A CHALLENGING BUT SUCCESSFUL COOPERATION

Saint-Gobain Building Distribution France was faced with a challenge. Their employees were not fully satisfied with their workwear when it came to quality, fit, durability and delivery times. Max-Antoine Grolleron, the Sourcing Director, was given a mission - a mission to make their employees happy. Max-Antoine focused on swapping from cheaper poor quality workwear that did not meet their employee’s demands, to products of higher quality that in the long term would result in a more cost effective solution.

Blåkläder was the answer to his mission.

With the aim to achieve the best possible result, a focus group consisting of people with different competences was put together and the project plan was set. It was important to Saint-Gobain Building Distribution France that Blåkläder took full ownership of the project to help move the process forward - which we did. The marketing department created a product catalogue so that the required assortment could be decided and our product developers were responsible for identifying the 45 products designed to satisfy their employee’s needs. In addition to the standard range six customised garments were produced, all of which are now available in our standard assortment. The production was completed in our factories in Sri Lanka, where we could monitor the complete process – from sourcing the fabrics right through to their dispatch.

Thirty six logo manuals were made so that all logo variations could be applied correctly to the 230,000 garments. This included not only sticking to their strict visual identity and brand guidelines, but also adhering to the regional variations - 24,000 employees, over 20 companies and over 40 chain names.

The IT department began working closely together with Saint-Gobain so that their employees could easily reorder their own workwear online via EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). When an order is placed it is received in our warehouse for immediate picking and embellishment, while keeping the employee up to date on lead times - safe, quick and easy.

In total 129,816 products were ordered and Blåkläder delivered them to no less than 1,559 addresses across France, dressing approximately 9,300 employees.

This partnership with Saint-Gobain Building Distribution France became a success story for both satisfied parties.

Saint-Gobain Building Distribution France was faced with a challenge. Blåkläder was the solution.

---