ERP consultancy startup Styllar is doubling down on a hyper-vertical strategy, positioning itself as Microsoft’s first A/NZ partner dedicated exclusively to the fashion and lifestyle sector.
Founded mid last year by industry veterans Duncan Journee and Glenn Ralph, Styllar was established to address what the founders describe as a critical gap in the ERP market.
While Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central has become a dominant mid-market platform, Journee said lifestyle brands have historically been forced to choose between legacy vertical providers or generalist Microsoft partners lacking industry depth.
“There was a clear space in-between,” Journee said. “On one side, legacy fashion systems with aging architectures. On the other hand, capable Microsoft partners without true fashion DNA. We built Styllar to combine Microsoft’s ERP foundation with deep, industry-native capability.”
Unlike traditional ERP consultancies, Styllar is deliberately narrow in its vertical focus. Journee pointed out that for many years fashion brands in Australia and New Zealand have relied on either legacy fashion ERP systems or generic ERP platforms that require extensive customisation to support industry workflows.
“Fashion has very specific operational requirements, such as seasonal collections, styles, colour and size variants, wholesale and retail channel integration, and complex inventory cycles,” he said. “These requirements often sit awkwardly inside traditional ERP implementations.”
At the same time, many legacy fashion platforms are reaching the limits of their architecture, particularly around cloud scalability, integrations, and AI capabilities, he added.
By leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central powered by TRIMIT, the company delivers a unified finance and operations backbone purpose-built for fashion and lifestyle businesses.
Building on that structured ERP foundation, Styllar is leveraging the latest AI technologies for fashion and lifestyle brands, enabling more accurate demand forecasting, smarter inventory planning and optimised supplier collaboration.
Journee believes the firm’s early success validates the vertical thesis.
“We’ve seen tremendous success by staying industry focused. When you understand the operational reality of lifestyle brands – from range planning to wholesale fulfilment – you move beyond system implementation. You become a transformation partner,” he said.
Styllar has already delivered projects for brands including Sunseeker, Columbia, Oshkosh B’gosh (distributed by Skye Group), Dickies and von Dutch (distributed by Atomic Fashion Brands), and Underworks.
To support rising demand, Styllar has been expanding, making senior appointments such as practice manager Gemma Warren and head of growth, Eliah Lade.
The company is also planning to hire additional consultants over the next six months across functional, technical and solution architecture roles to support implementation demand across Australia and New Zealand.
Journee said it has a three-year vision of growing to a team of around 50 people and reaching $10 million in revenue.
Estimating the market opportunity within A/NZ, Journee said there were approximately 800 fashion, apparel, and lifestyle companies in its target segment ($5M – $1B revenue) in Australia alone.
“We aim to engage with all of them within the next 12 months,” he said.
“After that, we expect to expand into adjacent segments such as retail and product-configuration businesses, as TRIMIT can support these operational models very well.”
The hiring push signals confidence in continued momentum within the Microsoft mid-market ERP ecosystem and increasing demand for vertically specialised partners.
“Lifestyle businesses are facing unprecedented complexity,” said Lade. “Variant control, fragmented channels and supply chain uncertainty require structured systems and disciplined data. When the operational backbone is designed correctly, growth creates leverage instead of friction.”
Styllar is positioning itself as a category-defining hyper-vertical consultancy with Journee adding the strategy reflects a broader shift in the channel.
“The mid-market no longer wants generic ERP. Lifestyle brands expect industry fluency,” he said.
“They want partners who speak their language and understand the nuances of fashion operations. Hyper-verticalisation is not a niche strategy, it’s the future of ERP delivery.”
Journee said Microsoft has been increasingly encouraging partners to specialise around industries rather than trying to serve every market segment.
“The Business Central ecosystem is evolving toward industry-driven solutions, where vertical ISVs and specialised partners work together to deliver complete platforms for specific sectors,” he said.
The combination of Business Central and TRIMIT, allows brands to move away from fragmented systems and consolidate operations on a single cloud platform that already understands fashion business models, Journee said.
“At the same time, the Microsoft stack enables organisations to embed AI directly into operational workflows and develop custom AI agents for areas such as demand forecasting, supplier collaboration, and inventory planning,” he said.
“This creates a modern operational backbone that not only supports today’s fashion business processes but is also ready for the next generation of AI-driven decision-making.”
Journee added fashion brands operate with significant inventory risk, where forecasting errors can quickly translate into excess stock or missed revenue opportunities.
“Applying AI models to historical sales data, product performance, and seasonal trends, brands can improve forecasting accuracy and make better purchasing decisions earlier in the cycle,” he said.
“The early signals we are seeing include better stock allocation across channels, improved visibility into demand patterns, and more confidence in buying decisions.
“As these models mature, the combination of ERP data and predictive analytics will become increasingly powerful for fashion operations.”
by Julia Talevski
Editor ARN | Reseller News
