La Afectividad Disfórica en el Rorschach

Due to the high level of consolidation that characterises the UK clothing retail sector, the supply chain power has shifted from apparel manufacturers to large and powerful retailers. The fewer but stronger vendors are in a position now to mandate favourable terms in their contracts with manufacturers involving price, services, delivery and products diversification and differentiation (Sen, 2008). Manufacturers are increasingly requested to present goods floor-ready, bar- coded and priced. Direct deliveries to individual stores, ratio-packed cross docking are also growing, and together these practices enable the retailer to save time and space on the warehousing and pre-retailing of goods. Barnes and Lea-Greenwood (2006) highlight that as the retailers’ power in the supply chain is increasing, they are able to insist that manufacturers take additional responsibilities and are responsive to their needs, or they simply take business elsewhere. As well as lowering their costs, suppliers are under increased pressure to be more flexible and responsive to changing demand. This has manifested itself in the retailers pushing further responsibilities onto their suppliers, for example suppliers are now expected to carry out quality control, packaging, ticketing and are encouraged to do creative product development in a attempt to reduce cycle times further and be more responsive to consumer demand (Barnes and Lea-Greenwood, 2006). Reported additional services the retailers are expecting from their suppliers are supplier-managed inventory, up to full-fabric sourcing services and a permanent presence at the retailer’s HQ (Palpacuer, 2002). As a result, collaborating with fashion retailers has led to suppliers having to work differently to become more consumer-responsive, but this had resulted in added costs for the suppliers (Storey et al., 2005).

Oxborrow (1999) states that it is possible that the UK suppliers are disadvantaged by being expected to supply these services with little recompense and within the agreed price per unit, when specialist processing companies are developing to supply similar added-value to imported goods at additional expense to the retailer or importer. Abernathy et al. (2000) highlight that although it is certainly true that a supplier gains from successful customers,

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the degree to which such a company actually benefits has much to do with its internal manufacturing choices. A supplier that has done little to change its internal practices and lacks flexibility in its operations, may end up simply holding the retailer’s inventory, for example. Alternatively, an adept supplier who substitutes information for inventory in planning, production and distribution may well share in the competitive advantages derived from better information on the true state of final customer demand.

The power imbalance between retailers and their suppliers in the buyer-driven fashion supply chains has led to previous studies reporting that feedback ‘from apparel manufacturers and fabric suppliers to date shows a clear need for greater co-operation between the two sectors of the industry’ (Haines, 1990), with Banning (1994) concluding that the relationship between the manufacturer and retailer for the past thirty years has been largely a matter of ‘dog eat dog’. An EMAP UK Fashion Report (1998/1999) also concluded that the main dynamic holding the industry back is the largely adversarial relationship of manufacturers and retailers. This inhibits best practice and generates supply chain inefficiencies, which contribute to the lack of competitive edge (Jones, 2006).

The global nature of the fashion industry, furthermore, increases the need for close collaborative relationships between the different actors. Authors such as Flanagan and Leffman (2001) suggest that the risks associated with offshore sourcing can be mostly overcome if a high trust relationship is developed between the buyers and their suppliers or if the buyer establishes a presence in the country of manufacture to ensure standards are kept up. In the apparel industry, however, due to its low barriers to entry, the global garment manufacturing sector of the fashion industry consists of a huge number of low cost, highly developed apparel manufacturers able to provide the wide supply skill base required (Nordas, 2004). These are mostly SMEs, with a limited amount of power, from which the retailers can ‘pick and mix’ those able to respond to its continuously changing needs. There is overcapacity in the global apparel manufacturing industry and this has granted even more power to the fashion retailers (Speer, 2003).

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In this context, the collaborative supplier relationships that might even have traditionally been described as ‘long term’ may be less applicable. Corbett et al. (1999) for example have already identified the difficulties in fostering close partnerships and developing close integration across the supply chain in such a regime.

As highlighted earlier, in the fashion industry the customer’s appetite for variety, increased rates of product introduction, product proliferation and shortened product cycles have, in recent years, increased demand uncertainty, requiring retailers to respond much faster to rapidly changing and unpredictable markets (Jin, 2004). This has resulted in product specifications changing frequently during the development process, and these changes are not infrequent as the product nears the sales season and sealed samples are produced by suppliers (Kincade et al., 2007). This is when ranges are finalised and when fashion trends become clearer. These changes are costly and disruptive, as is found in all manufacturing sectors (Tyler et al., 2006). In such environments, numerous studies have emphasised the importance of integrating suppliers, manufacturers and customers (Frohlich and Westbrook, 2001; Clinton and Closs, 1997) across the supply network from the early stages of product development.

However, product development in the textile and clothing industry has long been characterised by functional independence, with each participant contributing to the process sequentially (Tyler et al., 2006). This is a practice which results in excessive costs and rework in production associated with late stage design changes (Hartley, 1990). A supply chain benchmarking study (Clothing World, 1996) reveals that product development was a major area for improvement in the apparel industry. It appears that time scales are too long, there is much wasted effort, and that communications between the different functions – design, production, marketing, sales are poor. Watson (1997) estimated that, on average, only 30% of the products developed actually find their way into the store, with product development cycles in the UK averaging 167 days. The manufacturing part of this is only 39 days, so the industry spends

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a lot of time on non-value adding activities, and clearly, this has both a direct and indirect cost (Tyler et al., 2006).

In response to this, some clothing retailers and their apparel manufacturers have started collaborating in demand forecasting (Oxborrow, 2000). In general, buyers usually focus on sales forecasts, predicting consumers’ reaction to fashion trends and demand for new product lines and promotions, while manufacturers emphasise the order forecasts, aiming at the achievement of efficient replenishment and optimum utilisation of production capacity. If these forecasts are done in isolation, which is commonplace, it could be difficult to get similar predictions of demand. Hence, stock-out and overstock would result (Au and Ho, 2002). Such examples of collaboration and process integration are, however, much more relevant to markets and products that lend themselves to easy forecasting. However, in an industry such as fashion, where the average product shelf life is four weeks the system’s flexibility, responsiveness and synchronisation become much more important (Storey et al., 2005).