Robert McKee of Lawson Software describes Hong Kong as the centre of the universe for the apparel industry

Hong Kong will continue to be the fashion industry's centre of commerce for Asia Pacific, according to Robert McKee, Strategy Director for Fashion with business management solutions provider Lawson Software.

Mr McKee, a speaker at the Prime Source Forum in Hong Kong in April, says the city's supply chain efficiency wins out over fashion centres such as Florence, New York and London. He describes Hong Kong as the single, prime centre for supply, chain continuum, under which the supply process is driven at continually faster speed.

"From my perspective, Hong Kong has for several decades been centre of the supply chain universe for the apparel industry, and it remains so today," Mr McKee said. "When the handover took place, I expected significant changes to take place in the position of Hong Kong in that continuum, and it really hasn't happened. I expected that the forces of logistics would take over and Hong Kong would become one giant container port, and that hasn't happened."

Commercial hub

While the headquarters and CEOs of many major apparel and trading companies still reside in Hong Kong, the city will the centre of commerce for the industry in this region, he added.

"I expected a lot of these headquarters operations would move to Shenzhen or even Shanghai, and even though a lot of them have, they're not the centre of the universe – Hong Kong still is."

Going forward, in an era of rising fuel costs and green initiatives, transportation logistics will become even more important, Mr McKee says. Fast fashion – or getting merchandise from one part of the world to another as quickly as possible – means smarter supply chain and logistics management.

He foresees the fashion industry adopting supply chain techniques and process that have been successful in other industries. Citing the "lean technology" of the automotive industry, Mr McKee says a car that used to take months to build could be finished in hours. "You can go to a web site, design your own car, and pick it up at the end of the week. Everything's been componentised, everything's been communicated throughout the supply chain."

Driving force

Nobody can deny the force that Hong Kong has on the whole continuum, Mr McKee concluded.

"For a long time now, Asia in general but Hong Kong in particular has been if not the, (then) a driving force in the industry. A lot of people used to speculate that Hong Kong and China could never become a design specialist, could never be anything more than copy specialists.

"We have found over time that nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that a lot of great new designs, effects and treatments are originating from this region and being pushed to other parts of the world, rather than just copying what someone else came up with."

Hong Kong: Centre of the 'fast fashion' supply chain universe