Exploring Business / Clothing Industry / Business Innovation Research

Today in US History, I learned about the future of fashion retailing. Terms like, "supply chain", "distribution system", and "innovation" were littered among the three articles that I read. Most of those terms confused me, but it was intriguing to read about the hoops that stores have to jump through to get clothes on their racks. A supply chain is a business model that allows a store to continuously search for new clothes. In Zara's case, they are headquartered in Spain and this gives them a cultural advantage because they can filter through new clothes, pick and choose, and distribute them in a more timely manner than other franchised headquarters located elsewhere. The area of the headquarters gives Zara a "competitive advantage" as they can make quick changes to clothing and or split decisions about what to sell or whether to order more labor in Europe or in Asia. H&M, another well franchised store located in Sweden, is also considered innovative because they offer two main seasonal collections, and then smaller "sub-collections" at different times of the year. Much like Zara, H&M works greatly from their headquarters, but H&M's smaller factories and stores are all connected to their much larger headquarters in Stockholm. This allows H&M to individually notice clothing deficiencies or views of the customer from a larger number of stores and gives H&M time to react quickly in a bind. Although large franchises are leaning towards more innovative and fast paced ideas to stock their shelves, no one has found a clear answer of where the ideas came from, who started it, or what the companies will do next if and when the innovation comes to an end or fails. Those were all questions that went through my mind as I read these articles and apparently others have picked up on these questions as well. Dan Gilmore wonders the same thing and he hasn't been able to shed much light on those questions. Though the innovation seems shiny and new now, and is bringing the stores a lot of money, I want to know what they will do next in the fashion retailing business.