One of the most insightful experiences at D-Congress did not occur in the audience of the many talks – it happened on the trade show floor.
After lunch on day two of the Gothenburg-based retail conference, hosted by Svensk Handel, the Swedish Trade Federation, I decided to peruse the many booths that centered the show at Gothia Towers.
The first impression was nothing short of epileptic. Rows and rows of brightly colored installations selling everything from payment platforms, automated influencer tools, supply chain management systems, and an array of other software-based solutions for the visiting e-commerce brands to purchase. It was pretty hard to tell what was what, between the business lingo and buzz word writings on the walls. For every “scalable solution”, there were two “power of data”. For every “premium personalization”, there were three “revolutionary” tools. Add on a few dozen “seamless experiences” and countless “sustainable” and “circular” and the mumbo jumbo mega bonanza that is the SaaS industry’s marketing discourse was complete.
One booth actually promised a very clear description of “Growth”, “Potential”, “Opportunities”, “Equity”, and “Success”… I guess the copywriter just couldn’t choose what nonsensical, non-descriptive word to describe the service, and just went with all of them, the customer non the wiser.
I had just left an inspiring seminar hosted by my friends at GS1, which spoke of the need for data-sharing solutions to boost the fashion industry’s transformation towards something more sustainable (a notion I completely agree with, by the way, read last week’s column) and suddenly felt completely dispirited.
Standing among the software providers (I’m sure well-meaning) presentations, it suddenly struck me: this is how fashion brands must feel when approached by the tech industry. A constant stream of hard-to-understand technical solutions promising a more “streamlined” and “profitable” future.
I was reminded by something a high-level sustainability director for one of Scandinavia’s largest fashion brands told me: “How on earth are we supposed to know which service to buy?!”
Add to that the insight from Natasha Frank, CEO of EON, who on our podcast explained that the very important services that her company provides often need to involve the following people from the fashion brands to fully work: the head of sustainability, the chief technical officer, the chief financial officer, the procurement guys, as well as the product designers.
This underscores the point I’m trying to make in this column: fashion and tech need each other more than ever. But they speak completely different languages, and the knowledge about each other’s worlds is not nearly deep enough.
One thing I have learned during my years working in the intersection of fashion and technology, is that this divide is one of the industry’s biggest problems. The technology needed to solve many of the fashion industry’s major problems – the lack of transparency, the need for data, the overproduction – isn’t very complicated. The main problem is implementation. And for that to happen, we need more knowledge sharing and a common language.
We are working constantly on this at Scandinavian MIND, through our content feeds and our upcoming Transformation Conference. But leaving D-Congress I was wondering if the event hadn’t solved the connection issue themselves. As soon as the clock turned 17.00 the place exploded with the most intense cocktail hour I’ve ever experienced at a trade show.
Maybe that’s what the industry needs most of all.
