![]() Early on, Hyman and Fleiss pitched the idea to designer Diane von Fürstenberg as a rental service for her brand's website. Long term, her plan was to offer women unlimited access to a designer closet they could rent from on-demand. After seeing her sister overspend on an expensive new dress for a wedding, Hyman had the idea of offering dress rentals for women for special events. ![]() ![]() They regularly met up to discuss entrepreneurial ideas, one of which was Rent the Runway. In 2007, Hyman and Fleiss met as sectionmates at Harvard Business School. It was founded by Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss, who launched the company in November 2009. ![]() With proper scalability testing and capacity planning, the brand could have ensured that the right infrastructure was in place to sustain the expansion.Rent the Runway is an e-commerce platform that allows users to rent, subscribe, or buy designer apparel and accessories. When it came time to merge these systems, scalability issues occurred. Like many companies in the midst of rapid growth, Rent the Runway relied on an external cloud-based WMS platform, along with proprietary internal software applications. In this case, Rent the Runway’s order fulfillment process was so intricate and specialized that it required advanced WMS capabilities. While new growth is exciting, it brings with it a new set of challenges. Chiefly, business leaders must gauge how many operating systems will be required to support the business model as it expands. With these new initiatives on the horizon, the brand’s market valuation reached $1 billion in 2019, fueled by expectations of a customer base projected to reach more than nine million subscribers. What began as a service for special-occasion clothing rental was soon to encompass a much wider array of options that included business attire, children’s clothing, and even home decor. The new WMS software was an integral part of Rent the Runway’s effort to grow and scale its business. In all, the disruption lasted 11 days, during which time, the brand’s Chief Supply Chain Officer stepped down. They also temporarily stopped taking new orders and canceled event orders. To save face, Rent the Runway offered full refunds to anyone affected by the disruption, as well as an additional $200 in compensation. Angry and frustrated, they took to social media to air their grievances, claiming they could not get any support from customer service. The mishap also affected about 6% of customers who accessed the platform for individual orders. It was traced back to a New Jersey warehouse that had recently installed the new software. At that time, around 14% of subscribers began experiencing order issues. The first actual issue occurred on September 13. The integration wreaked havoc on order fulfillment, negatively impacting the number of orders that Rent the Runway could ship each day. Communications with third-party outbound automation providers temporarily halted as integration issues became apparent. ![]() Soon after its debut, the software began to show problems. The software was designed to provide a new inventory tracking system that would make items available to shoppers faster than ever before. Heralded as one of the most important actions in the company’s history, the move centered on a major software implementation. In early September 2019, Rent the Runway completed its digital transformation. ![]()
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