right down to marketing communication because you can ’ t write two paragraphs on why a premium T-shirt is better than a normal one – nobody ’ s going to read that on mobile . It forces everyone from web designers to purchasing and assortment teams to simplify .
“ Five or 10 years ago , the more features you added the more exciting it was , but now people want to achieve tasks really simply and as such the 80 / 20 rule is cutting back in ,” adds Rooke . “ You have to concentrate on what 20 % of features , stocks , offering , makes up 80 % of your business .” Across the board , from mobile ecommerce to the factory floor , digital transformation is certainly “ forcing a lot of simplification ,” according to Rooke . This is especially challenging for Spreadshirt when its business model is anything but simple – it has several businesses within it including people who sell on Amazon , directly to market , or create and buy or sell their own items . Coupled with the number of markets it operates across , Spreadshirt in 2018 is in may ways a complex beast in which , as Rooke puts it , “ there are 10,000 things that could go wrong .” This in itself has forced Rooke to simplify his own outlook and that of his leadership team . “ There ’ s no way to manage all that end to end – I ’ d go crazy . So , over the past couple of years , there ’ s been a big shift in how we manage the business .
“ I don ’ t manage or oversee all elements – I ’ ve employed people who are a lot
“ Five or 10 years ago , the more features you added the more exciting it was , but now people want to achieve tasks really simply ”
— Philip Rooke , CEO , Spreadshirt
49 europe . businesschief . com