Relationship Marketing Strategy and implementation

sessions where new collections would be chosen from hundreds of samples.
To eliminate waste and cut costs, the number of designs made up was
halved. The intricate Laura Ashley signature blouses and dresses, with their
labour-intensive pin-tuck details, had hitherto been produced by the rela-
tively slow ‘make-through’ process by which one person made the whole
garment. The system was more costly to operate than a sectioned approach,
but worked well for complex designs. Quality was good and the system
could rapidly accommodate changes in demand. From the mid-1980s the
company started experimenting with new manufacturing systems, estab-
lishing high productivity units in two of its plants. The new units enabled
simple garments to be produced in large numbers. Soon all the garment fac-
tories were switched over to sectionalized working. The core products
themselves were changing as accountants sought to cut costs by reducing
the number of tucks and pleats and volume of fabric in each dress. In the
shops, racks of long, flowing skirts were replaced with short, straight ones,
which lent themselves more easily to volume manufacturing techniques.
Laura Ashley designs increasingly echoed those of every other high street
retailer. The Spring 1987 fashion collection, with its Caribbean prints,
striped shorts and polka dot dresses, demonstrated this new and more
catholic design philosophy. The management felt that the new design strat-
egy and a further extension of product lines demonstrated that the
company itself was maturing and adopting a suitably sophisticated
approach to a fiercely competitive retail environment.

436 Relationship Marketing

Table 6.1.2 Laura Ashley growth of retail operations

Shops UK* Europe North Far East Australia Total

America

1968 1 – – – – 1

1970 3 – – – – 3

1977 6 5 1 – – 12

1980 25 34 11 – 1 71

1981** 29 35 15 – 1 80

1982 39 39 28 – 1 107

1983 55 42 43 – 1 141

1984 72 43 55 – 1 171

1985 87 47 84 1 12 231

1986 109 53 113 2 15 292

1987 140 61 137 5 19 362

1988 157 66 167 12 25 427

1989 171 75 185 24 25 480

1990*** 182 95 213 41 24 555

Source: Laura Ashley, Offer Document 1985 and Annual Reports 1986–91.

*Includes Republic of Ireland, **includes Homebase outlets, ***includes franchises opened 1986–90.