A recent The Economist (Feb 25 - Mar 3) had an article in it about the challenges facing the Italian textile and footware industry. The Economist offers up the standed freee market cures such as consolidation and investment in capital equipment. One solution that The Economist does not mention is the creation of a global microbrand or to put it another way: the Italian textile and footware industry needs to do a Hugh (you could say doing an English Cut but doing a Hugh sounds better.)
The Italian textile and footware industry simply can't compete in mass market production. If it is not China it will be Vietnam or Burma or Cambodia or Africa. There will always be someone with cheaper labour. Trying to compete directly with the cheap labour is not going to work. Instead the Italian textile industry needs to build on their unique characteristics. The Italian textile and footware industry has a history and a reputation that the cheap labour countries cannot replicate. Taking advantage of their history and reputation is how the Italian companies are going to be able to compete.
Italian textile and footware companies need to create global microbrands that use the reputation and history as a foundation. The global microbrands are important as they create the demand for the time of the craftsman. Time is the only scarcity. But scarcity has no intrinsict value. Value only comes from the interaction of demand and scarcity. Here lies the success of English Cut (doing a Hugh). Through creating a global microbrand English Cut created demand for the time of the craftsman.
There is no reason why Italian textile and footware companies cannot create their own global microbrands to sell the time of italian mastercraftsman. They need to do a Hugh.
Links:
Hugh Macleod's The Hughtrain Manifesto
Technorati Tags: Hugh Macleod, Global Microbrand
The Italian textile and footware industry simply can't compete in mass market production. If it is not China it will be Vietnam or Burma or Cambodia or Africa. There will always be someone with cheaper labour. Trying to compete directly with the cheap labour is not going to work. Instead the Italian textile industry needs to build on their unique characteristics. The Italian textile and footware industry has a history and a reputation that the cheap labour countries cannot replicate. Taking advantage of their history and reputation is how the Italian companies are going to be able to compete.
Italian textile and footware companies need to create global microbrands that use the reputation and history as a foundation. The global microbrands are important as they create the demand for the time of the craftsman. Time is the only scarcity. But scarcity has no intrinsict value. Value only comes from the interaction of demand and scarcity. Here lies the success of English Cut (doing a Hugh). Through creating a global microbrand English Cut created demand for the time of the craftsman.
There is no reason why Italian textile and footware companies cannot create their own global microbrands to sell the time of italian mastercraftsman. They need to do a Hugh.
Links:
Hugh Macleod's The Hughtrain Manifesto
Technorati Tags: Hugh Macleod, Global Microbrand
0 comments:
Post a Comment