Becoming Digital: The Need to Redesign Competences and Skills in the Fashion Industry

The digitalisation of fashion companies has a significant impact on required staff skills and competences. This chapter aims to investigate, through the analysis of literature and business practices, how the development of Industry 4.0 affects organisational processes and staff competences, redefining the content of traditional jobs and creating new key roles in the fashion industry. After reviewing the characteristics of Industry 4.0 and, in particular, of the digital fashion factory, this chapter conducts a literature review to identify the set of skills and competences that the research has revealed to be necessary, distinguishing between technical competences and behavioural competences. Some traditional roles of fashion firms (seller, designer, buyer, etc.) are then examined alongside the related new skills and competences that have arisen due to the impact of technology on business processes; necessary skills are defined for new roles with reference to technology, sourcing, manufacturing, and retail, with particular reflections on the role of the digital marketing expert. These technology-related changes impact everything from human resource management processes, which must adapt to new levels of a company’s professionalism, to the need for new tools to support people management activities and new ways of carrying out work that emphasise the need for leadership skills in management roles. Finally, this chapter reflects on the challenges that technological changes pose to companies in terms of organisational culture and the education and training system that must exist to support this new world of work.