個案總覽

The Nest and Allpa Peru Case focuses on the issue of making supply chains transparent beyond the factory walls through to the artisan level. Retailers in the home fashion industry are increasingly under pressure by customers and investors to provide complete value chain transparency to demonstrate that they are acting responsibly in moving toward sustainability objectives in both environmental and equitable work practices. While many retailers are taking increased responsibility for sustainable and equitable work practices in manufacturing factories, artisan work carried out beyond the factory walls is difficult to track and most often left unmeasured. This gap in the fashion industry's capability to create full transparency throughout the value chain prohibits retailers from being able to certify that they have full value chain transparency. Nest provides a methodology for companies to understand and manage their artisan work compliance with ethical work practices. Nest works with retailers and their suppliers to create management practices to measure and manage artisan work to enable full supply chain transparency. As the push for sustainability in terms of environmental and equitable work practices increases both from customers and industry practitioners, there is a need for designing and building a credible method for how to measure and manage the artisan work process. The case illustrates that for each fashion company to build this process themselves would be prohibitively costly both in terms of time and financial investment. Nest is an organization that is working toward providing a means for companies to ensure that equitable work practices are followed for artisan work. The case examines how Nest fills this gap, describing how Rebecca van Bergen, CEO of Nest, and her Compliance Team, led by Sarah Otto, provide a credible process for designing, tracking, and certifying compliance of artisan work.

Vedavoo is a new venture created by Scott Hunter, a driven entrepreneur, avid outdoorsman, and environmentalist who is passionate about fly fishing and the great outdoors. The case follows the challenges Scott faces in building new products for what appears at first to be a declining market opportunity. With severely limited resources, Scott sets about designing and making a signature product, the Sling Pack, that has the unique characteristic of staying fixed on the back as the sportsperson engages in the energetic action of fly casting in sport fishing. When Scott introduces the product line at an outdoor sports trade show, interest in the product line grows rapidly. Determined to grow his product line organically over time, the founder faces challenges in design, quality manufacturing, and meeting customer demand while staying true to his values. The case follows Scott as he develops his opportunity, resources, and team to build a potentially scalable enterprise in a competitive field of outdoor adventure sports accessories (backpacks and customized bags for climbing, fly fishing, and a variety of outdoor experiences). After several frustrating attempts to find manufacturers that could make the intricately designed Vedavoo sling pack product, Scott heeds Yvon Chouinard's (founder and CEO of Patagonia) advice to learn all aspects of the business by learning how to do everything himself, including the making of the product, in order to learn all of the ins and outs of each business process of the product and venture. Ultimately, Scott undergoes many of the tests facing an entrepreneur attempting to build a new venture: building a line of products with unique characteristics that customers value, building a team and strong culture to operate effectively, and finding resources to define and grow the venture throughout the startup and early growth process.