Why Fashion Should Adopt A Food Mindset?
Here is an extract of my interview with Sourcing Journal‘s Sarah Jones. You can find the original article on “Why Fashion Should Adopt A Food Mindset?” here. (image & content courtesy: sourcing journal)
Which other industry has the best handle on the supply chain? What can apparel learn?
The food supply chain has always been inspiring for me. In food, physical goods perish. Hence by design, the processes handle them with speed.
In fashion, while the goods don’t perish, they actually do financially and from a sustainability perspective. Imagining fashion as food mindset will do a lot of good for the industry.
In addition,
Another aspect of food mindset is its role in health. How do we remove the unwanted fat from the fashion business is worth looking at.
This is what we have been at it since our inception, making the fashion business fitter and healthier both from economic and environmental perspectives.
How would you describe yourself as a consumer?
I buy only what is needed. Moved from an impulse buyer to a need-based buying consumer. Always the right amount. Lagom philosophy is something I am attached to.
As a consumer, what does it take to win your loyalty?
The product does what it is meant to do. Durable and simple.
What’s the best decision your company has made in the last year?
Focus on building what we are good at, which is fashion prediction and Demand Science®. Building international partnerships with Fortune 100 brands and retailers.
How would you describe your corporate culture?
We have a culture of freedom, accountability, equality, meritocracy, tech-first mindset, data-driven decisions, no entitlement, the bias for action, to name a few of our core ways to function.
What can companies learn from COVID-19?
Skate where the puck is going to be, not where it is now. Think if digital is the only way to do business and reinvent all processes and skills.
What should be the apparel industry’s top priority now?
Technology-first approach to running the business and look at transforming digitally back end to front end. The back end of fashion is still run in the old way, decades old. Time to reinvent fast.
What keeps you up at night?
There is so much difference we can make to the fashion and lifestyle brand, retail, and manufacturing industry globally. How can we do that faster, stronger?
What makes you most optimistic?
The best things always happen in a crisis. Newton invented the laws of gravity when he was quarantined. Google bloomed in a recessionary period. We have a great opportunity to reinvent.
Tell us about your company’s latest product introduction/service:
These are the times to scale the digital business. We see an opportunity to enable fashion brands and manufacturers/exporters to scale their digital business through an assisted service using all Stylumia capabilities of demand science and prediction. This service is launched as Stylumia AXEL. In summary, we assist 360 degrees and scale the e-commerce business of brands. We are getting overwhelming responses to this.