Adoption of Digital Business in Fashion Industry
Discuss About The Sustainability In Fashion Textiles Values.
The fashion industry has adopted the online market for their business. This has forced the companies to make sure that they have an effective digital business platform where they can conduct their activities. Due to adoption of digital business huge amount of data and information gets generated from their day to day operations (Brynjolfsson, Hu & Rahman, 2013). It is to be made sure by the companies that they have an effective information system so as to manage the data in a proper manner. They need to ensure that implementation of information system is such that they create sustainable competitive advantage and also ensures transparency to consumers. They also need to make sure that clothing sources are indeed ethical. Ethics is understood as the branch of philosophy that includes defending, recommending and systematising concepts of wrong and right conduct. There are many ethical issues present in the information system which are used in fashion industry. This report highlights the ways to implement its information systems to generate sustainable competitive advantage as well as bringing transparency to the work.
In fashion industry there are many ethical issues that exist while taking the use of Information system (Pantano, 2014). The biggest issue is related to fairer supply chain management. It has been noticed that in many online retail companies there are problems related to ethics. The first thing it does is that it does not treat its employee in an ethical manner like not giving appropriate wages to their employees. This generally arises due to the fact that most of them are contract based worker. The middle man in the contract business takes money from the workers but do not give it to the employees. This issue is very general in the countries like India and Bangladesh. With the use of Information system a more unanimity can be brought in giving wages. Information system has all the data at one place that is accumulated through various functions. These data are highly useful and are of strategic importance. It also contains the data that are personal to the employees and if gets leaked, may create some kind of ethical issues. In the supply chain systems the data related to retailers, consumers and distributors are also present which if get lost or goes into the hands of unauthorised person then it may create serious problems (Turker & Altuntas, 2014).
Ethical Issues in Supply Chain Management
By integrating appropriate IT system these ethical problems can be easily resolved. Taking the help of cloud computing, they can resolve the problem related to the stored data. Tools such as Big Data analytics can help them to filter the data as per their requirement (Wixom, Yen & Relich, 2013). This gives them precise information regarding the problems that are going on in the industry as well as the challenges that company is going to face. There are larger numbers of people that are coming to avail the services and protection of their important details is most crucial. As a CIO it is essential for the organisation to make sure that high quality internet capabilities are installed. There are two potential benefits of these IT installation, firstly it helps to strengthen the speed of operations in the supply chain and second is the fact that it helps in bringing smoothness in the work process (Piotrowicz & Cuthbertson, 2014). Both these are crucial for having competitive edge over the others in the industry. Supple chain system in the retail industry helps to eliminate the problem related to effective utilisation of resources which is crucial for the long term development of the firm. IT capabilities like ERP software can be beneficial for the long term growth of company. This is essential for both company as well as its associated stakeholders.
It is also seen that fashion industries are highly active on their social media sites. This is one of the best places where retail fashion firms can promote their products. It is due to the reason that most of their target market is highly active at these sites. They spend their lot of time at these sites. Apart from this, these social media sites can help in collecting data in the form of feedback (Pomodoro, 2013). This will help any firm in their process of striving out for gaining competitive advantage over the other firms.
IT system like the supply chain management system will also help the firm in resolving the problems of the consumers as the system are able to provide the required data about their product delivery (Nenni, Giustiniano & Pirolo, 2013). This is also effective in resolving the issues that are social in nature. For example it is helpful in understanding the current fashion trends prevailing in the society. This is necessary for increasing the sales margin of the company as it helps in producing the products as per the market demand. Forecasting of demands is necessary in the modern day firms so as to meet the requirements of the firm. In the retail sector this is one of the most essential thing so as to protect company from heavy loses. It is also necessary for maintaining the balance between capabilities and goals of the company as it will give precise picture of the path in which a company is moving.
Resolving Ethical Issues through IT Capabilities
Performance analysis and the appraisals are integral part of the management as it helps in removing the threats that are present in the business. One of the biggest threats is of managing the higher profits of the firm. In this regards revenue management system can be highly beneficial as it will help in controlling the failures that may arise in the supply management (Liu, Ren, Choi, Hui & Ng, 2013). It also assists companies in dealing with the quality of resources available. This is necessary for the quality outputs that are produced by the organisations. Quality has been one of the most important ethical issues in the business as serving for the consumers as per the promise made by them is crucial. Marketing beyond ethical margins is one of the biggest problems in the online retail industry. In this regards IT capabilities can be highly beneficial. Apart from this the installation of POS machines not only helps in the accounting of the data but also helps in collecting of the information related to sales purchase (Garrido Azevedo & Carvalho, 2012). This will also help the firm in eliminating the false pricing problem as the IT generated price tags are accurate. Bringing accuracy to the work process has been a matter of concern for every retail company which can be ensured with the help of IT facilities. For example the accident which held in Rana Plaza four years ago could have been avoided if the proper detail of the infrastructure was present with employees (White, 2018). Providing workplace with unsafe environment is the biggest unethical issue which needs to be dealt with.
It is seen that social media has been utilised by the firm for their benefit but it somehow had created ethical issues for the company (Gardetti & Torres, 2017). This can be understood by the fact that lot of data is getting stolen through such means. With the effective social media campaign company can make sure that data does not get leaked through various loop holes or by the fault of employees. Apart from this there are many people who are coming to the retail outlets, use of IT mediums can help in providing the best of services to the clients.
There are some of the ways in which revenue management is benefitted by technology. They are as follows:
- Pricing strategy: Since pricing is based on the customer’s perception hence information system can help in providing the required data at the time of price setting. Consumer’s price sensitivity analysis, price optimizations and price ratios can easily be done with the help of information systems (Fashion Revolution Australia, 2018).
- Distribution channels: Information system helps in managing the discounts that could be given in the channel and still ensure higher profits from the sale. It also helps in ensuring that company will not lose consumer perception.
- Apart from this in the case of “People Express” it was seen that this company fell down because it did not installed the data management system for the process of collecting and storage of data. Information system helps in ensuring that in the process of supply chain all the tools that are used can share information. This helps in eliminating most of the ethical concerns in the industry. For example it helps in solving the ethical issues that arises in CRM. Decision support system always helps in reducing the cost of operations as well as restricting the whole supply chain process which in turn increases the consumer response. All these adds to value of the product which is crucial for eliminating flaws in the work process.
Conclusion
From the above report it can be concluded that information system is highly beneficial in the modern day firms. This is due to the fact that larger amount of data gets generated on the daily online fashion retail industry. Supply chain management plays one of the major roles in the management of daily operations which directly or indirectly safeguards company from taking the unethical routes. From safeguarding the data of stakeholders to sustainably utilisation of resources information system plays a very crucial role. Apart from this information system help in the revenue management which is essential for the company’s future.
References
Brynjolfsson, E., Hu, Y. J., & Rahman, M. S. (2013). Competing in the age of omnichannel retailing. MIT Sloan Management Review, 54(4), 23.
Fashion Revolution Australia, (2018) Retrieved from: https://www.fashionrevolution.org/oceania/australia/
Gardetti, M. A., & Torres, A. L. (Eds.). (2017). Sustainability in fashion and textiles: values, design, production and consumption. Routledge.
Garrido Azevedo, S., & Carvalho, H. (2012). Contribution of RFID technology to better management of fashion supply chains. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 40(2), 128-156.
Liu, N., Ren, S., Choi, T. M., Hui, C. L., & Ng, S. F. (2013). Sales forecasting for fashion retailing service industry: a review. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2013.
Nenni, M. E., Giustiniano, L., & Pirolo, L. (2013). Demand forecasting in the fashion industry: a review. International Journal of Engineering Business Management, 5, 37.
Pantano, E. (2014). Innovation drivers in retail industry. International Journal of Information Management, 34(3), 344-350.
Piotrowicz, W., & Cuthbertson, R. (2014). Introduction to the special issue information technology in retail: Toward omnichannel retailing. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 18(4), 5-16.
Pomodoro, S. (2013). Temporary retail in fashion system: An explorative study. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 17(3), 341-352.
Turker, D., & Altuntas, C. (2014). Sustainable supply chain management in the fast fashion industry: An analysis of corporate reports. European Management Journal, 32(5), 837-849.
Wixom, B. H., Yen, B., & Relich, M. (2013). Maximizing Value from Business Analytics. MIS Quarterly Executive, 12(2).
White, G.B., (2018) Retrieved from: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/rana-plaza-four-years-later/525252/
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