Recently I was invited to provide a perspective on “managing the fashion business in a troubled economy” for students of the Global Fashion Management program. This program is organized by the INSTITUT FRANÇAIS DE LA MODE in tandem with the FASHION INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY in New York and the HONG KONG POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY; a very high quality audience with deep experience in the fashion industry.
This presentation has been leading the attendees and me to a very interesting debate on balancing risk and opportunities in the market. As the credit insurance leaders have been pulling out of the fashion market in a massive way in December, fashion companies are left with difficult options:
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Reduce their revenue to only accept guaranteed orders, which could mean downsize by 50%, clearly not an acceptable perspective.
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Ship unsecure retailers in blind, and risk significant unpaid bills, that could amount to severe losses, also not an acceptable option.
In this situation, Information and Account Management are much more crucial. To avoid the 2 evils mentioned above, at FDI Logbox we are reinforcing our ability to analyse and manage the relationship with the retailers, so that, even without credit insurance, our customers can take the most secure approach to maximizing their revenue, without taking unqualified risks.
This is a difficult approach; however, we have to take into account that the world has changed, and that we have to do with the world as it is, and not the world that we would dream of. We understand how tough is the current situation for many companies and we are fighting every day to make it a safer business world for our customers.
After the bad results of the year 2008, the distributors’ turnovers progressed in January 2009. This specific recovery was unfortunately followed by a very bad February month. 
