Up Close is Sourcing Journal’s regular check-in with industry executives to get their take on topics ranging from their company’s latest moves to personal style. In this Q&A, Adil Bouhdadi, co-founder and CEO of Autone—an inventory management platform used by brands like Roberto Cavalli and Off-White—discusses turning data into actions and the value of speed.
Name: Adil Bouhdadi
Title: Co-founder and CEO
Company: Autone
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Which other industry has the best handle on the supply chain? What can apparel learn?
The automotive industry. Their supply chain is synchronized like a symphony [with] real-time visibility, precision and contingency actions. Apparel could learn to treat inventory less like a guessing game and more like a live operating system. Build flexibility, not buffers.
What should be the apparel industry’s top priority right now?
Stop treating inventory as a sunk cost and start treating it as an asset that can be optimized daily. The world has changed; planning a couple of times per season isn’t just outdated, it’s costly.
What innovation or development holds the greatest potential to improve operationsin the apparel and textile industries?
Artificial intelligence-powered actions. Retailers have collated and reported on data for years, but too few actually take any action with it. We’re moving beyond dashboards and static reports. What matters now is software that makes decisions—when to reorder, where to rebalance, how to allocate—with speed, context and precision.
Tell us about your company’s latest product introduction:
Autone is building the AI operating system for retail. Our latest release, called Wav-2, serves as a sidekick for merchandisers and planners. It surfaces inventory risks, forecasting ROI gains and triggering actions like reorders and rebalancing in real-time. Think of it as mission control for retail inventory—intelligent, predictive and fully actionable.
How would you describe your corporate culture?
Relentless and kind. We obsess over clarity, speed and doing work that matters. No vanity projects, no slow yeses. We believe in being direct, thoughtful and uncomfortably honest, with ourselves first.
What’s the best decision your company has made in the last year?
Shortening customer time to impact from six months to under 90 days. It forced us to rethink everything—onboarding, automation, support. It’s paying off in retention, expansion and customer love.
Where do you look for personal style inspiration?
I travel between Paris, London, Milan and New York, so I gravitate toward minimalism. A good pair of jeans and a white tee can go a long way.
How do you shop for clothing? How would you describe yourself as a fashion consumer?
Deliberate. I don’t buy often, but when I do, I want to know the story behind the product: why it was made, who made it and whether it’s built to last.
What are the top three product attributes that you factor into your purchasing decisions?
Fit, craftsmanship and timelessness. If it fits right, was made with care and won’t feel irrelevant in two years, it’s a yes.
What is a retail experience that stands out to you?
Every time I walk into an Aesop store. Every detail feels considered, from the scent to the conversation. It doesn’t feel like shopping; it feels like discovering.
What keeps you up at night?
Waste. Not just physical waste, but wasted time, wasted talent, wasted decisions. There’s so much potential lost in noise and slowness.
What makes you most optimistic?
The people building the future. I have the chance to get to work with them every day. [They] believe retail can be better, faster, more human—the “new hope.”
