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METZINGEN, Germany — Hugo Boss is empowering individuals from across the company to develop innovative, technologically driven growth levers across its B2C and B2B businesses, and in the process creating engaging careers paths for individual development.
The company, which employs around 14,700 people and reported €2.8 billion in sales in 2018, launched supplementary, experimental cross-functional teams in 2017 build out its innovation efforts. Designed around agile development principles, these teams are empowered to seek out and apply novel business solutions for business needs, before testing and scaling projects as part of an integrated strategy. Last year alone, Hugo Boss created a digital fabrics and trimmings database, a digital showroom for its wholesale business and, using 3D virtualisation, fully digitised the Hugo brand’s collections, which will soon expand to the Boss brand.
These innovative projects include the 3D Material Library, which was built out using existing employees from Hugo Boss. The application of new technologies and digital solutions not only provides an opportunity for cultivating cross-functional career paths for employees through the intersection of fashion and digital innovation, but has also seen attitudes improve towards collaborative thinking and resource sharing across the business.
BoF sits down with three Hugo Boss employees who contribute to the 3D Material Library, to discuss the team culture of one of Hugo Boss’ newly-minted innovation projects, as well as the lessons they have learned in how to integrate the new team into the wider company strategy and their insights on the specific skills and tools they believe will drive the brand’s future success.
Tobias Kalthoff, Head of Business Innovation Product Division Clothing |Source: Courtesy
Tobias Kalthoff — Head of Business Innovation Product Division Clothing — joined Hugo Boss in 1999″There is always movement in this company, and keeping people, knowledge and talent inside Hugo Boss is important to us."
What motivated you to change your career trajectory within Hugo Boss?
Hugo Boss is more than just going to work for me. I’ve been here for 20 years, but I’ve never been in the same function for more than three years. There is always movement in this company, and keeping people, knowledge and talent inside the company is important to us.
I started out in the purchasing department, with my roles evolving to work as a fabric buyer, a team leader for purchasing fabrics and then material planning, before becoming head of purchase trimming in 2018. Throughout these roles, I was always interested in trying out new work processes for greater efficiency. I joined a project called Hugo Transformation and took over a pilot scheme to create a digital material library. This introduced me to a completely new direction of working, in an agile, cross-functional team using Scrum methods.
We started the pilot with nothing, so we found the right people on the Hugo Boss campus and brought them together to build the material library from scratch. As the library topic got bigger, it become an integral part of our business and new projects grew out of its success. In the meantime, I took on a new role as head of business innovation for men’s clothing, looking at new ways of working and digital transformation.
How does the Hugo Boss culture support your team’s work?
We were given the chance to approach projects from the perspective of a startup, as if we really started from scratch. Taking Hugo Transformation as an example, six pilot phases were created: one pilot was digital development; one was the material library; another was advanced analytics, and so on. We looked at all sorts of perspectives, from customer engagement to the product range — how we develop a collection in a digital way.
It’s not the subject matter itself that brings success — it’s the people and their passion that make it work.
We had the freedom to work by our own rules and framework. We were given a lot of space to experiment and we failed at a lot of things, but when you are allowed to fail, you learn so much from these mistakes — and so do the people around you. This made us braver at trying things out. After many sleepless nights, a year and a half later, we can say we absolutely succeeded. Every sleepless night was worth it.
How has the wider business welcomed technological innovation?
When I tried to build a cross-functional team for the library two years ago, we had to really convince other departments to “spare” members. Now, other teams are keen to participate in cross-functional projects.
There’s a really different way of thinking across departments because they’ve seen that bringing the right people together is an absolute must to bring new topics forward. But it’s not the subject matter itself that brings success — it’s the people and their passion that make it work.
We’ve also set up a corporate-wide network called “Future Back” to align on software programmes and common targets of the digital development movement. Through these meetings, we aim to inform and inspire our colleagues across the company about what we’re doing on different digital projects spearheaded by the various cross-functional teams.
Gundis Reutter, Specialist Development Material Library |Source: Courtesy
Gundis Reutter — Specialist Development Material Library — joined Hugo Boss in 2010″We are inspiring people to work with digitisation in the textile industry and being competitive in an upcoming digital market."
What motivated you to change your career trajectory at Hugo Boss?
When I started working at Hugo Boss about 10 years ago, the textile industry was totally new to me. I had also never thought about digitisation or 3D virtualisation. After a few years, I felt I was up for new challenges and I was becoming more aware of the importance of digitisation in the industry. Hugo Boss had already moved in this direction, having started developing products digitally. I then heard about the material library, while it was in the pilot phase, and I was immediately transfixed.
The idea to provide digital fabrics and trimmings on an internal, online platform, to be used for 3D virtualisations of clothes, sounded exciting and challenging to me. It was exactly what I was looking for at that time in my career. The idea that it was in a self-organised, agile team was a crucial aspect for joining it.
How does the Hugo Boss culture support your team’s work?
At the beginning of the material library, it was just an idea of an online tool and nobody knew if it would work out or not. There was a lot of trust and support from the management from day one. You did not fail if you made mistakes — they were important in order to learn and improve. I think this is a really good aspect of our culture.
We have a lot of freedom to make our own decisions and work creatively with our colleagues, deep diving into topics. By working in iterative ways, we always feed back to our colleagues on how things work or do not work, and then how we can improve.
You did not fail if you made mistakes — they are important in order to learn and improve.
Hugo Boss also offered online and face-to-face trainings for us, as well as an agility coach, to improve our different skills on a personal and professional level within the company, which helped me gain more confidence in my work.
How has the wider business welcomed technological innovation?
We always had supporters, but some people were critical of the use of fabrics and trimmings as a digital data package in the beginning. However, as we improved the quality of the data and the processes for all users, little by little, people became more interested. They understood that using our services and tools help them accelerate and simplify their daily work.
It wasn’t easy to reach that point and it was important to learn about the users’ needs, and to do a lot of communication around that, so we work closely with the business units and people using our tool.
I think we are inspiring people to work with digitisation in the textile industry and being competitive in an upcoming digital market, which I think is highly attractive for employees who are brave in trying out new things and taking on responsibility.
Thomas Grudzien, 3D Artist |Source: Courtesy
Thomas Grudzien — 3D Artist — joined Hugo Boss in 2004″There are a lot of open-minded people here who like technology and see the advantage of the speed it provides."
What motivated you to change your career trajectory at Hugo Boss?
I began at Hugo Boss as a textile engineer about 15 years ago, and I was looking for something with more creative possibilities combined with my interest in technology. My target was to do something with visualisation, so I started to develop my skillset in this direction. Hugo Boss provided trainings that helped me learn to use the new software and technology.
I moved to the 3D department and while I was there, I started collaborating on the material library as a part of the cross-functional team. In the beginning, there was a possibility the material library would just be 2D. I was able to provide my input from the 3D side, which then shaped the direction the project went.
How does the Hugo Boss culture support your team’s work?
Our intranet platform provides opportunities for colleagues to meet, follow topics and find mentors within Hugo Boss. As it is a large company, it’s a great advantage to have a platform where you can exchange ideas and find people interested in your area of work.
I have a network of people that trust me, which allows us to try out new products and software, to start new processes and technologies.
Today, I feel like I have a network of people that trust me, which allows us to try out new products and software, to start new processes and technologies. It’s about trust and networking.
How has the wider business welcomed technological innovation?
Fashion was always about traditional manufacturing, about emotions and feeling, so some people were a bit apprehensive about the newer technology at first. But there are a lot of open-minded people here who like technology and see the advantage of the speed it provides.
A new pilot project, Digital Supplier Cloud, is one follow-up project that has emerged from the material library, based on working with suppliers to create prototypes in 3D. We work with people from design and purchasing to help them better understand the use of 3D technology and visualisation instead of using fabric. This is one example of how we constantly collaborate with other departments to create 3D simulations and exchange data.
This is a sponsored feature paid for by Hugo Boss as part of a BoF Careers partnership. To explore careers at Hugo Boss, please click here.
