Don’t buy into the common myth that you need top-class designing skills to get into the fashion industry. The global fashion industry is diverse and includes many exciting and varied career opportunities that can allow you to make the most of your talents.

One of the many exciting roles in this industry is a fashion business manager. It is the perfect role for someone who is creatively interested in the fashion industry and has an acute business sense and marketing expertise.

As a business fashion manager, you get to shape fashion brands, influence seasonal fashion collections and contribute to the expansion of the industry. But all this interesting work also comes with its own set of business challenges and issues. Let’s explore what kind of challenges you might face as an aspiring fashion manager and how you can solve them.

What does fashion business management involve?

Like any industry, a major part of working in fashion comes down to business. This includes founding new fashion brands and ensuring they generate enough revenue and publicity.

Much of this is covered under fashion business management. To put it simply, fashion business management involves improving the brand awareness of a fashion company, designing and releasing fashion products and conducting market research on the target audience.

What does a fashion business manager do?

Starting a fashion business or running it includes a bit of everything—marketing, brand management, business management and administration. A fashion brand manager or fashion entrepreneur can also take on additional responsibilities in smaller fashion companies.

Here are a few common job responsibilities of a fashion business manager:

  1. Setting and finalising content and style guidelines as per the brand persona or target audience.
  2. Managing and planning all media and communication campaigns, including product or brand promotions.
  3. Creating content and material for product or company branding.
  4. Overseeing competitor research and analysis of customer insights.
  5. Overlooking the analysis of sales forecasts for brand sales and reporting on product sales.

What kind of challenges can you face as a fashion business manager?

While managing a fashion brand can be exciting work, the job comes with a fair share of challenges and issues. Let’s dive into some common challenges that crop up in fashion business management and how you can navigate around them.

  1. Differentiating your fashion brand in the market from your competitors.
  2. Identifying the right target audience or fashion business ideas for your brand or products.
  3. Bringing in sustainability in your designs or brand operations.
  4. Issues with time, financial investments and meeting the growth goals of the fashion brand.
  5. Dealing with counterfeits.
  6. Finding trusted vendors and manufacturers.
  7. Establishing your fashion brand in the market amidst intense competition.
  8. Continuing to increase your brand revenue in spite of growing production costs and having to maintain competitive pricing.

How can you overcome fashion business challenges?

While the above-mentioned challenges can seem overwhelming, careful strategy-making, intense market research and significant business management expertise can make it easier for you to overcome them.

Here are some useful tips that can allow you to solve the common challenges associated with running a fashion business.

  1. Identifying potential gaps in the market and designing fashion products based on them.
  2. Engaging in immense market research to nail down the right customer personas and their buying psychologies.
  3. Paying attention to maintaining the quality of fashion products.
  4. Investing necessary resources for intellectual property registration and challenging counterfeiters legally.
  5. Yielding sufficient time and resources towards customer engagement pre-and post-sales.

What kind of skills do you require to overcome issues in fashion business management?

Fashion business problems can often be complex and require you to draw solutions from your industry experience and varied skill-set. Here are some of the most important skills that you need to be a successful fashion business manager:

  1. Strong organisational and management skills
  2. Excellent market research skills
  3. A clear idea of fashion markets and how brands position themselves
  4. Good communication and collaboration skills
  5. Detail-oriented and stickler for punctuality
  6. Strong business development skills

How can you become a fashion business manager?

The role of a fashion business manager is often considered a senior one and demands considerable respect and compensation. According to uktalent.com, an average fashion manager can make around £51,991 per year.

Since a fashion business manager requires immense industry experience and expertise, employers typically look for candidates with a master’s degree in the subject.

A master’s degree in fashion management can help you get a comprehensive understanding of how fashion businesses work and grow within the industry.

The London College of Contemporary Arts (LCCA) offers a great MA Fashion Business and Management programme that can be relevant for you. The course allows you to gain relevant expertise in management and fashion for running and growing a fashion brand.

The USP of the programme is the plethora of industry-relevant lectures, workshops and practical training sessions that give you a real insight into working in the fashion industry.

Click here to enrol in this dynamic fashion business management programme at LCCA today!