Fashion Business Management

In the first year you start with learning about how a brand’s commercial and management aspects are closely related to its creative vision. You gain a hands-on understanding by deconstructing a domestic fashion brand. This uncovers the nuances of fashion elements, principles of management, logistics and supply chain, and financials. You gain deeper insights into the economic environment and competitive landscape of the brand, discovering how brands drive their marketing and promotional strategy across multiple consumer touch points.

Our approach is a fine blend of academic theory, industry knowledge and direct business experience in the field of fashion, giving you an integrated understanding of strategic business management elements. You also get ample opportunities to develop essential professional skills of creative communication, computing, data analysis and the application of statistical tools. Right from the onset, we prepare you for the challenges of a multi-skilled career.

The year culminates with an 8-week Learn On-site internship. This first industry interface focuses on imparting practical experience in the Indian fashion industry’s value chain. Fashion business management students can pick their interest from varied options in the fashion industry – from back end operations in fashion export houses, front end operations in the fashion retail sector and e-commerce, to online and offline fashion promotions.

The second year of the fashion business management course is a journey into international fashion brands, specifically delving into fashion forecasting, new product development and apparel quality management. A solid grounding is given in both theoretical and practical approaches to merchandising. Branding strategies and fashion promotion are taught, aligning with international fashion market perspectives. You also get exposure to customer-facing aspects of the business such as fashion retail store operations, in-store sales, customer relationship management and visual merchandising. To adapt to the evolving business landscape and the growing reliance on technology, you will acquire the skills necessary to leverage your knowledge of business analytics for brand development and crafting effective brand communication across various digital platforms, including websites and online media channels.

The 16-week Learn On-site internship is a long-term industry exposure envisaged as the gateway to your professional debut. You gain understanding of the dynamics of organisational set-ups through first-hand industry experience – from merchandising & buying, quality control, forecasting, promotions, market & consumer research to brand management, retail operations and visual merchandising. The list of choices includes export houses, buying houses, fashion brands or organisations working for fashion promotion, research & e-commerce. These may include Shahi Exports, Gokaldas Exports, Li & Fung, Triburg, UCB, Marks & Spencer, UniQlo, fabindia, Flipcart, Amazon, Ajio and so on.

The final year focuses on refining your intellectual position in the fashion business environment as a management researcher. You will advance your application of research methods by learning to identify problem areas and then devising ways to resolve them by conducting in-depth research. The fashion business management programme readies you for the professional world, laying the foundation for your entrepreneurial pursuits. It equips you with the ability to present a business concept, craft business proposals, and formulate business strategies. The Capstone project, which brings together the learnings of the past three years, is envisioned as a gateway to your future practice of Fashion Business Management. You will learn how to hone your skills to run a successful fashion business venture. The project gives you firm grounding into the working of the industry and its challenges, to developing feasible solutions. You can undertake a live industry project, or prepare a business plan for your own entrepreneurial venture. You may also work on a dissertation project of your interest. With this, you are fully equipped to take a confident plunge into the professional fashion industry.

The first year of the postgraduate course in fashion business management is an intensive preparatory phase that is conceived to strengthen your fundamentals in fashion business operations. You will conduct a detailed, in-depth research about an Indian fashion brand. This imparts clarity about how the brand vision is achieved through a combination of creativity, business acumen, sales and marketing operations. The course emphasis is on such practical projects, via which you learn the principles of fashion, merchandising and branding. Understanding the brand does not stop here – you will also study its retail model and operations to understand how the brand reaches out to its customers. Overall, in the first year, you get a comprehensive overview of all the back-end, front-end and business operations associated with running a successful fashion brand. This accessible course opens up opportunities for interested students from any discipline to enter the domain of Fashion Business Management.

At the end of year one, an 8-week internship gives students first-hand experience about the functioning of the fashion industry. Students are encouraged to follow their interests and explore a wide range of options within the fashion industry such as export houses, buying houses, retail operations, fashion e-commerce, fashion promotions and market research.

Masters in fashion business management prepares you for a business or management career in the fashion industry, by opening up fresh opportunities which raise the professional bar. Sharpen your response to dynamic challenges by devising and implementing fresh management strategies, and developing new business ideas. Learn how global brands function by analysing strategies for supply chain, logistics management, retailing, promotions and e-commerce. The course responsibly expands on sustainable practices and intensive design research. You graduate with a comprehensive CV and diverse portfolio, inclusive of design proposals. As the business climate is shifting to self-employment, we encourage entrepreneurial skills. The culminating Capstone Project helps students reflect on the cumulative knowledge and skills, acquired over the year, and how to present proposals to a wider audience, including future employers. Fashion management students can work on a live industry project, propose new business ideas or devise a business plan in entirety. They can also pick a subject of interest related to the fashion industry and present a dissertation based on detailed research.