What: Covid has played havoc with established fashion supply chains.

Why it is important: The supply chain landscape is shifting both geographically and in terms of adapting to an agile, digital, demand-driven model.

With the uncertainty and disruption in retail during the last year of covid pandemic, retailers have been rushing to adjust their businesses with dramatic consequences for the supply chains which sustain retail. By last July, about 400 manufacturing firms representing 150 000 jobs had suspended operations in Cambodia. In Bangladesh, the world’s second biggest garment exporter after China, 348 factories closed between March and April 2020, according to its manufacturers and exporters’ association. A recent survey of suppliers found that orders for the current season were down 30 percent compared to last year. On top of that, the rise of fast, online-only fashion companies is shifting the manufacturers’ business model, with a premium on agile, digital production. As the article puts it, “we are changing from a supply chain to a demand chain”.

In fashion's global supply chain, a ruthless race to the bottom