#ftiglobal

[corrievan]

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About to post your next Quick HIIT but wanted to tell you quickly I’ve got a huge weekend coming up. Heading up to Sydney to meet the @ftiglobal crew! From there I’ll be learning from the best the movements with kettlebells, bad bags, suspension and ropes. So lots coming up. Stay tuned. . . . #ftiglobal #kettlebell #badbag #ropes #suspensiontraining #fitness #fitmum #fitmom #bbg #learningfromthebest #exercise #itsgoingtobealongweekend (at Canberra, Australian Capital Territory)

[fashtechindustry-blog]

How advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth

A new McKinsey Global Institute report finds that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 by advancing women’s equality. The public, private, and social sectors will need to act to close gender gaps in work and society.

Gender inequality is not only a pressing moral and social issue but also a critical economic challenge. If women—who account for half the world’s working-age population—do not achieve their full economic potential, the global economy will suffer.

Six types of intervention are necessary to bridge the gender gap: financial incentives and support; technology and infrastructure; the creation of economic opportunity; capability building; advocacy and shaping attitudes; and laws, policies, and regulations. We identify some 75 potential interventions that could be evaluated and tailored to suit the social and economic context of each impact zone and country. Tackling gender inequality will require change within businesses as well as new coalitions. The private sector will need to play a more active role in concert with governments and nongovernmental organizations, and companies could benefit both directly and indirectly by taking action.

Why fashtech matters:

Venture funded opportunities - dominated specialized area for women professionals

VC’s - market opportunities for disruption in fashion with scale and magnitude

New Path to the C-Suite - Technology combined with marketing or editorial is still a rare skill set.

Cultivate talent - Opportunity to orient digital directors for C-suite or entrepreneurial path, hire more women engineers, scientists, creatives around the world

More successful women entrepreneurs means opportunities for representation within VC firms

Board seats - C-suite experienced, VC’s, Entrepreneurial women cultivated experience, fresh perspective to legacy systems

[fashtechindustry-blog]

Understanding The Fourth Industrial Revolution

As the theme of Fashtech emerges, conversationally, I think it’s worth noting that it’s entirely distinct from fashiontech in that it is beyond just wearables.  It is about a more holistic view that runs in parallel as the world seems to have officially entered the digital era (digital revolution) and understanding how best to adapt to the transformative effects it is sure to have (and already has) on the fashion industry.

Fashtech is about thinking about it as an industry, as a whole, how ones business interconnects globally and as part of all of the possibilities (hopefully all the positive) of the fourth industrial revolution as eloquently written by Klaus Scwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.  Looking to the possibilities of billions of people connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, access to knowledge x emerging technological breakthroughs in fields such as AI, robotics, the internet of things, 3D printing, nano technology, bio technology, materials science, energy storage, quantum computing and the vasts amounts of data it unleashes.

And the products and services that focus on efficiency and pleasure in our personal lives - ordering a cab, booking a flight, buying a product, making a payment, listening to music, watching a film or playing a game.  It’s also a great opportunity for knowledge, learning more about the various cultures and impacts we have on our world, creating entirely new ways of serving existing needs and significantly disrupting existing industry value chains and systems with new patterns of consumer behaviour.

On the whole, there are four main effects that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has on business—on customer expectations, on product enhancement, on collaborative innovation, and on organizational forms. Whether consumers or businesses, customers are increasingly at the epicenter of the economy, which is all about improving how customers are served. Physical products and services, moreover, can now be enhanced with digital capabilities that increase their value. New technologies make assets more durable and resilient, while data and analytics are transforming how they are maintained. A world of customer experiences, data-based services, and asset performance through analytics, meanwhile, requires new forms of collaboration, particularly given the speed at which innovation and disruption are taking place. And the emergence of global platforms and other new business models, finally, means that talent, culture, and organizational forms will have to be rethought.

On the surface, these seems like such obvious statements, but it certainly is good fodder to prompt a reevaluation early on and how the world will view the role of the fashion industry to date.  No doubt there will be disruptions, with an ever more self aware consumer, an incredibly empowered consumer, with a new world view and their individual role/impact in a much more inclusive, participatory, engaging and inter-connected global society that will champion self-actualization for those that can discern, recognize and act on opportunities.

[fashtechindustry-blog]

The Environmental Challenges Facing the Fashion Industry & Fresh Ideas for Fashtech

For many people, fashion begins and ends as “a fun and glorious accompaniment to the act of self expression”. These are the words of Lucy Collins, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Fashion Institute of Technology, speaking at Pioneer Mode 2015, a conference entitled “The Future of Fashion”. 

Collins’ words were a call to individuals not to take the world of fashion too seriously, but to approach it innovatively, without fear, with a sense of perspective and irreverence. Increasingly, however, the impact of the fashion industry is going beyond the aesthetic, the cultural, and the expressive. More and more, people are waking up to the environmental realities of the seemingly benign objects they wear. At a time when fashion is second only to oil as the most polluting industry, both the fashion industry and consumers need to face the stark reality.

If you’re looking for fresh and innovative ideas, in building a company that solves big problems to novel solutions as an independent designer, this is a great place to start thinking about a unique vision, innovative value chain practices and ways to reposition existing fashion brands and products.

For instance, ideas such as:

Bringing together a number of small to medium sized fashion companies to syndicate the purchasing of organic cotton, an enterprise that is usually hamstrung by the fact that, because of the instability inherent in smaller businesses, long-term contracts with producers are often impossible. The group spreads the risk, acting as guarantors to the contract.

More on the Pioneer Mode Conference and the Environmental Challenges Facing the Fashion Industry

Other Sustainability initiatives already in play  and a view of upstream downstream value chain and a move towards a circular economy is a step in the right direction

[fashtechindustry-blog]

The Economic Impact of the Fashion Industry & Distinct Solutions that can come from Fashtech

Fashion is an industry that is unmeasured in it’s most intangible contributions to society and key drivers.  Passion, creativity, emotion, real experiences in social and societal.  We measure this in a grouped way through revenues.

In fashtech, I think a holistic view of the total ecosystem, including a view of the economic impact of the fashion industry is a major distinction from the traditional legacy systems that adds a technological foundation that makes human life easier and more comfortable.  If you’re thinking about building a fashtech business, there’s much room for innovation at every level of the fashion pipeline, value chain, supply chain and new products and services. It’s an exciting time.

Here’s a view of the economic impact of the fashion industry.

Fashion is a $1.2 trillion global industry, with more than $250 billion spent annually on fashion in the United States, according to industry analysts. 1 Fashion and apparel industries employ 1.9 million people in the United States and have a positive impact on regional economies across the country.2 New York City and Los Angeles are the two largest fashion hubs in the United States, with over two-thirds of all fashion designers employed in these cities.3 But they are not the whole story, and cities such as San Francisco, Nashville, and Columbus are beginning to reap economic benefits, including high-paying jobs in fashion design.

Fashion is a structurally diverse industry, ranging from major international retailers to wholesalers to large design houses to one-person design shops. It employs people across occupations—including fashion designers, computer programmers, lawyers, accountants, copywriters, social media directors, and project managers. According to a report by the California Fashion Association, manufacturing is only a fraction of the modern apparel industry as “it is a highly sophisticated industry involving fashion and market research, brand licensing/intellectual property rights, design, materials engineering, product manufacturing, marketing and finally, distribution.

Read full report here

[fashtechindustry-blog]

TRAILBLAZERS NEW YORK CITY: FASHIONED BY INSTINCT

This is the second video in a series of profiles on artists from our new series Trailblazers, presented by Adidas, which pairs two young creatives at the beginning of their careers, exploring their process. Model/stylist Luka Sabbat meets technologist Madison Maxey in New York and compare their "you-do-you" policies: How, in different ways, they've driven their careers by following their instincts. From a temperature-controlled jacket to a wearable EKG monitor, Maxey brings high-tech fashion concepts to the mainstream while Sabat travels the global fashion world to work with acclaimed fashion designers on their runways and for their campaigns. We see first hand how they come to connect their own seemingly disparate careers together in the world of fashion and technology.

[fashtechindustry-blog]

Harnessing future talent

The fashion and luxury sectors are facing rapid business change and people are at the heart of this revolution. It is widely accepted that companies with well-organized talent management practices are gaining the competitive advantage. 

Yet, within these sectors, there is still a significant challenge in finding the right people with the right skill mix to enable successful growth through a phase of major transition and expansion. Executive leaders should apply just as much business knowledge and acumen as creativity, to solve complex organisational and talent management issues

Example leading practices to access and retain talent

75% of companies rate workforce capability as an ‘urgent’ or ‘important’ challenge, only 15% believe they are ready to address it

[fashtechindustry-blog]

Selecting and optimising locations

Whilst the fashion & luxury brands continue to work towards omni-channel, there may yet be another shift, and it’s moving faster than fashion. However, the vast majority of fashion and luxury revenues are still driven by offline, physical channels.

 It remains true that the cornerstone of capturing this offline retail demand is still ‘location, location, location’ – but a key enabler for success will be to ensure a consistent cross-channel consumer experience from communication to conversion. The variety of demographic and  in-region nuances (e.g. cities, such as London – or even specific streets within cities – acting as stand-alone demand centres; together with transit and tourism drivers) will be very important if luxury brands are to truly capture growth.

Balancing the physical growth strategy is one of the most important components of success

80% of visitors use digital for shopping-related activities before or during their most recent trip to a store— The New Digital Divide, 2014, Deloitte