Porter's Rivalry: The South African Fashion Industry

Firm strategy, structure and rivalry relate to the national conditions governing how companies and industries are created, organised and managed, and the nature of domestic rivalry. The nature of domestic rivalry and the conditions that determine how a nation’s firms are created, organised and managed. Porter (1990) based the structure of firms on management styles, which vary among industries. Some countries may be oriented toward a particular style of management. If a particular management style suits a country it will tend to be more competitive in those industries in which that management style dominates. Rivalry spurs innovation, which is needed for sustainable competition. According to Oster (1994), the process of competition clears out

Also, dumping of illegal foreign products poses as a threat to the local producers. With the aim of reducing the impact of Chinese imported products, the government introduced the China Restraint Arrangement in 2007. The South African fashion industry needs to ensure that it consists of a value chain that provides for a faster, more coordinated system of product movement, processing and delivery, which will continue to lower costs while maintaining product safety and quality. Therefore, value chain management is one of the most important ways of improving the competitive advantage of the industry. Competitiveness decreases if the supply chain is not functioning in an effective and efficient manner. The fashion industry must improve the working relationships in its value chain, and that communication must be good between the key players, by doing so this will avoid the delay in the delivery of the product between the key players, therefore the industry can increase its production and make the product available to consumers at the time and place and in the form that the consumer

Recently the African continent has captured the foreign media’s attention on its potentiality. Because of its youthful market, the growth of its consuming class and very wealth population, the continent offers enormous opportunities for any investments. The African consumers demand modern shopping experiences and quality products as well as they are brand conscious (McKinsey & Co., 2012). The number of luxury African brands is on the rise whereby the last two decades has seen a growing number of Made in Africa brands, in particular the luxury fashion sector is at an early stage in the