According to Joseph Schumpeter, a firm is innovative when it creates new combinations of production factors. The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, the use of new supply sources or materials, or it may be the introduction of new goods or existing goods with better quality, the introduction of a new method of production — Schumpeterian firms trigger changes and in this way, help develop the productive powers of a country.
How this all concerns to fashion you may ask? Let's elaborate on the SMEs example. Small and medium-sized enterprises play an important role in development. Of importance are Schumpeterian SMEs, which include start-ups that trigger innovation, boost productivity and bring about structural change. Most of the industry insiders heard about fashion-tech start-ups helping and delivering solutions for the ending point of the chain — the customer. However, a very few heard or even used solutions for the industry itself, helping those professionals and entrepreneurs to deliver their contribution efficiently. The creative industry that hasn't experienced "creative destruction" since emerging of fast fashion and it's consequences. And yet again, the fast-fashion culture is the tip of the spire of consumerization which started about a century ago.
The shift from brick-and-mortar retail shopping to e-commerce hardly can be named destruction moreover creative. What about the idea-product cycle in particular? The independent designer still must travel all around the globe in search of reliable suppliers and manufacturers. Contact them via email or phone, and wait days to receive a decent response. By 2019 in the industry yet so dependent on timing this part of the cycle felt left untouched by the tech. The technology is shaping the future of retail, yes maybe, however, not the future of production and collaboration. Majority of the companies in fashion still using email as the main communication source and at least half of them using email services as digital cloud storage. So, how can we expect innovations from the industry that deeply stuck in the middle of the nineties? Drawing on Schumpeter, four different types of economic upgrading are differentiated on the firm level: product upgrading (better or new products), process upgrading (new technologies or organizations), functional upgrading (shifting or extending the position in value chains to more skilled activities), intersectoral upgrading (extending the position to new sectors by using the skills acquired in the previous sector). According to this gradation where can you place your company now?
Coming back to fashion tech it is utterly important to focus on the production cycle which is still poorly automated. Creating new ways of communication and collaboration as well as exploration can give a massive boost to the $3000 bn. growing market, enhancing its current technological state. Being an independent designer imagine being able to add your suppliers and contractors into one workspace, request goods and services or even let them request everything they need from each other to finish the project, supervise, send invoices and share necessary details — all from one place — your laptop.