Pode ser a vantagem das PME

"Many fashion brands suffer from high inventories and suboptimal sell-through, which cause strong markdowns and diminishing margins. Full-price sell-throughs between 65% and 80% and stock turns above 4.0 to 5.0 have been more a rule than an exception in the past. Today both commercial fashion brands and premium/luxury brands struggle to maintain comparable levels. Often, even total sell- through falls to levels below 70%, causing inevitable margin losses from skyrocketing markdowns far beyond benchmark levels of 12% to 15%.
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Global increases of cost for apparel and footwear production have steadily continued during the last two years. Sourcing markets with stable costs are rare while the vast majority showed strong to very strong increases of production costs. This does not only affect China which has already been on a strong upward trend for many years, but also many of the typical low-cost sourcing destinations in South East Asia like Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Recent cost increases have been driven by both rising labor costs and strengthening local currencies in the sourcing markets versus US Dollar and Euro.
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Facing these strong cost increases in key sourcing markets, brands and retailers continue to search for alternatives in their global sourcing portfolios, shifting their production from more established yet increasingly costly regions (e.g. South-East China) to less developed but cost-wise promising regions (e.g. Western China, Myanmar, Cambodia). [Moi ici: Recordar o exemplo da Etiópia] While this is easing the pressure on the cost side in the short term, it is adding clear risk on flexibility and operational performance as well as product quality and corporate social responsibility. In addition capabilities and capacities for selected product groups are not available in the same breadth and quality, limiting the opportunity for larger shifts of volume especially of products on higher price points and with more sophisticated technical requirements.
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While shifting volumes to “even lower cost countries” might appear as a possible way out of the “gross margin trap” the true effects are limited."

A doença que começámos a relatar aqui há mais de 10 anos começa a chegar agora às consultoras que trabalham com empresas grandes. Imaginem as transformações que estão ou vão de ter ser feitas por essas pesadas e conservadoras estruturas. Depois, leiam "Never Under-Estimate the Immune System":

"Every large and successful institution has an immune system – a collection of individuals who are prepared to mobilize at the slightest sign of any “outside” ideas or people in order to ensure that these foreign bodies are neutralized and that the existing institution survives intact and can continue on course.
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But here’s the paradox: the immune system that has given large institutions extraordinary resilience in the past may be the very thing that makes these institutions so vulnerable today. In more stable times, institutional immune systems are very effective at keeping institutions focused and on course, resistant to the distractions that might lead to their downfall. In more rapidly changing and volatile signs, this same immune system can become deadly by resisting the very changes that are required for the survival of the institution.
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I’ve been involved in large scale transformation efforts for decades now and there’s only one lesson that I really have to share from all that experience: never, ever under-estimate the power of the immune system of a large existing institution. I’ve developed an enormous respect for the incredible power of the institutional immune system.
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And let me be clear. The immune system is not driven by evil people. The people who are part of the immune system are extremely well intentioned – their overwhelming desire is to contribute to the success of their institutions. That’s why they are fighting so hard and so determined to crush the foreign bodies."

Esta pode ser a vantagem das PME num mundo em que VUCA rules. Pode, porque há PME tão avessas à mudança quanto uma empresa grande.