How Maersk Helped Pentland Brands Scale its Supply Chain

Lifestyle brands are highly competitive, requiring speed, availability and straightforward operations in order to deliver reliable services to meet consumer demand.

After acquiring Speedo North America, Pentland Brands needed a trusted logistics partner in order to help it scale its operations.

Maersk became this partner of choice, due to its reliable, end-to-end solutions.

Company growth

Pentland Brands began as the Liverpool Shoe Company in 1932, a small family business of sellers. Soon, the company was putting down global roots, establishing itself around the world. 

Now, Pentland Brands is a global apparel business, with a large portfolio of sports, outdoor and lifestyle brands including Berghuas, Endura and ellesse.

In 2020, Pentland Brands acquired Speedo North America, marking a strategic shift for the company and its brand. It originally acquired the Speedo International business in 1991, but its acquisition of the North American business brought the entire operation under Pentland's ownership.

The reunion of the global business created a unified global strategy, with a fully integrated brand under its portfolio. It allowed for a more efficient development of the brand, with a cohesive and streamlined approach.

This, however, was a major undertaking and required a precise and efficient logistics partner to allow for a seamless transition.

As a result, it chose Maersk as a partner for this supply chain transformation.

A trusted partner

To ensure it remained agile and reliable during the time of transition, Pentland needed to examine its supply chain and make strategic changes.

Abhy Thomas Joseph, COO at Pentland Brands, says: "Supply chain was a transactional function or process within our engine prior to the Maersk relationship.

"What it is now is a strategic enabler within our portfolio, where we see it as an ability to move faster into new markets, into new channels, but also more importantly, be there for our consumers where and when it matters.

"A few years back, when we were acquiring the Speedo North America business, we wanted to have the ability to start to operate that brand as quickly as possible with minimal disruption to our customers. We approached Maersk to see if they were interested to be that end-to-end integrated supply chain partner just for the US."

By using Maersk as a partner, Pentland has gained an competitive advantage through Maersk's integrated logistics solutions. The logistics company helps its clients build agile and resilient logistics to help them adapt to new trends - or new markets. 

Maersk offers tailored solutions to its clients, with a specialised plan for sports apparel and athleisure wear. Understanding the growing competitiveness in the market, Maersk unifies fragmented supply chains to ensure its clients can maximise their business potential.

Maersk's solutions

Through its partnership with Maersk, Pentland Brands saw a total supply chain transformation.

Maersk offered Pentland a range of solutions, including:

• End-to-end connectivity - cargo journeys were smooth and uninterrupted through the leveraging of air freight and inland solutions throughout the US
• Agile warehousing - Maersk has a suite of agile inventory solutions, ensuring that products hit the shelves on time, without any delay
• Last-mile delivery support - Maersk delivered Speedor products directly to stores and customer doorsteps
• Real-time visibility - through its large connection network and data forecasting, Maersk provides access to real-time data to help plan for delivery of new products or the optimal time to enter new markets

"Maersk was our freight partner, integrated supply chain solution management partner, our rail partner in the US, warehousing, but also the last mile delivery into the consumer," adds Abhy.

"So this is across all channels: wholesale, retail and e-commerce. In 3 months, we pivoted from an early conversation, to having a fully operational business in North America for Speedo and we did that with minimal disruption to our customers."

Through Maersk's steady logistics throughout the acquisition of Speedo North America, Pentland Brands was able to protect the rest of its operations and ensure it remained a reliable company during its company growth. With the help of Maersk's logistics expertise, the apparel business has successfully scaled its operations.