10 career options For Fashion Management graduates

What is Fashion Business Management?

The ever expanding and dynamic fashion industry certainly has the creative & talented designers at its core but is run and driven by strategic and tactical skills. This is where the significance of the Fashion Management courses comes to light. These courses are crafted to mould the students into fashion professionals who are ready to sustainably & strategically drive the business of any fashion company. The curriculum enables a deeper understanding of the industry, retail operations, supply chain, customer psyche, market trends, product knowledge and brand promotion etc and equips one with the knowledge required to run a fashion business efficiently. It also gives you an insight into understanding the retail operations, supply chain & consumer behaviour,

Essential skills like time management, self-discipline, work-ethics are also enhanced and honed during the course - facilitating the students with soft skills needed to become a professional in the industry.

With both academic and practical lessons, combined with real-time industry experiences, fashion business courses enhance your skill set with a holistic know-how of the industry.

Who can do fashion management?

Candidates who have a keen interest in fashion, possess a natural flair for aesthetics and have the business acumen are apt for this course. The curriculum of the courses in Fashion management not only provide you a stepping stone into the industry, but also sculpt you for long-lasting and high-flying careers in the fashion industry.

Since the fashion management professionals are the entrepreneurial and tactical spirit of a fashion company, the said course tailors you in strategic-decision making, leadership and problem-solving skills. The curriculum entails a gamut of subjects like fashion marketing, merchandising, market research, global leadership, human resources, strategic management, legal environment of business amongst others.

Why Should you Choose To Pursue Fashion Business Management?

The fashion industry is expanding by the day and hence, the jobs in the industry are mushrooming too. From working for global brands to local brands to even marketing your own brand, the possibilities are endless. With the boom in e-commerce industry and the emergence of platforms like Myntra, Jabong etc, the Indian Fashion industry is brimming with vacancies for managerial positions now more than ever.

What Are The Career Paths For Fashion Business Management Graduates?

The syllabus of a fashion management courses is designed to give you a holistic and 360 degree view of the industry - a deep insight into the nitty-gritties of a fashion business. You can then narrow down to a specific role that is attuned to your skillset and interest. Some of these include Fashion Product Manager, Fashion Market Manager, Fashion Business Advisor, Chief merchandise Officer , Retail Manager, E-commerce Entrepreneur, Digital & Social Media Marketing, Buyer, Sourcing Agent, Sales and Distribution manager and the like.

Let’s take a look at these professions in detail:

- Fashion Product Manager

A Fashion Product Manager plays a pivotal role in the development of a product, for he knows what brand’s customer is looking for. His everyday tasks involve Market research, pricing of the product which acts as an integral role of a seed for a design & development process of any fashion company.

- Fashion Market Manager

Not just fashion, but the success of any business relies heavily on its marketing strategies. A Fashion Market Manager is one who knows the needs and demands of the customer, is aware of the competitive brands’ activities and helps in crafting strategies to dial up the sales of the company.

- Fashion Business Advisor

A Fashion Business Advisor holds a crucial role in the success of a company for they provide the company with a holistic toolkit to develop and sustain their respective fashion houses. These professionals offer a gamut of suggestions on business strategies, effective marketing techniques, building brand awareness, efficient product distribution and the like.

- Entrepreneur

Fashion Entrepreneurs are the ones who own a fashion enterprise or a venture with an underlying endeavour to push the global fashion industry forward with unique innovations. Be it building a brand from the ground up or launching a fashion tech business, the realm of fashion entrepreneurs is ever-growing.

- Digital & Social Media Marketing

Fashion and the digital world are now inseparable. A Fashion social media and digital manager is in charge of creating content keeping the target audience in mind. This task is further extended to creating strategies and campaigns to generate sales.

- Fashion Marketing Consultant

If you possess a great eye for detail and can lend your aesthetic sensibilities for decisions like harmonious juxtaposition of colours, a balanced frame of a picture and wield an overall creative outlook, then you can be a Fashion Marketing Consultant. The role of a fashion marketing consultant is to evaluate current marketing efforts and make suggestions for improvement, plan and implement social media strategies and other social media campaigns and make suggestions for new content, workflows or other methods of reaching the customers.

- Fashion Brand Manager

A Fashion Brand Manager is responsible for analysing the market and understanding the psyche of the consumers in order to devise strategies that help in building the coveted brand image that will eventually push sales. The success of a fashion brand depends highly on its brand value, and so the role of a brand manager is an imperative one.

- Chief Merchandise officer

A strong direction and strategic roadmap provided by the Chief Merchandise officer of any fashion company plays an integral part in the success of the enterprise. With responsibilities like allocating merchandise, developing product assortment plans and deploying business analytics to boost sales growth, a CMO paves the way to sustainable growth of the company.

- Retail Manager

The responsibility of a Retail Manager is to run the stores and departments smoothly. Their daily tasks include managing the staff, stock and resources. But above all, to also devise strategies for marketing, promotion and customer satisfaction in order to maximise the profits.

- Commercial Director

Product placement, merchandising and sales revenue are the key responsibilities of a Commercial Director. These professionals are in charge of the profitable financial flow of the company by overseeing the budgeting, supply chain activity and smooth operations.

So if you’re looking to pursue a career that aligns both your business and fashion acumen, then a course on Fashion Business Management will equip you with the toolkit to make your way to the industry and ace it with flying colours.

What Are The Opportunities For Fashion Business Management Graduates Post Covid-19?

Contrary to popular belief, Covid-19 has not put a halt on the fashion industry, instead it has acted as a turning point for the companies. This threshold has nudged the brands to deploy more sustainable and conscious strategies - not just with their products and accessibility, but also with the communication and the overall brand image.

During the lockdown people increasingly started spending time online, the traffic of retail shops has shifted to the digital world. This has given a much coveted push to all the e-commerce portals like Myntra, Ajio, Amazon etc. Most brick and mortar outlets re-invented themselves with an online presence in order to stay in the business. With the sales picking up in the e-commerce realm, the brands are now adapting to more digital strategies & deploying social media and online marketing to run effective campaigns.

The pandemic, in other terms, has changed the fashion world irrevocably, paving the way for far more digital and fashion management jobs than ever before.