Alexander McQueen is a British luxury fashion house known for its bold, dramatic designs. The brand has expanded from couture into high-street lines, including trainers, perfumes, menswear, and accessories.
Challenge
Managing supplier communications and garment production details was a time-consuming, manual process for Alexander McQueen. With over 120 suppliers worldwide and tens of thousands of pieces produced each year, the business relied heavily on emails, Excel spreadsheets, and manual data entry – slowing operations and increasing the risk of errors.
The fashion house needed a secure, scalable, and sustainable workflow to streamline supplier data handling. The solution needed to automate form submissions, improve accuracy, and reduce internal resource strain, while ensuring sensitive supplier information was protected.
Solution
Firemind implemented a multiphase cloud automation strategy on AWS. First, they redesigned supplier templates to capture precise, business-specific details, replacing generic one-size-fits-all forms. This improved the clarity and accuracy of submissions, enabling suppliers to provide richer, more relevant data.
Next, they developed a secure web interface for uploading, validating, and processing supplier Excel files directly into a PostgreSQL database hosted on Amazon RDS. Data was stored in Amazon S3 with pre-signed URLs, and supplier logins were secured using Amazon Cognito. This automated workflow reduced manual handling, freed up internal resources, and provided a foundation for sustainable and ethical sourcing practices.
Services used
- Amazon RDS
- AWS Lambda
- Amazon Cognito
- Amazon S3
The Results
- Automated supplier data workflow in just 10 days
- 3x reduction in internal resources required
- Secure and scalable AWS-powered solution
- Improved supplier data accuracy and sustainability tracking
- Flexible infrastructure to grow with business needs
