PROJECTS & PARTNERSHIPS: Fashion

The Italian fashion market came from a good 2019, having reached a turnover of about 70 billion euros in the fashion sector (including textiles, leather goods, clothing and footwear), and it having reached about 90 billion euros, if we also considered some sectors connected to it, such as jewelery, cosmetics and eyewear. These data photographed a slight increase, compared to the previous year 2018, and it could be considered a success, taking into account the worsening of the Italian macroeconomic scenario, the economic war between the USA and China, the instability of the Middle East and the Brexit.

Unfortunately, the year 2020 is worse: COVID-19, started from the territories of the new rich Chinese market, has involved all the world and it has created a pandemic that is currently still underway.

The virus first blocked supply, with all production activities (think of the lockdown in Asian countries, such as India, Pakistan and Korea) and then blocked demand, with the suspension of sales (think of the forced closure of stores, warehouses and trade fairs).

A recent study on the Italian fashion supply chain, published by Sole 24 Ore, assumes a loss in turnover, compared to 2019, estimated at around 20-25%. However, some recent signs can be read in a positive key: China is emerging from the health crisis and is starting to show a strong vitality in the purchases of luxury and fashion products, e-commerce continues to increase and it will be a substantial part of the recovery, the activities of the sector fairs, with their novelties and their new orders, have been restarted (with hybrid methods, both physical and digital). It is expected to return to pre-Covid values not before 2022, for the demand, and not before the middle of 2021, for the production.

The Italian fashion market is characterized by the presence of some foreign groups, particularly French, controlling about 30% of the turnover, but also by the equally important presence of Italian companies offering products worldwide with highly prestigious brands.

Our client is one of these leading Italian fashion companies, with around 1200 people employed in Italy. The brand, born in 1985, has been able to continuously innovate in these 35 years, coming to control 26 subsidiaries, located all over the world. It is present in clothing, leather goods, footwear, accessories, eyewear, jewelry, watches and beauty sector (perfumes and makeup). It has curated the outfits of world-famous celebrities and it has created sports clothes for important football teams and national teams, also signing joint projects of products usually considered far from fashion, such as mobile phones, cars, restaurants and recently also products of the wine and confectionary sectors.

A multinational of this level has always needed to perform fast and precise management analyzes, in order to be able to coordinate production orders, replenishment of its warehouses and availability in stores. Globalization has led our Client to search for design solutions in Industry 4.0 logic, with the aim of improving the design and implementation times and the quality of production, but always taking care of cost optimization.

ACTION ICT is honored to contribute to this continuous improvement, thanks to the commitment of our selected professionals involved in interesting Data Management projects. For technology enthusiasts, we can indicate we are working mainly in the Microsoft environment, where software components are made with Azure, SQL Server, Visual Studio, .NET, vb.NET and C# technologies .

As usual, we finally address a special thanks to our Client company and a dutiful greeting to our employees. They, despite the difficulties of working from home, have never failed to make their professional contribution to the success of the projects.

ACTION ICT (November 2020)

ACTION ICT is a young, dynamic and innovative IT company. It operates, both nationally and internationally, offering professional skills and design solutions in the ICT field to medium and large businesses. Our highly skilled know-how is housed in three expertise specific departments: ACTION DATA (Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence), ACTION APP (Web & Mobile Application) and ACTION IOT (Internet of Things and Robotics).