Investments in digital technology advances in textiles

Abstract

The investments in digital technologies are expected to soon have a major impact on the textile and fashion companies’ sustainability and competitiveness. Motivated by these trends empirical research on investments of the fashion and textile companies in ICT technologies-based advancement in the Serbian case was provided in 2022. Representatives of 423 textile and fashion companies were asked about their investments in various digital technologies in the previous three years and their digital transformation status. The research findings show that investments in cloud computing, IT, energy management, automation, robotics, and machine learning technologies have a significant impact on the digital transformation of companies. Most of them reached a medium level of transformation, fewer than a high level, with many textile and fashion companies just defining digital transformation. The contribution of the research findings to the investments in the companies’ digital transformation can be seen in the significance of the textile’s digital technology implementation, which enables manufacturers and retailers to respond directly to market demand by reducing product lead time and cost, increasing supply chain efficiency and profitability, and promising in terms of ensuring competitive advantage in the risk and challenging business environment.