The IFM-TCBL Awards

TCBL HANDBOOKS

THE IFM-TCBL AWARDS

Co-funded by Horizon 2020

TCBL 646133 – HANDBOOK RELEASED AS ANNEX IX TO D4.4 30 June 2019

THE CHALLENGE Offshoring of fashion and textile production in the last 30 years has led the business to focus on design and management, with higher education bodies training students accordingly. Students were especially briefed to look for internships or jobs in large and famous groups or brands.

They believed that jobs in large companies were more interesting, careers had better prospects and wages were higher.

In parallel, those SMEs that maintained activities in France1 were dedicated to subcontracting or highly specialised crafts. They did not necessarily need designers or managers to run their businesses, and even when they did, they could not compete on salaries with the big brands.

SMEs also have cultural idiosyncrasies: they are more focussed, they take business risks, and they learn from experience, all skills that are not necessarily emphasized in French education.

It has only been a few years since consumer awareness of the lack of sustainability in the Textile and Clothing (T&C) industry has transformed the large fashion and textile companies into prime suspects. As consumers do not know anything about the supply chains behind them, brands are held responsible for poor working conditions, high levels of water use and carbon footprints or even pushing for an endless over-production system.

In this context, it was previously very difficult for smaller fashion and textile companies to hire graduates, particularly for the SMEs, which are the majority of T&C job seekers in France.2 This is starting to change, however, as an increasing number of new or repositioned SMEs go for sustainability and more and more young or experienced professionals start a second life looking for more independence in their careers.

The Institut Franรงais de la Mode (IFM), as a higher education body, is developing new tools to improve the match between shifting industry needs and the aspirations of its students. In the context of TCBL, IFM decided to address the following questions: 1. How to facilitate a better matchmaking between SMEs and graduates?

2. How to change the perception of SMEs towards young designers?

3. How to help bridge the wage gap?

The challenge here was how to make it easier for SMEs to work with students and young professionals holding a higher education level degree. Within the TCBL network, an initiative was launched, named the IFM-TCBL Awards (ITA).

1 2

While this report is focused on the French context, the analysis can be applied throughout Europe.

IFM and Opcalia estimated that in France, 90% of companies in the T&C sector have less than 49 people, which amounts to 33% of the total employment in the T&C sector (2015).

THE APPROACH The IFM-TCBL Awards was a two-tiered pilot project, carried forward in 2018 and 2019.

The initial session of ITA in 2018 was considered extremely successful and a video was prepared to showcase the best practice it represented and to disseminate it to a large number of French stakeholders, support organis ations and potential candidates for the next session. Some specific changes were done before the 2019 implementation session, notably involving young professionals rather than graduates, due to timing constraints.

OBJECTIVES In both 2018 and 2019, the structure and goals of the Awards remained the same. In the preliminary phase, pools of SMEs and young applicants were attracted to co-create innovative project ideas. These were then evaluated through a selection committee to identify the winning pairs that would work together successfully on the project realisation. In the development phase, the paired SME and graduates or young professionals were coached to help them align the respective interests and methods. The final phase was a debrief from both parties, which led into shooting videos3 with ideas to refine the process from 2018 to 2019 and help to promote the Awards via the TCBL European network’s media channels.

In retrospect, during the preliminary phase it proved important: •

• • •

to ensure the participation of SMEs who were ready to work on a real project, starting from ideas that they probably had in mind without the time or talent to push them through; to involve graduates or professionals, however talented, with motivation to work in a small team, ready for multi-tasking while capable of being realistic; to select innovative projects, potentially benefitting the participant SME, the young designer and the T&C industry at the same time; to select the members of the Selection Committee on the basis of the TCBL values4.

In the development phase, the coaching of winning teams contributed to keep the involvement and energy high, particularly for young graduates who had to live for the first time with the SMEs’ constraints: reaching high objectives in a limited amount of time and with little budget available.

FINANCING T&C stakeholders like cluster organisations, business associations and other bodies potentially able to fund this kind of activity were very positive in the assessment of the first year’s experience but none ultimately volunteered to co-finance a new session. Therefore, the funding was reduced by half. That led to a shortened assignment of 1 month and an award of € 5,000 per project to be paid to the young consultant after the successful completion of his or her mission.

3

See IFM – TCBL Video 2018 and 2019

4

https://tcbl.eu/tcbl-ecosystem/values

THE EXECUTION TARGET GROUPS The invitation to apply was sent to a dual target: on the one hand, small businesses that could submit an innovative project idea for which they were seeking help, and on the other hand alumni of fashion and business schools who could register as being interested to participate.

The two groups were contacted respectively via the websites of T&C Clusters, Associations, IFM and related partner organisations and via the alumni associations of a selection of schools.

Around 50 contacts were made by direct mail.

The timing of the assignment corresponded in 2018 to graduates’ holidays whereas in 2019, it had to be made during the school period. The team thus decided to extend eligibility to individual applicants who were graduates of fashion and/or business schools and were temporarily out of a stable employment position. They would then work as consultants for the businesses they would match with.

CONSTITUTION OF PAIRS The innovative projects were then shared with the youths and those who were interested in working for one or more proposals gave their preference rankings. After a round of discussions with all candidates, the pre-selection was of 7 pairs of SMEs and graduates in 2018 and 9 Pairs of SMEs and young professionals in 2019.

Each young graduate or professional was then asked to prepare a PowerPoint presentation for the Selection Committee with a list of questions to cover.

SELECTION The Selection Committee was made up of four members who represented Re-Active/ R3iLab, Techtera, Up-Tex and the Couture Federation.

Each member assessed the quality of projects based on 4 criteria: benefit for the SME, benefit for the industry, innovativeness, and feasibility in the limited amount of time allowed.

SUPPORT PHASE The 2 winning partnerships were then introduced into a coaching process led by Frédérique Thureau and Danièle Clutier of IFM. Three meetings with them and each partnership were held.

These sessions were used to share knowledge and also to introduce the teams to experienced contacts (academics, experts, business accelerators…) that could help solve specific key questions.

REPORTING AND DISSEMINATION Each partnership delivered to IFM a confidential report on the work done and conclusions were reached that provided evidence of the quality of the work done and allowed to release the agreed payments to the two consultants.

As in 2018 a final video was elaborated and disseminated on the website and during the #TCBL_2019 Conference in Iasi (RO).

NEXT STEPS The IFM-TCBL Awards project was a very successful initiative, welcomed by both SMEs and young graduates and professionals. In 2018 and 2019, the managers of the four SMEs expressed their satisfaction with the work done, especially in marketing, management, design, strategic thinking and logistics, and acknowledged that for small businesses like them it would have been impossible to pay for and benefit from such a high-quality consulting and coaching service. The 4 young consultants were thankful for the in-depth experience gained that would enhance their own competencies and employability in the fashion sector.

Despite the positive results, the T&C clusters, associations or IFM related partners contacted did not seem to have extra budget to co-finance such an initiative. For that to last, alternatives for funding were explored at the European level. The research done evidenced that there are relatively few grants directly provided to individuals, young graduates or alumni, and the investigation has been broadened to present also grants and subsidies that can be offered to companies and other host organisations, for the same purposes.

On the other hand, the preliminary work done to identify services and the core mission of the TCBL Foundation saw substantial agreement on the need for some form of award to highlight the values and directions of the TCBL ecosystem. Within this broader scope of possible collaborations with donor bodies, or even as a core activity of the Foundation itself, the initiative tested with the IFM-TCBL Award is likely to have a future.

The IFM-TCBL Awards TCBL Handbooks Textile & Clothing Business Labs

DOCUMENT INFORMATION REVISION HISTORY This document is Annex IX to TCBL Deliverable 4.4, “TCBL Business Systems – Scaling Up and Out”.

Authors: Thanos Contargyris (MIRTEC), Jesse Marsh (Prato), Michele Osella and Elisa Pautasso (LINKS), Richard Axe (TCoE) and Frédérique Thureau (IFM).

This Annex is authored by Frédérique Thureau and Danièle Clutier (IFM).

REVISION Version 1 Version 2 Version 3

DATE

AUTHOR

16.07.2019 29.07.2019 10.08.2019

Frédérique Thureau Frédérique Thureau Frédérique Thureau

ORGANISATION

DESCRIPTION

IFM IFM IFM

First draft for comments Final draft for review Final version incorporating reviewers’ comments

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This deliverable contains original unpublished work except where clearly indicated otherwise.

Acknowledgement of previously published material and of the work of others has been made through appropriate citation, quotation or both.

COPYRIGHT This work is licensed by the TCBL Consortium under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, 2015-2016. For details, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ The TCBL Consortium, consisting of: Municipality of Prato (PRATO) Italy; German Institutes for Textile and Fiber Research - Center for Management Research (DITF) Germany; LINKS Foundation (LINKS) Italy; Skillaware (SKILL) Italy; Oxford Brookes University (OBU) UK; imec (IMEC) Belgium; Tavistock Institute (TAVI) UK; Materials Industrial Research & Technology Center S.A. (MIRTEC) Greece; Waag Society (WAAG) Netherlands; Huddersfield & District Textile Training Company Ltd (TCOE) UK; eZavod (eZAVOD) Slovenia; Consorzio Arca (ARCA) Italy; Unioncamere del Veneto (UCV) Italy; Hellenic Clothing Industry Association (HCIA) Greece; Sanjotec - Centro Empresarial e Tecnológico (SANJO) Portugal; Reginnova NE (Reginnova) Romania, Centexbel (CTB) Belgium, Institut Français de la Mode (IFM) France, IAAC (FabTextiles) Spain, Cleviria (Cleviria) Italy, and Sqetch (Sqetch) Netherlands.

DISCLAIMER All information included in this document is subject to change without notice. The Members of the TCBL Consortium make no warranty of any kind with regard to this document, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The Members of the TCBL Consortium shall not be held liable for errors contained herein or direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this material.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The TCBL project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme for research, technology development, and innovation under Grant Agreement n. 646133.