Designing a National Fashion Information System: A perspective plan

SummaryThis paper addresses the problem of the absence of a systematic information system for the fashion industry in India. The Indian fashion industry is going through a transition from a predominantly unorganized and highly labour-intensive sector to an organized structure. To remain competitive in the quota-free world of the 21st century it has to modernize itself totally with the application of advanced technologies so that it can utilize its rich craft heritage more effectively. However, there is no organized effort to identify or meet the information needs of this industry. To meet its information needs a systematic IT-based information service called the National Fashion Information System (NFIS) has been envisaged. NFIS aims to stitch all the fashion institutes, associations, firms and related bodies in a seamless information network through a Web portal. The structure and services of NFIS have been discussed in details in this paper.