This is the transcript of a talk given at PI Apparel New York by Carolina Hadad from Walmart. A recording of the talk can be found here.
Thank you, guys, everybody, for coming here today. My name is Carolina Hadad, and I lead Wal-Mart’s apparel digital innovation, 3D exploration and strategy. So, you know, if you were looking at the agenda originally, it just said extending the digital asset. So I kind of deliberately left the topic very vague because I kind of wasn’t really sure what I was going to talk about.
So I’m kind of like, All right, we’ll see what the the the feeling kind of drives me to to talk about as we get closer to the day. And I was kind of going back and forth on on what I wanted to to really kind of have this just chat about and I realize I want to have a conversation.
I didn’t want to just talk at you guys. I feel like it’s the one of the last meetings of the day. You probably are super overwhelmed with information. So I’m just going to talk to you guys about Walmart 3D and just generally change management, which is something I think everybody’s conversation has kind of touched on. So part of this, this discussion that I’m going to have is also showing a video, and it’s a video that we partnered with Radware to create and it’s just a really quick two minute video, but we felt like it was a really important way for us to kind of share where we’ve been and where we’re going when it comes to 3D. And it’s a really I didn’t even realize, I think, until we got further into it how important this this way of kind of sharing the information I think is going to be. And so you guys are really going to be the first people to see this because it hasn’t even gone out to our internal teams yet.
So so we’ll talk we’ll do that in a minute. So just to give you guys a little bit of information about myself, I am a New Yorker, so I was a designer for many years in New York before I moved to Arkansas. And that’s a huge change. You know, being a designer, I love that about, you know, the creativity, everything that goes with it.
And ten years ago, Walmart made a decision to close their New York design office and move their teams. Except for designers, no designers went to Arkansas. And so I had the option to go. But if I went, if I went, it meant that I was going to become a TD manager. So I went from being a designer to a TD manager.
Now TD is great, but I’m not a TD and so it was a tough transition. I made the right decision. It was definitely a good thing for my family, but something was missing in me being a TD manager, I don’t have that drive for like perfection and detail and you know, just that that, that TD mindset. And so as like I’m working and I’d been there maybe three years, I knew something was missing and, and having a conversation with one of my suppliers she started talking about 3D.
And I think this sounds so awesome. I love this idea. And so just started chatting and I kept hounding her and asking her like more and more questions and she was so patient and she was amazing. And it was actually now at Brown Square and just really kind of walked me through. And then I started hounding my leadership.
I was going to say I was offered the opportunity to do 3D, but I wasn’t. I begged for the opportunity to, you know, start exploring 3D. And from there, that was seven years ago. And it’s been this amazing journey. And I’m it’s like the best thing I ever did because it’s I realized what was missing. I was missing this ability to solve problems.
And I didn’t realize how much design is a problem solving function. I mean, you really you’re solving the problem of what to wear. What’s flattering on me, you know, just there’s just so many decisions that you make when you design. And so moving into the 3D part, it was just I was problem solving again, but it was just different types of problems.
And it was a point where I realized that 3D was the answer to all of these questions that I didn’t even know I needed to answer. So, you know, how do I shorten the calendar? Okay, 3D, how do I reduce waste 3D? How do I improve design 3D even to the point of how do I participate in the metaverse?
Yes, you guessed it 3D. So yes, that is an incredible oversimplification. I know it’s not that easy, but it really is the answer. And so and I know you guys, everybody who’s in this room has gone through some sort. They’re in some stage of it, whether it’s exploration or you’re further on, you’re in it. So you all know I’m not I’m not trying to preach to the choir here.
It’s we all know this. But it was a learning for me, and I was so glad that I was given this chance to to really kind of dive in and do this, because otherwise I don’t think I would have lasted as a TV manager. I Novato lasted in Arkansas, so with this I trying to think of what can I how can I explain this?
When we did this, I thought it was going to be so easy. So I thought because we had this great answer that it was going to be like such, I was so naive, like, you know, trying to change a company like, like Wal-Mart and to move that needle with Wal-Mart was a lot harder than I thought it would be.
But I mean, I’m glad, obviously, that we did it, but it was definitely a longer haul. So like I said, seven years now we’ve been doing this. We’ve got so much to show for it yet it’s still two steps forward, one step back. Now, that still leaves us further ahead. But you know, for us to stay relevant, we need to be moving this.
And so with that, we decided to to do this video. So this video, the reason for this is it’s a way for us to share with our leadership where we’re at. Like, as I mentioned. But it’s not just leadership, it’s also the rest of the enterprise. So I am part of an XR council and its leads. It’s three D leads from all over the company.
Now, when we first started meeting, nobody even knew that Walmart was doing 3D like in apparel, but yet it came when we started talking about it and the numbers that we were reaching that we were further ahead than any other part of Walmart. In terms of apparel, we are 100% sampled in 3D, in private brand apparel. No other area of the company can say that.
So, you know, I know we’ve achieved a lot, but yet how do I explain that to people? How do I get that across that we’re doing so much and that our suppliers are doing so much for us? So the video was one way to do that. And so I’m going to try and share this with you now. So like I said, this is going to be something that’s going to give us like support for future decisions.
I am just hoping, hoping, hoping, hoping that this whole this will work. Of course, I’m talking right through. And I didn’t even share any of the slides. So, yeah, me, Carolina, Dad, that’s my avatar. You can’t have a Walmart presentation without a quote from Sam so that you can’t keep doing what works one time. Everything around you is changing and to succeed, stay out in front of change.
So that just captures it. We have to keep moving. We have to keep changing. He was really good about that is like really anticipating what needed to be done in terms of change. So this is a video, a T-shirt, jeans, a dress, not many products are more personal or emotional for our customer than apparel. They have high expectations for style, relevance and performance.
Traditional methods used to develop into these expectations are time consuming, wasteful and expensive. This presents challenges to Walmart’s mission for everyday low cost and sustainably sourced product. A few years ago, we set out to solve this. We began exploring digital tools as a solution to reduce our oversampling and shorten our calendar. Our focus was to virtually replicate the physical characteristics of a garment.
This is the digital twin. By working with the digital twin, we can go from concept to creation. Virtually. This empowers global teams to collaborate, making faster and better decisions while reducing sample waste Very quickly. We saw benefit beyond product development, the same digital twin use to create product can be used across the enterprise in marketing operations and eCommerce.
Elevating user conversion using 3D technology. Walmart is creating exciting new ways to shop, allowing us to virtually dress real people of all shapes and sizes, building customer trust and promoting inclusivity. We are also preparing for a future of augmented and virtual reality, leveraging 3D digital assets. It is possible to test trends, gather customer insight and iterate design without ever stitching a garment.
Walmart Apparel is leading the fashion industry in the use of 3D technology. We started in one category with one supplier. Today we partner with over 90 suppliers across the apparel business to build garments in 3D. The past few years have been an incredible journey for us. 3D technology evolved quickly, helping us to save time, money and especially the environment.
By embracing these digital tools, we can connect our total enterprise, bring efficiencies never before thought to enhance our customers experience and support our mission to be there. First Choice. Thank you for your time and thank you to browser, command and detail for your partnership in creating this video. All of the Wal-Mart garments shown were 3D. No physical samples were harmed in the making of this video.
So that’s our video. You know, it’s funny, I it was fun. Making the video was a lot of work. But after all of this, the thing that probably stuck out to me the most was that I showed my husband this on Saturday, and I think he finally understands what I do for a living. Like it was so much easier when I was a designer to say what I did, and then he said the right thing.
He’s like, You look better in person than in the video. I was like, okay, you win for husband, the correct husband phrase. So. So what you guys think? Yeah, it says, Does it get the point across? Okay, so one of the pages in there that it was the analytic, the analytics page I think is probably one of the most important things.
I think people don’t understand the scale of what we do, so we don’t create the 3D in-house. We have suppliers who do it for us, but we do fit product. So our TDs all work in 3D and so all the product goes through that, that fit lens kind of with 3D. Last year alone we had over 28,000 3D assets uploaded to our platform.
Like just think about the scale of that. That’s 28,000. That’s not colorways, that’s 28,000 assets in some styles a legging. We could do 40 different colorways and a lot of that is print. So if we’re eliminating print from that, just, just really wrap your brain around how much product we were able to, how much waste we were able to save, because a lot of it is really ugly.
I mean, we have to be realistic. A lot of it is versions of a print five different ways. We’re not going to run all those. We might not even run that print at all. So it’s a lot. We had, I think, over 900 different users in the platform and we have over 90 suppliers. So there’s a lot of people that like working in a lot of product.
So I’m really proud and I know we have some of our suppliers here today and I want to thank you guys for all of your hard work. I know we ask so much of you and we tried, you know, going to see suppliers yesterday and you say on Monday and on Thursday so that we can also listen to our suppliers because it’s important that we hear what they have to say, that we’re not just, you know, we’re Wal Mart, we’re telling you to do something.
So so that’s that’s you know, for us, the video. So moving to the next part of it, I wanted to talk about the education. So with this video, really, it’s about educating our leadership in what we’ve achieved. But also, why do we need to do that? Because we need resources. You know, all of this is happening. But for this to go further, for this to be going to that next step, it can’t just be me kind of yelling at people to do stuff.
And a few of our TDs who are on the 3D team, like Jeanette here, who’s here with me today, working extra hours on top of their regular job to do this. So we do need resources and we need the support and we need them to understand how accurate this is so that they’re not saying, yeah, the 3D looks great, but where’s the physical sample?
So that we’re asking our suppliers to do double and we’re really not getting a benefit from the fact that we’ve got this accuracy. So once this goes through, the leadership will also share this with our suppliers. So they also understand that, yeah, we’re really proud of you guys. We’re really proud of what you’ve achieved and what you’ve done.
And look, we need you on board because so much more is coming for us to go to that next level, We need you to be putting your resources. You need to be hiring the right people. You know, making sure you stay on top of the technology. You know, as big as Walmart is and it’s such a cliche, I hear this all the time.
You know, Walmart’s a big ship to turn. We are we’re an enormous ship to turn. So we need tugboats. We need those suppliers that help to drive and move us. I can’t always stay on top of like all the new innovations in technology. And even if I could, I still can’t be the one who’s going to test it out.
So we need those suppliers that help drive us, that bring us the innovation, and we have a few of them that have been fantastic. With that, we need more. So this is another this is another way that we would share share that video. And then lastly is total enterprise. So like I mentioned, I’m part of the czar council, but that’s just a bunch of 3D nerds just kind of getting together and geeking out on 3D.
I need this to go further. I need this to go to the whole company so they understand what we’ve achieved. And we have a workplace which is our Walmart Facebook account. And so I will be posting this once It kind of goes through the process of leadership, it’ll get posted. And yeah, I’ll tag Doug McMillon on this because I want him to see this.
This is kind of like my elevator speech. He needs to see what we’ve achieved. So that’s in terms of the education and then in terms of edge engagement, we we have like we’re pushing this in terms of change management down. So we’re trying to move from from leadership pushing down, but we also need to go from our users up and our users across.
So we have our product development teams we don’t really have designed we’re just starting now recently to work with some design with our product development teams and they’re probably some of our most difficult teams to really get engaged and on board. We almost have like these pockets of quiet resistance where they’re not saying they don’t want to do it, but everything stops at that person and it’s like it’s a very insidious thing.
So what we’ve been doing is when we do have product development, people that have been amazing with it, we have them kind of go out and talk to other teams about it. So there’s been ways that I wouldn’t even have thought about using our platform. So, you know, we worked it with BROWSER over the last year on this platform and it’s been amazing.
We’ve had such great response with it and the teams are coming up with ways to say, okay, you know what? For me to, to really do well at my job, I have to get rid of some stuff. I can’t just be adding stuff, so how can I simplify my job? And so we had one team in the girls department, which they’re really driving through to usage, and they said, okay, we need to do legal review.
So when we meet with legal, it’s a day long system. We have to literally set the entire floor with all our samples. The legal team comes in, we go style by style. We take notes, whatever needs to be changed because it’s too close to the original. Then it has to go back to the supplier. They correct it and then legal has to come back.
So we’re talking it could take a few weeks and it’s a whole process of them coming in to our layout center to review this product using the platform we created collections, they’re able to do a half hour review, half an hour from days to half an hour, and then whatever they felt like needed to be corrected, went back to the supplier.
The next day it was corrected, signed off legal, got so excited about it that they contacted us and we allowed them to be able to to go in and download those images so that they can now save them to their their legal software. So I would never have thought of a legal review as a way to use this.
I’m still so in the development stage or customer facing. But this is a way for teams to to use the software to make their lives easier. And so that product development person went to another product development team and started talking about what they were doing and it was like an moment. And so from there we’ve got teams saying, okay, now I want to start reviewing with my marketing team this way, our 3D store guide, like we have guides that are built so that the store associates know how to, how to set the floor product started flowing that way through the platform.
So the best way to engage a team is to make their lives easier. And so slowly but surely, that’s what’s been happening with with 3D. And so we’ve seen a great literally almost a shift in attitude towards it recently. And so that’s also how teams are communicating. Cross-functionally We have these working sessions that may last hours, but we come out of them and everything’s kind of been aligned.
Like the teams are agreeing on everything in this one shot. So now we’re weeks ahead of where we would have been if we had gone through this in a separate way. So then lastly is IQ so emotional intelligence? I don’t have as much to say about this because this is something I’m literally just starting to explore and I need to give a shout out to one of my my peers, Cynthia Marler, who heads up our CGI team.
And so she was just at AWP, which is I think with the Augmented World Expo in California. She gave a talk about emotional intelligence. And it was such an I listen to it and I was like, it was such an moment of approaching people in a different way. And I mentioned, you know, those those pockets of quiet resistance.
You know, everybody has a reason of what drives them. You know, if I’m up here right now, I’m talking about 3D. If I’m going to think about really what drives me, it’s like I like being the person who you go to. For that information. I like, you know, whatever my ego is telling me at that moment. And so if you’re going to approach me and want me to do something, it really helps for you to approach me from that angle.
And so if somebody is resisting for whatever reason, why are they resisting? Is it a matter of they’re worried about their job, or maybe they feel like they’re not educated enough in this to be able to answer that? So it’s really looking at the reasons why those those people are resisting and then approaching your request from that. So it’s more to come on this I’m totally she did such an amazing job and it’s something that I definitely want to explore with her.
But I feel like when you’re talking about change management, you know, we’ve all anybody has anything to do with Walmart. We do it a lot. Well, will request, but we’re literally like, we’re telling you, you got to do something. But that’s not always going to work, you know? And so I think approaching this from a different angle, approaching this from the angle of, you know, how can I make your life easier?
What do you need to do? Can you give me an answer of, you know, is this working for you? What would work better? And so I feel like, you know, as we start to approach this from that angle, I’m hoping that that this will be something that that will work. And I think pretty much I think that’s pretty much it for me.
Like in terms of talking, that was actually pretty quick. But any questions anybody? Yes. No, nobody. Nobody. Not it’s not a single question. Okay. You know, I yeah, I guess she’s coming over here with the mic. So I’m really interested to learn more about the journey that you went on to onboard your 90 vendors. Typically, we hear about the journey of onboarding our internal people, but that journey of onboarding the all external vendors to take on a lot of that workload.
Can you talk to us about how that went and your learnings from that, what the success as well? Absolutely. That’s actually a great question. So it started with one and then we mentioned that in and in the video we started one supplier and what we did was at the time I was the TD manage over Girls and so we chose a girls supplier in Active that was also working with Nike.
And so it was I think it was Nike. So they already had the software. We knew they were already working, so we kind of started the pilot with them and we kind of learned from that. We actually, you know, in the beginning we tested out a couple of different softwares. We had this whole process we had to go through.
But once we decided and we made that decision, it started with one. And then we’re like, All right, they did it in Girls, Let’s try it. And boys and slowly but surely started pushing out. And honestly, I never realized my skill at sales until I had to go through this and literally tell the same story over and over and over again, calling suppliers and just kind of asking them to be a part of it.
And I’d say we probably made it maybe two, two and a half years of adding suppliers slowly as they heard more about it and people wanting to be a part of it and say, okay, you know, this is something Wal-Mart’s exploring. But, you know, 90 plus suppliers, it’s a lot. And so at one point, finally, our leadership team was like, okay, we’re mandating this.
We have to we have to for us to make really make this decision. We have to say you have to do this. And so there was a roll out period, but we’re at now at 100% of our product in private brand for apparel, not accessories and not head in hand, but for apparel where we’re fully sampled. But it took a while and it’s not, you know, it sounds so easy when I said, 100% of our our product and, you know, 90 plus suppliers, but there’s still suppliers that honestly they’re checking the box because Wal-Mart says it and that’s not going to get them anywhere.
And as we we do assessments, part of this goes into the assessment is how how much are they willing to bring to the table? And, you know, as I’m talking to different suppliers while I’m here, it’s about learning about their process. It’s about what’s working, what’s not, where they bringing design in. So I am to this day, I’m still so excited about 3-D.
I’m so excited about what we can do, and I’m excited about hearing how it’s working for other people. But it’s a tough it is tough to do that. And if you don’t make that decision to say I’m all in, it becomes very, very difficult. Now, also, we if we didn’t interact with it, I think it might be a little bit different.
But our teams do interact with it. And so we do have licenses and they able to open and make changes and all of that. So it’s almost like a hybrid way of working. But I think so far it’s worked. I mean, I’m happy with it. So sorry. I can say sorry to the vendors. Feel like they’re getting a huge amount of benefit and value from it also.
Or is it simply they’re doing it to satisfy you? You know, I would say there’s still there’s still a few that are probably doing it to satisfy us. But if they are, that means they’re not doing it right. They’re not they’re not building their processes around it. You know, a few a few teams. One of the teams here that that is here we were talking the other day and I had mentioned that, you know, when he was talking to me, he was talking about that as they were working through through the process, they realized, wow, for this to work, we have to be bringing 3D in much earlier.
And so it’s about that for the ones that it really succeeds, they’re the ones who are thinking about it and saying, how do we actually do this? And, you know, we’ve another supplier here who’s spoken. And really when he tested it out, it was exciting for us to hear how many internal samples. We never see that Wal-Mart never even doesn’t get to Wal-Mart.
And so it was impacting his internal sampling and reduction. So I find it hard to believe that a supplier can go through this and not benefit if they’re not benefiting, then they’re really not doing it right. They’re just they’re checking the box. Then you’re not going to you’re not going to survive As we move through the process and we’ve had suppliers drop out.
And usually that’s that’s been a part of it, is that they’re not embracing it’s not just 3D, they’re not embracing change. They’re not embracing, you know, future movement. So that hope. Hello again, Bernard, from Gap. I wanted to thank you for your contribution. It seems like you’ve done a lot of mileage for Mart, which is really great. But beyond that, you know, it’s no secret we share a lot of suppliers.
We share a3d provider. You’ve done so much work as an early adopter to to develop workflows and processes. I just wanted to acknowledge that you haven’t just had great successes for Wal Mart, but you’ve had great successes for competitors and other people who share all of those same suppliers. So thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. And I’m sure there are other people out here who have benefited from the blowback from what work you’ve done in the last seven years.
So thanks a lot. Great job. Thank you. I’m hoping that was recorded so that I can share that with my leadership at review time. You know, I honestly, I’m an apparel person. I’m not a technology person. I love this. I am passionate about it. I can talk about it nonstop. And you and I have spoken about it like you’re like a fellow you know, a fellow lover of this.
So I appreciate that. You know, it’s funny, in the video I say that Wal-Mart is leading the apparel industry. It’s not that we’re further along than anybody. It’s not that we’re doing more than anybody. It’s that our sheer size and the fact that we require this of so many different suppliers, we know how we’re impacting the industry, and I hope it’s for the better.
Obviously, Wal-Mart has a huge push for sustainability. And so even though I haven’t been able to kind of stop and really quantify what this does, there’s no way you can generate this much product and eliminate this much waste without having an impact. So I’m glad that that, you know, I know people don’t just work with us. That’d be ridiculous.
So go out there. If you’re not already doing that with with other retailers, you should be, you know, that’s a value. And you’re bringing something to the table that not not everybody has. So make sure you are doing that for for everybody and start really impacting the industry. So that means so much to me. I can’t even I can’t even tell you how much that means to me.
So thank you. Hello. One question. What’s what do you see as your next big challenge? And it seems like you’ve achieved a ton. What’s the next hill to climb? Wow. You know, so much of what we done is internal. So all of this product being developed, but it’s not customer facing. And so there’s a whole section of the business that we know we can do it.
It’s just, what’s that process look like? How do we scale to that to get to that stage? We’ve had some challenges that are odd challenges I never would have thought would be a challenge. A unique identifier seems like a silliest thing, a style number. Why would that challenge? Why would that be a challenge? Well, when we were two separate businesses, we were we always ran as two separate businesses, the e-commerce business and the brick and mortar.
When they combined to become omni. It also combined all of these different numbers. And so it became this in like just the amount of numbers that are tied to one style is ridiculous. And so, you know, I made the joke. It’s like I need the Rosetta Stone to literally translate from one style number to another to really figure out where we are.
So how do you scale? So if I want to be able to push out to different teams, you know, we’re doing virtual we’re testing for virtual walkthroughs. And in the video you can see some of the floor layout. I need to push that product to that team if I’m going to start doing something with e-commerce, how do I push that product to ecommerce?
We’re working with Zika, which is the switch model that that, you know, Walmart has, but they use a completely different number. So until we can actually manage that kind of data, it becomes a very, very difficult thing. So to me, customer facing is, is I want to get it in front of the customer. I want them to see what we’ve done and the value.
I mean, everything that’s in that video is fake. It’s all it’s all 3D. You know, I think there was one garment that was actually real. Everything else is fake. But you wouldn’t if you were looking through as a customer, you wouldn’t understand. So why aren’t we doing it? So that’s a big one for me. Avatars are the other thing that if we can’t get believable avatars as then it becomes very difficult, creepy, dead eyed, you know, just it’s too much like I think it’s it’s right now, the way the Avatars are can be really distracting.
So, you know, we’ve tested things out with Mattel, but it’s it’s great. It looks awesome. How do you scale up? So that’s that’s the next big challenge, I think, for us.
Any other questions? Yeah. yeah. Hi. I know that you said that you had all of your product development teams were engaged in 3D, but I was curious, what if you could quantify what percent of their work is actually engaging in that 3D that they’ve learned? Well, so they haven’t learn. So it’s a little bit different. So in terms of our process, we have roadshows.
Suppliers come to roadshows. They they provide, you know, designs in the kids area. We’re much further along in the kids area and it really comes down to leadership. So the children’s leadership super forward thinking. And so in their minds, everything, we just need to keep moving forward. The technology matters. And so in an area, I’ll use them as an example, they will at our roadshow, that design stage, our suppliers often come to roadshow with 3D in there.
And so we’re starting to fit and we’re starting to plan from that 3D really, really early on. So the product development team doesn’t ever have to open up a file, but they’re reviewing the product with our team. So our team, our PD team and then also where we have design will all get together in these virtual calls and go through the product, you know, and they’ll make esthetic comments.
They will, you know, we’ll start with fit, change, colorways, all of those things in these working sessions. So really that’s where the product development team, that’s the level of kind of how they engage with it. But if they don’t want to, then it just like it stops. And I would say the biggest challenge we had in the first few years of doing this wasn’t that our suppliers were weren’t creating 3D, it was that nobody was commenting on it.
So I can’t even imagine being a supplier. And you’re doing all of this work. You’re submitting all of this product in 3D and you might get some t d comments, but product development is like crickets, nothing. And so we had some suppliers that kind of just dropped off. You know, they kind of waited it out a couple of seasons to see if if they were going to know what we were going to notice that they weren’t doing it anymore.
But there really is kind of they don’t have to do anything except just review the product. So there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be more engaged. But I can’t say that that, you know, they’re not really doing so much with it that that it’s hard for me to quantify like what what they’re doing or what percentage of you know.
So to answer your question, yeah, that helps. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? Yeah.
Okay. All right. Well, I guess I can give you guys a few minutes back. Thank you so much for your patience. I know this is like the last one of the last ones of the day. It’s been a long day. So.
