Again today’s TextileFuture Newsletter comprises of three different features, offering broad themes.
The first feature is on “Farmers value digital engagement, but want suppliers to step up their game”. It is based upon an item from McKinsey and gives you interesting aspects into the farmers digital engagement.
The second item “Dell’s digital boss on being a change agent for transformation at Harrod’s” is an item that is based upon a guest writer from Raconteur. It is a good example on how transformation can be handled also under iconic circumstances.
The third feature “Made to measure: Getting design leadership metrics right” is again from collaborators of McKinsey and gives you an impression of how important it is that design leadership metrics get right, because it offers competitive advantages.
We do know that these features are food for your own thoughts and are inspiring to you. We would love to present under Covid terms more items gained on personal insights while travelling, but you know very well that for the time being this is just not feasable. Thus, we are continuously on the look out for other interesting feature that makes TextileFuture’s Newsletter an important source for you!
Here starts the first item:
Farmers value digital engagement, but want suppliers to step up their game
By David Fiocco, Vasanth Ganesan, Liz Harrison, and Jake Pawlowski from McKinsey. David Fiocco is a partner in McKinsey’s Minneapolis office; Vasanth Ganesan is an associate partner in the New York office; Liz Harrison is a partner in in the Charlotte office; and Jake Pawlowski is an associate partner in the Chicago office.
The authors would like to thank Jillian Ardrey, Wesley Davis, Maria Garcia de la Serrana Lozano, David Greenawalt, and Ted Silberman for their contributions to this article.
McKinsey surveyed more than 800 row and specialty crop farmers across the United States over the past several months as a follow-up to our 2018 study. We talked with farmers, owners, and field managers, including those with large operations as well as those with just a few hundred acres.
What we learned is that farmers are increasingly interacting and buying online, but they’ll need higher-quality and more personalised interactions to keep doing so. Winning agriculture companies will engage online early and sustain engagement across the buying journey through digital and physical channels. Agriculture suppliers have the potential to grow their e-commerce base by a factor of five—but today’s online interactions won’t get them there.
Digital engagement is well rooted and the preferred means for many
Farmers’ comfort with digital channels has grown markedly since 2018. Roughly 50 percent say they are willing to buy agricultural products online and twice the number of farmers prefer online when repurchasing familiar items.
Two-thirds of farmers also use the web and their mobile devices for research and planning—compared to less than half who said the same two years ago. And more than 50 percent prefer digital channels when evaluating products—up from roughly one-third in 2018.
Adoption has backtracked in areas such as purchasing
Although more farmers are engaging digitally, not all have found the experience to their liking. Nowhere was this more true than in the purchasing process itself.
In 2018, 29 percent of buyers said they were open to buying inputs online. Two years later, that number has fallen to just 12 percent—with the result that less than half the number of farmers who bought goods online in 2018 say they prefer those channels now.
What soured for them? One reason is that digital interactions aren’t delivering the convenience that farmers want—which is why many go online to browse and buy in the first place. Compared to the intuitive e-commerce experiences that farmers are accustomed to elsewhere, many agriculture solutions come up short. Basic elements such as product availability, specifications, and pricing are often hard to find, difficult to use, or missing altogether. The biggest source of frustration for farmers is the inability to easily search and compare products.
Farmers also chafe at the generic experience of provider websites and apps—especially compared to remote and in-person interactions that offer a more individualised feel. Growers want a good deal, an easy experience, and advice they can count on, and they also want that experience personalised—online and off.
Farmers like a mix of human and digital interactions when conducting product research
Although 53 % of farmers rely on digital interactions when researching products, 64 % turn to friends, peer farmers, and their family.
When asked which sources of information are most helpful when conducting initial product research and comparing brands, farmers ranked human sources of information at the top, with 50 to 60 % stating they value the advice of agronomists and peer farmers.
Farm size and farmer demographics influence digital behaviours
A farmer’s acreage, age, and gender inform purchasing patterns in important ways. For example, small farmers express high interest in engaging digitally across virtually every stage of the buying journey. Nearly three-quarters research and plan online compared to less than two thirds of larger farmers. And 43 % plan their next season and make repurchases over digital channels, compared to just 20 % of larger farmers.
As is true of their age cohorts elsewhere, young growers are enthusiastic digital adopters. They strongly prefer online experiences for product support and repurchase activities compared to older growers.
Across the buying journey, women are the most comfortable using digital channels. Nearly twice as many women as men prefer digital channels for re-purchasing, and substantially more women research, plan, and evaluate their product needs online.
To inspire delight, trust, and digital adoption, suppliers, must personalise
The opportunity to grow digital engagement among farmers is significant—with five times more growers open to using digital channels to make agricultural purchases than today’s levels. But success in driving online adoption will require more creative approaches and greater effort than before. As it stands now, only one out of ten farmers finds digital sources of agriculture information sufficient for their needs.
To win farmer trust, agriculture suppliers must tailor their outreach and offerings. Providing nonstandard pricing is especially important. Farmers used to negotiating terms with their field representatives want similarly individualized pricing when engaging digitally. They also want a say in when inputs will be delivered, with the ability to request non-standard delivery times and locations. Farmers specifically cited the lack of personalization in current ag platforms as a key barrier in making purchases online.
Farmers want experiences tailored to each stage
Agriculture suppliers also need to be more attuned to the interplay between channels. Growers rely on their sales representatives for detailed product information, expertise and value. And they’re looking for easy ordering and a better bargain when using e-commerce. The winning suppliers will be those that recognize these omnichannel preferences and deliver accordingly.
Leading agriculture suppliers will focus on three imperatives:
- Increase grower engagement through digital channels by addressing persistent pain points
- Spur online purchases and trust through personalized experiences that delight the grower
- Recognize the crucial interplay between online and offline channels across the grower buying journey and optimize touchpoints accordingly
Suppliers that embrace these imperatives will cultivate stronger and more enduring grower relationships, and gain clear advantage in a more competitive playing field.
Here starts the second item:
Dell’s digital boss on being a change agent for transformation
Simon Finch says the coronavirus outbreak left retailers grappling for new supply chain models and now organisations must scale new heights to put people and the planet before profit.
By guest author Oliver Pickup from Raconteur Net
The iconic doors of Harrods’ Knightsbridge store closed for the first time in its 172-year history in March 2020, when prime minister Boris Johnson enforced an initial lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus. But what did this mean for the supply chain of arguably the world’s leading luxury department store?
Incredibly, the London stalwart remained open throughout the Blitz and only shut for half a day following a 1983 terrorist attack. Consider the joy, for staff and customers alike, when the doors were unlocked on April 12.
Speaking on the eve of the reopening, Harrods’ supply chain director Simon Finch reveals a “back-to-school feeling” and is optimistic that footfall will be impressive, despite the lack, for the moment, of wealthy tourists. “People are very keen to come back in and Harrods has the benefit of being 1.1 million square feet, so there’s plenty of space for social distancing,” he says.
Finch began his career at Harrods 25 years ago as a graduate trainee. The amateur high-altitude mountaineer, who has scaled Himalayan peaks as well as the highest reaches of Africa and Europe, has climbed the corporate ranks and was appointed to his current role in October 2019, less than six months before the first lockdown.
While both his employer’s online operations and warehouse remained open for the duration of the pandemic, the 46-year-old concedes, with admirable honesty, that like so many other supply chain professionals, he was forced to grapple with unforeseen operational challenges and struggled initially.
“We were probably all a bit too overconfident in the system, a bit like those in financial services when the economic crash happened in 2008, and when something unexpected hit, there was a lot of scrambling around to make things work,” he says.
Championing the technology-driven supply chain revolution
Like other UK retailers, Harrods has been buffeted by the coronavirus crisis and, more recently, Brexit fallout. It is the pandemic, though, that exposed operational weaknesses.
“The pandemic has triggered a supply chain revolution,” says Finch. He argues, convincingly, that businesses were “obsessed with making supply chains as lean as possible” before COVID, moving items around quickly, with minimal stock and expense.
“Coronavirus completely screwed up that approach,” Finch continues, “as the organisations holding themselves up as having the leanest supply chains were the ones that had the most significant challenges as soon as there were global disruptions.
“From now on, the supply chain must be more about agility, to cope with volatility and uncertainty, and less about being lean. However, that agility has to be fully supported by technology and data insights. Whereas previously we have used technology to create a leaner supply chain, now the tech needs to provide the knowledge to make better decisions to drive agility and visibility.”
Data can’t get stuck in the Suez Canal, nor does it get held up at the borders with Europe
Given that Harrods was established in 1849 with the rather ambitious motto of omnia omnibus ubique (all things for all people, everywhere), the consumer behaviour trends accelerated by the pandemic forced the business to keep pace with change and embrace the digital age. Little surprise, then, that Harrods has recently employed more data scientists.
“Understanding our customers, and how we can serve them better, and starting to use artificial intelligence, whether for our replenishment operations, to make sure we have the right amount of stock, or to manage outbound fulfilment volumes, is paramount,” says Finch. “Data can’t get stuck in the Suez Canal, nor does it get held up at the borders with Europe. And the sharing of data with our partners delivers a better operating model for the end-to-end supply chain.”
Data insights and deeper relationships driving sustainability
Technology alone, though, is not enough to drive the supply chain revolution, according to Finch. He contends that it is critical for those operating in the industry to “go retro” and forge or nurture deeper relationships with suppliers, service providers and brand partners.
“Because the pandemic messed everything up, and we didn’t know what was happening, we picked up the phone and spoke to trusted partners and suppliers to all pull things together,” he says. “It was a return to the supply chain of the 1900s.”
Moreover, the combination of emboldened trusted relationships and data insights, plus greater diversity in terms of distribution nodes, inside and outside the UK, enables Harrods to develop a more sustainable supply chain.
The sustainability agenda is critical to the luxury industry and we will lose sales if we don’t do this right
“As a father to two eco-conscious girls, I’m incredibly passionate about sustainability and building a brighter future,” says Finch. “I believe it’s the responsibility of all supply chain professionals and businesses to ensure we are doing the right thing for our customers. Therefore, putting the product closer to the consumer, through a decentralised supply chain and more localised distribution, is a win-win scenario.
“Also, from a purely commercial perspective, this is the direction in which our customers want us to go; the sustainability agenda is critical to the luxury industry and we will lose sales if we don’t do this right.”
To illustrate his vision, Finch uses an example of how inefficient and harmful to the planet the supply chain and fulfilment processes can be from an ecommerce perspective. Goods might be manufactured and shipped from the United States to the UK only to be then sold online and shipped back to an American-based customer.
“We are doing everything wrong if we create that unnecessary movement from a sustainability perspective, and also it increases costs and length of delivery time,” he says.
The COVID crisis may have sparked a supply chain revolution, but it is a work in progress for many retailers, including Harrods. Stressing the importance of diversity, data insights and developing trusted relationships for supply chains of the near future, Finch adds: “By having products that are local to customers, we can serve them more quickly, more cost effectively and more sustainably, while reducing risk, because the goods aren’t moving as far.”
Through shifting its business model and with this smarter, tech-powered approach to the supply chain, Harrods will stand a good chance of keeping its doors, both physical and virtual, open for many years to come.
Here commences the third item:
Made to Measure – Getting design leadership metrics right
Setting a North Star and combining qualitative data with quantitative measures can demonstrate the value and effectiveness of design
By guest authors Melissa Dalrymple, Sam Pickover, and Benedict Sheppard from McKinsey. Melissa Dalrymple is a partner in McKinsey’s Chicago office, and Sam Pickover is a consultant in the London office, where Benedict Sheppard is a partner.
Last year we posed a simple question to organizations: “Are you asking enough from your design leaders?” It’s an important question given that companies excelling in design grow revenues and shareholder returns at nearly twice the rate of their industry peers. Moreover, in these ruptured times, companies with a human-centered approach can better navigate and respond to the seismic shifts taking place in how we live, shop, and work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the results of our survey were, quite frankly, a bit dismal: only 10 percent of respondents reported realizing design’s full potential, a result driven primarily by a lack of clarity as to how design leaders can contribute and uncertainty about what to expect of them in their role.
Previously, we wrote about several interconnected interventions that can help elevate design’s performance and role in an organization. One has sparked more debate than the rest: the use of design metrics.
To be sure, design-related metrics are challenging to get right. They require a balance of empathy, qualitative insights, and quantitative awareness. It’s the last of these that has proven thorny to many, particularly when tying quantitative customer insights to financial performance and business actions. It is the ability to link design to value, however, that can unlock design’s strategic potential.
When crafted correctly, design metrics can give leaders accurate readings into the health and performance of a design organization so they can steer it effectively. One software company with well-built design metrics can now estimate its future revenues from new software releases, enabling staff to precisely target the design elements that will increase adoption and, ultimately, revenue.
Growing recognition from the C-suite of the impact unique, human-centered insights can have on the company’s bottom line means that design leaders will face increasing demand for them. As one medtech CEO put it, “If I don’t have robust data on whether my products are improving the lives and outcomes for my patients—and doing so better than my competitors—then shame on me.”
But how does a design leader get metrics right? In our experience, there are eight actions that design leaders can take to both capture the right metrics and elevate their use across the organization to maximize design’s impact. Taking inspiration from better-known 3D frameworks, we think of these activities as falling into three phases: Dream, or setting your strategy; Detail, or identifying the key performance indicators (KPIs); and Drive, or steering the company toward action (Exhibit 1).
Made to measure: Getting design leadership metrics right
To get the full value of design, organizations need to position their strategy around a North Star metric, which can be one metric or a small set of metrics that captures a particular business ambition around which business teams and leaders rally and to which design will contribute. The ambition might be to improve customer experience, develop new businesses, or improve organizational ways of working. The quantified metric can come from multiple sources: a user-experience metric, such as a customer-satisfaction score; an operational metric, such as customer retention; or a financial metric, such as revenues (see Exhibit 2 for examples).
Adopting a North Star metric is not a solitary endeavor for a design leader. It is often chosen in conjunction with other leaders so that teams strive toward the same goal. It is by working together that companies can create the elusive seamless experience that customers prize.
Set your North Star metric
Our research suggests that there is no one metric that is inherently better at driving success. Far more important is that the metric align with the company’s value proposition, resonate with business and functional leaders, and be easily measured and reported.
In many cases, we find this happens naturally, as design leaders often inherit their North Star metric as part of an existing business mandate. For example, a design leader sitting within the customer-experience, marketing, or digital function will likely see a strong preference for survey-based customer-satisfaction metrics and quantified targets that the function already embraces.
But in cases where leaders are given a more vague business ambition (for example, “help the organization become more design-led”), articulating a clear North Star metric for design that meets these criteria can build support from the outset and ensure their design goal is in lockstep with the business.
When setting a North Star metric for the team for the first time, it’s good practice for design leaders to test it with business leaders in the organization, especially when they are considering a metric not commonly used by the business. We recommend leaders start by running a small pilot project within a single business unit to show how the metric informs decisions, followed by a staged rollout as its value is proven. This can help translate the importance behind the metric and help the thinking become more accepted.
Once you have set your North Star metric, you’ll need to know how to move it in the right direction. Doing so requires developing a system for measuring performance drivers at the right level of detail.
Use cascading KPIs
To target specific areas for improvement, leaders must first identify and link KPIs across each level of a product or service experience that can drive the North Star. This can include everything from pricing and branding to usability and product or service performance (Exhibit 3).
Consider, for instance, a North American software provider that has been able to estimate future revenues associated with new software releases thanks to its metrics system. Its North Star is a single customer-satisfaction score that expresses how widely a new feature or product is being used by customers. By breaking down this score for individual product lines and specific features based on the criteria that best gauges their performance (for example, for one software product, the score is based on percent of users using the feature, while another looks at amount of time spent using the feature) and drilling down within specific time periods (such as the month after a major release), leaders know sooner which product releases will meet revenue targets and which will need to be fine-tuned further.
Sometimes, however, there’s simply no direct relationship between, say, a survey-based score, such as a brand-recognition score, and journey-based measures, such as a customer-satisfaction score. In these cases, we find leaders can often quantify this relationship mathematically, using, at first, basic rules or heuristics (for instance, “We won’t invest unless it provides a 20-point customer-satisfaction score boost”) and, ultimately, a detailed correlation analysis. A financial-services company, for instance, traces its customer-experience measures, which include basic customer-satisfaction surveys and a customer-effort score, to a measure the business cares most about: transaction volumes. It calculates how transaction volumes change as the design team fixes specific pain points within the customer journey or solves for unmet needs in the experience. By linking them in this way, the company can, as it pilots new experiences, calculate the financial benefit based on the customer-experience benefit.
Certainly, this isn’t a quick activity—it can take months; however, the rewards, such as being able to prioritize improvements to specific journeys or products and derisking investment by delivering products and experiences customers actually want, are certainly worth it.
Measure journeys, not touchpoints
A common trap many companies fall into is measuring only one customer interaction, such as a single in-store experience. However, to fully understand the impact of design decisions, teams need to consider the entire customer journey by linking experiences across multiple visits and channels.
One European telecommunications company, for example, stitched together customer calls to its call center, and analysis of the data revealed that customer satisfaction dropped substantially among customers after they had to place a second call for assistance with the same problem. This insight helped the design team reprioritize the goals of its current work on redesigning how customers purchased and upgraded products. The team widened its aperture from optimizing design for a zero-touch experience, which was its original focus, to also improving design in a way that reduced the need for a customer to call more than once to solve a problem. This enabled design to improve the overall customer experience more comprehensively—and efficiently.
In another example, the team redesigning the digital channels of a hotel company initially intended to focus only on website conversion as its one critical goal. However, once the team began tracking website engagement and talking to guests, it discovered that longer visits (supported by new and improved content) provided a vital indicator of interest and ultimately led to conversion. Had the team removed engagement opportunities in order to streamline the touchpoints required to book a room, it would have eliminated the chance to help its guests dream of the vacations that awaited them and failed to build their confidence that its properties were the ones to choose.
Choose metrics that matter to the business
Often, there are multiple ways of measuring the same thing. Usability, for example, can be assessed with some combination of metrics as diverse as completion rates, efficiency, and survey-based satisfaction scores. So how can design leaders ensure they are choosing the right ones for their organization? Our experience suggests calibrating metrics with the business in mind and, most often, alongside business leaders to ensure alignment.
Design leaders should collaborate with adjacent business leaders to ensure all metrics can be easily understood and placed in context. At an Asia–Pacific consumer-goods company, for example, the chief design officer (CDO) worked with business leaders from the company’s research and development and marketing departments to develop an indicator for the future performance of one product. The exercise took a number of months, with dedicated teams from finance, marketing, R&D, and design contributing their proposed set of metrics and their weighting. Ultimately, the product was given a score that combined assessments of financial viability, technical feasibility, and its anticipated desirability by creating a weighted average across the three areas.
Since this was a joint effort and business leaders had an opportunity to weigh in, it was widely accepted. Additionally, because the company’s CDO led the development of this metric, he remained involved in discussions around new product launches, even after the initial framing role of the design team had tailed off, bringing fresh insights around user experiences to help agile teams create user-centric product strategies.
Metrics should also be easily defended and viewed as logical and credible by business leaders in the organization. For this reason, we find that including real-time measures from existing operational systems (something more than 60 percent of McKinsey Design Index respondents fail to do) often offers a better solution than using survey data on its own, which can appear arbitrary or overly subjective. Design leaders at one large corporation, for example, found that business leaders wouldn’t embrace a score they had developed to help anticipate the in-market performance of a new product because qualitative assessments of usability relied primarily on self-assessments, which the business leaders perceived as biased, even though the score proved a viable predictor of launch success. This isn’t to suggest that design leaders eschew qualitative measures altogether (in fact, in the next section we share why they’re imperative and how best to incorporate them in your metrics). But it is important for design leaders to question how the business might respond before relying on them too heavily.
Collect qualitative as well as quantitative measures
Our work has demonstrated that it’s essential for leaders to pair quantitative metrics with qualitative inputs, just as our research has shown that designers themselves should pair qualitative and quantitative insights and inputs in their own work. Certainly, qualitative measures can be tricky. In addition to sometimes facing skepticism from the business side, they can be challenging to obtain regularly from a broad enough base of customers to feel representative. However, we’ve found that only by combining them with quantitative measures can leaders capture the full value of design. In many cases, qualitative inputs provide the “why” that illuminates the quantitative “what” and show the best route to solutions.
Qualitative measures can take many forms, such as customer interviews, quotes from surveys, live demonstrations where customers make use of a product or service, or documented case studies. Many companies use aggregated statistics to help them understand broad trends in sentiment but then can quickly drill down to specific themes and comments to understand what is really happening. Some companies we know have customers join their monthly executive-committee sessions. At one large consumer-goods and pharmaceuticals company, the chief data officer makes use of a collection of powerful case-study stories that demonstrates the value that design has brought, alongside more quantitative data.
Track team performance
Of course, well-crafted metrics can move in the right direction only if the design team is performing well. For most leaders, measuring design-team performance includes assessing the work of designers and looking at measures such as design spend, utilization, and productivity. Collectively, these measures can help confirm that designers are performing effectively, and doing so within budget, which can have the knock-on effect of elevating design in the eyes of the wider leadership team, who might have the outdated view that design is a nice-to-have that comes at added cost. At one North American technology company, for instance, the head of design earned the respect of the CFO by not only staying on budget but also reducing design costs annually over six years. Doing this required not only performance metrics but also design-budget ownership.
Beyond the basic metrics around cost and efficiency, some design leaders make use of less common measures to understand their team’s performance as it relates to specific team goals. For example, at a multinational financial-services company seeking to turn design into a tool for innovation and strategy development, the design leader targets a failure rate of 75 % for design projects to ensure that design teams are working on the most ambitious things. By working in agile sprints, the teams’ ability to course-correct quickly while testing and learning allows for experimentation that’s recognized as providing critical information rather than an unrecoverable failure or sunk cost.
Some companies measure the impact of design within the broader organization—for example, by tracking design methods, including how frequently teams involve users in product development and prototyping, even if the design function isn’t officially involved. One CEO we know sees (and measures) the evolution of design within the organization following three broad phases; first, a narrow focus on aesthetics and form; then an emphasis on end-to-end user experiences; and, ultimately, the final phase, in which design and design thinking infuse everything the company does.
Drive: Steering the company toward action
The goal of any metrics system is ultimately to drive action, and we find the most successful design leaders take steps to integrate these metrics into the fabric of their organization by regularly tracking and communicating progress with stakeholders and ensuring the metrics are embedded in performance reviews.
Visualise and share progress
We find that an effective way to track and communicate design’s performance against business and design goals is to create a dashboard featuring comprehensive and compelling visuals that convey the latest metrics as well as performance over time (interactive).
The goal of any metrics system is ultimately to drive action, and we find the most successful design leaders take steps to integrate these metrics into the fabric of their organization by regularly tracking and communicating progress with stakeholders and ensuring the metrics are embedded in performance reviews.
The most effective dashboards also include visible alerts that let design leaders know immediately when design is at risk of missing targets or metrics are moving in the wrong direction. Dashboards should also provide industry context, such as historical analysis or competitive insights (at the overall company level as well as for specific products and experiences), that help senior design executives understand how they measure up in the larger marketplace.
Of course, as with the design metrics themselves, dashboards should be built with, and not just for, the various stakeholder groups that will use them. While the design leader will serve as the dashboard’s power user, other senior leaders will consume the insights periodically, be it through a self-serve model or during leadership meetings in which executives share progress reports. (The interactive offers insights from dashboards used by some of the Incentivize action
Credible, clearly communicated metrics show progress, but incentives often drive progress. Currently, only 20 percent of McKinsey Design Index respondents report using quantitative design measures in evaluations, and only 5 percent explicitly tie these to remuneration.
The best design leaders lobby to include relevant design measures in the performance reviews of senior leaders. While co-developing the metrics with these fellow leaders, as outlined earlier, makes this more feasible, the CEO will ultimately need to facilitate holding executives accountable for their contributions and tie incentives directly to performance. At one consumer-packaged-goods company in Europe, the CEO tied all executive remuneration to average product ratings as compared to the competition on Amazon, elevating design accountability to the entire C-suite. Other companies link the CEO’s own incentives to design metrics. Some companies we know have, for example, tied as much as 15 percent of CEO compensation to survey-based user-satisfaction measures.world’s leading chief design officers.)
Getting metrics right is no easy task for design leaders, who must work hand in hand with senior executives across the organization to stitch together a variety of measures that capture progress and impact. But the payoffs cannot be understated. Well-crafted metrics can ensure design executives stay on track to deliver results, unite senior leaders toward common objectives, illuminate and evangelize the value of design, and, ultimately, drive consumer satisfaction and company success. Design leaders who take stock of their progress against each of the initiatives we’ve outlined and ramp up those in which they’re lagging can be more certain they’re positioned to capture the benefits of clear design metrics.
Newsletter of last week
Opera’s Biggest Fan leaves behind a Sprawling Time Capsule – The CFO’s role in capability building – UNWTO and IATA Collaborate on Destination Tracker to Restore Confidence in Travel https://textile-future.com/archives/67626
The highlights of last week’s NEWS, for your convenience, just click on the feature to read.
Accessories
Post-pandemic emotions – Riri’s SS 2022 collection explores the mind of the future https://textile-future.com/archives/67860
Acquisition
Nestlé to acquire core brands of The Bountiful Company, expands health and nutrition portfolio https://textile-future.com/archives/67963
AI Artificial Intelligence
XNFY Lab announce the Launch of an AI Generated Fashion https://textile-future.com/archives/67834
Autonomous driving
Autonomous driving – Vision test for autonomous cars by Swiss Empa https://textile-future.com/archives/67895
Auto Parts
Auto-Parts Retailers still have Room to Run https://textile-future.com/archives/67976
Companies
Porsche publishes travel and cultural guide on hip-hop in Europe https://textile-future.com/archives/67734
UBS reports 1Q21 net profit of USD 1.8 billion, 18.2% return on CET1 capitalhttps://textile-future.com/archives/67772
Mike Dargan appointed Chief Digital and Information Officer; Barbara Levi named Group General Counsel, Markus Diethelm to become senior advisor at UBS https://textile-future.com/archives/67774
Amazon avoids recovery Blues https://textile-future.com/archives/67968
Syngenta Group reports strong first quarter results https://textile-future.com/archives/67981
Data
How has the EU labour market been hit by the COVID-19 crisis? https://textile-future.com/archives/67821
Are EU citizens safe at work? https://textile-future.com/archives/67838
U.S. GDP growth accelerated in the first quarter https://textile-future.com/archives/67857
Global FDI flows plummeted to USD 846 billion in 2020, a 38 % decrease compared to 2019, says OECD https://textile-future.com/archives/67925
Swiss Nominal wage increase of 0.8 % in 2020 and Real Wage increase of 1.5 % https://textile-future.com/archives/67931
Swiss retail trade turnover rises steeply in March 2021 https://textile-future.com/archives/67943
McKinsey’s week in Charts https://textile-future.com/archives/67999
Divestments
Strategic transformation completed – Swiss Conzzeta reaches agreement to divest Swiss Mammut https://textile-future.com/archives/67658
VF Corporation enters into Definitive Agreement to sell the Occupational Portion of Its Work Segment https://textile-future.com/archives/67854
E-Mobility
Finland is charging up the drive toward e-mobility https://textile-future.com/archives/67875
Events
ITMF Annual Conference in Davos, Switzerland postponed to April 10-12, 2022 https://textile-future.com/archives/67795
Textech Galaxy (Shanghaitex) https://textile-future.com/archives/67992
Fashion
Fast fashion brands come under fire for involvement in forced labour https://textile-future.com/archives/67661
Functional goes fashionable with advanced leakproof underwear made without a plastic layer https://textile-future.com/archives/67712
Global green Financial Centres
Global Green Finance Index – Rating The Progress Of The World’s Green Financial Centreshttps://textile-future.com/archives/67954
Innovation
BASF strengthens innovation capabilities in Asia https://textile-future.com/archives/67808
Labelling
Smart Labels for Data Driven BusinessNordic Label – adding digital value for brands with Xeikon https://textile-future.com/archives/67716
Modelling
Diane Keaton dishes on Talk Show Style and Modelling for Gucci https://textile-future.com/archives/67670
Packaging
The new packaging regulations every luxury business needs to know https://textile-future.com/archives/67958
Plastics
For which plastic products is biodegradation a viable end-of-life option? https://textile-future.com/archives/67709
Printing
Why inkjet is your next growth opportunity https://textile-future.com/archives/ 67722
New Products
Quick overview thanks to digital management assistant by Karl Mayer https://textile-future.com/archives/67610
Retailing
Scotch & Soda announces the Opening of its Largest Store Worldwide In The Netherlands, Featuring New Brand Identity https://textile-future.com/archives/67725
Yours Clothing to open shop-in-shops in Tesco stores https://textile-future.com/archives/67813
Zalando launches ‘shop-by-values’ service allowing shoppers to filter by “causes they care about” https://textile-future.com/archives/67817
U.S. Mother’s Day spending to total USD 28.1 billion, says NRF https://textile-future.com/archives/67685
Science
Swiss Empa: High Performance Ceramics – Heavy charge against water germs https://textile-future.com/archives/67866
Success Stories
A radical leap in fabric inspection https://textile-future.com/archives/67844
Seizing opportunities in the crisis – Weaving in Pakistan is expanding and investing in machinery including KARL MAYER’s PROSIZE® and WARPDIRECT® https://textile-future.com/archives/67615
Sustainability
Nilit introduces sustainable nylon fibre- Sensil BioCare https://textile-future.com/archives/67664
Environmental sustainability by recycling Polyester https://textile-future.com/archives/67693
Devan and Jeanologia join forces to reduce water usage for antimicrobial and skincare finishes for post garment treatments https://textile-future.com/archives/67761
ISKO launches bluesign® APPROVED fabrics, the latest in performance and activewear sustainability https://textile-future.com/archives/67907
Vaccine
Lonza and Moderna enter New Agreement to double Drug Substance Production for COVID-19 Vaccine in Visp, Switzerland https://textile-future.com/archives/67973
Trade
WTO examines progress in landlocked developing countries’ trade performance https://textile-future.com/archives/67766
WTO saddened by passing of former Deputy Director-General Miguel Rodríguez Mendoza https://textile-future.com/archives/67791
Webinars
Euromonitor Webinar on the Future of the Mobility and Automotive Industry https://textile-future.com/archives/67702
Groz-Beckert Online seminar in May is on Warp knitting modules (May 11, 2021) https://textile-future.com/archives/67771