An Overview of Demand Management through Demand Supply Chain
Read this article researching the challenges in the fashion industry to respond to ever-changing consumer tastes. While reading, think about industries other than fashion where managing production capacity is an ongoing task.
Evolution in the Fashion Industry
The fashion industry is particularly a dynamic sector in which to
explore the retail buying decision-making process, due to its
characteristics of increasingly shorter product life cycles, a high
level of product variety and an inability to accurately predict consumer
buying behavior. The complexity arises with
the emergence of new consumer groups, new markets, new trends in
sourcing etc. which was not common few decades ago. According to Masson
et al. one of the major market developments has been that modern
fashion has become democratized and egalitarian. In the course of the
last two decades, the fashion apparel industry across the globe has
undergone deep transformation due to various changes in the business
environment. Consumers in modern times
are more fashion conscious and looking for new options continuously.
Consequently, the length of the use of a particular apparel product is
shortened significantly. Barnes and Lea-Greenwood argue that
there is a decline in the length of fashion product life cycles which
has put pressure on retailers to replenish more frequently as they
simply need more product ranges to keep up to date. The trend also
provoked the emergence of the fast fashion concept which has got an
extensive success till today. To get an extended view about the change
occurred, this section provides an overview of fashion market's
diversity, change from mass manufacturing to the quick response concept
and operations of top brands under present circumstances.