How a pivot in strategy led Aussie swimwear brand Budgy Smuggler to global beach domination

From the humble speedo to branching out to women’s, kids and accessory ranges, the idea for Australian swimwear brand Budgy Smuggler started off as a joke between a few friends in 2003 when they decided to stamp the words ‘Budgy Smuggler’ onto the back of their speedo-style swimwear — little did the founders know that simple act and those two words would lead them down a much bigger path.

Today the brand’s end goal is to have Smugglers on every beach in the world.

Budgy Smuggler currently operates flagship retail stores in Bondi and Manly, with headquarters in Sydney’s northern beaches, a Sydney factory, satellite offices in England and France, which are its second and third biggest markets and has a pretty healthy e-commerce site.

Its workforce has expanded throughout the years with now over 30 employees globally, including three at the brand’s recently opened French office.

SmartCompany Plus spoke with Budgy Smuggler owner, operations manager, and strategist Nathan Linforth about the evolution of the brand, the shift in strategy, and the tactics his team has put in place to facilitate brand growth and manage international expansion.

Linforth said the team has grown the Budgy Smuggler brand over the last few years into one of Australia’s most recognisable swimwear brands.

Play on words

“What started as a joke between friends evolved into something pretty incredible, but we never would have imagined our initial play on words evolving into the business we have today,” he said.

“Our fun, loud prints certainly catch people’s attention and have taken off with consumers, particularly in the sporting space. We now see AFL, NFL and Matilda stars rocking our pieces both for match recovery and also during games which is pretty great.

“We’ve been able to capitalise on our local market momentum to support our growing global presence across Europe and the US.

“We still view ourselves as a laid-back Australian brand, because that’s the core of the Budgy Smuggler ethos. But we can’t be laid back when it comes to product quality and customer experience.”

A shift in the Budgy Smuggler’s strategy saw a boom in the company’s custom order offering, with design orders up from 20-30 per week to 80-150 per week.

Linforth said one of the main processes the brand wanted to better manage was production for its custom-branded swimwear.

“This offering proved extremely popular as soon as it launched, with sports clubs, businesses, charities, and even groomsmen embracing the custom design aspect of our business,” he said. 

Using tech to simplify processes

“But as the custom-design solution grew quickly, so did the headaches it was causing staff with the initial process taking up a lot of time and resources. 

“Keeping customers, staff, and suppliers informed throughout the process from order and design to production and delivery was proving problematic due to how involved the process was. 

“We were spending a month managing enquiries, creative briefs, design approvals, and payments before even getting to production processes like printing, cutting and sewing.”

Linforth said the Aussie brand needed a new approach.

“As customers were being left in the dark about the progress of their orders, which was leading to time-consuming phone calls, emails, and manual follow-ups,” he said. 

“It just wasn’t streamlined. We utilised monday.com’s integration with Gmail to set up automatic alerts that trigger at every stage of the process to keep everyone in the loop. 

“Designers know instantly when a brief arrives, printers are alerted when designs are approved, and manufacturers have everything they need to get started. Customers, too, are kept informed across every stage.

“Beyond customer experience management, we also needed to ensure our supply chain remained stable as the influx of custom orders increased. 

“We were able to gain visibility early on across our entire supply chain to ensure we could grow our custom order offering without impacting the process behind standard orders. 

“This made the expansion of the customisation offering far more efficient and effective.”

Breaking down silos

The swimwear brand also made the decision to roll out new tech systems like monday.com, designed to remove internal company silos and simplify operations, saving the Budgy Smuggler $86,179 in productive work and 2,561 hours of employee time per month.

Linforth said when the brand had a small range and was getting 10 orders a week, life was pretty simple, with a spreadsheet doing the job nicely. 

“But once we hit hundreds – and then thousands – of orders, we soon realised we needed a proper platform to run the business,” he said. 

“Trying to manage customer data and product information from one spreadsheet with a global workforce was becoming increasingly difficult.

“We needed something that was easy to use, flexible, visual, and had the capacity to grow with us. 

“As a brand that obviously values design, the way monday.com displays data on dashboards resonated with us by making information easy to understand. 

“The customisation functions were another big reason we chose monday.com. Other solutions felt a little rigid and required a developer to build out the functions as we wanted, we didn’t need to do this with monday.com.”

Linforth said in the early days, the team tended to “shoot from the hip when it came to business decisions”.

“But as we grew we knew we needed a more structured approach to really excel,” he said.

“Our brand tagline is to keep it honest, and monday.com helps us bring this vision to life. 

“An integral part of our business structure, monday.com keeps us honest and on track to achieve our daily, weekly, monthly and long-term goals. 

“We use it for pretty much everything from project management and product launches to strategic goal-setting and manufacturing. 

“Most importantly, it helps keep us honest on the customer front. We’ve also removed the manual work (which was hours) required to keep customers up to date, including phone calls, emails, shipping updates, the list goes on. 

“The platform sends thousands of emails each month, which saves hundreds of hours of manual work, reduces stress and creates a quality customer experience.”

Going global

Linforth said to keep on top of the brand’s growing international footprint concurrently with its Australian home base, the team manages business centrally through monday.com. 

“We add new functions as the business requirements shift, with each office and country able to access information in one spot to avoid information silos building up,” he said. 

“Our business strategy is built out in trackable monthly goals, with managers and team members updating their progress each week to ensure the entire workforce can see in real-time how their own actions ladder back to the broader strategy. 

“Our goal is to ensure every Budgy Smuggler team member, from Australia to the UK to France, has access to the same information. This avoids confusion and helps keep business priorities on track.

“Our boards track and manage the workloads of designers and manufacturers, including time-based reminders, status updates, and schedules. 

“Digital assets, documentation, and correspondence are also stored centrally within monday.com, so collaboration and production are transparent and efficient. 

“Our team, wherever they are in the world, can glance across the different producers and see what products are expected that week, how much work is outstanding, and what orders they have coming up. 

“This means we have a clear picture of the status of individual suppliers and designers to ensure proper timelines are created and deadlines are met.”

Linforth also had some advice for other growing retailers looking to improve their workflows: transparency and visibility create accountability.

“Once you start to generate a strong customer base and brand profile, you need to be ready to manage this growth by making sure the entire team, from the founder down, is aligned on central business objectives,” he said. 

“By choosing the right tools, you can take a lot of the grunt work out of your day-to-day including tedious manual updates and emails. 

“By shifting a lot of the monotonous tasks to automated workflows, the time you gain back in your day for deep or meaningful work skyrockets.

“The impact of this work is felt both internally and externally, with the improvement of the customer experience generating greater trust and satisfaction with the brand amongst consumers whilst establishing a sense of ownership within the team over company goals.”