room features, the company was able to conduct live virtual interviews with the candidates and communicate all within Graphite’s platform. Having everything in one place made the talent acquisition process seamless.

‍

A More Flexible Enterprise Promotes Growth 

The smooth, professional and cost-effective collaboration with Graphite enabled the company to realize considerable product operations value quickly while increasing enterprise flexibility. By turning to Graphite’s proven on-demand talent acquisition platform, the company assembled a team of external subject matter experts who integrated seamlessly with the product operations team in order to:

• Build a Samples Workstream Roadmap in coordination with related internal teams and stakeholders.
• Execute select sample management initiatives while project managing others, including designing key processes and assisting other product, supply chain, branding, and GTM teams with embedding the processes into their operations.
• Update global pricing and labeling architectures based on an analysis of global historical merchandising data to enable consistent pricing rollouts going forward.

Over the course of the project, the company received detailed project tracking on the Graphite platform, including deliverables completed, tasks performed, and the work hours submitted. And with Graphite’s project check-in tool, the company received an additional layer of support and guidance to ensure the success of the project every step of the way.

Due to the success of the project and satisfaction with the talent, the company reached out again to Graphite to fill critical talent gaps in areas such as GTM, business planning, pricing, agile purchasing, and design. Graphite was able to quickly and efficiently find independent experts across these departments to drive business transformation across new areas of the business.