Systems Thinking and Scenario Planning: Application in the Clothing Sector

Industrial sectors that operate in uncertain environments - with demand variability, product seasonality and different industrialisation structures - need studies that enable identification and forecast trends. Therefore, the development of competitiveness extends beyond a company’s individual performance. Collective action, whether toward consumer markets, supplier markets, competitors and substitutes, can reinforce or help reformulate the current practices of an organisation, besides providing better results in the development of strategies and competitive positioning. Thus, clothing, the sector addressed in this work, is characterised by a long, fragmented, heterogeneous production chain, the competitiveness of which is linked to product differentiation. Therefore, the use of systemic approaches to study this sector is effective. In this sense, this research aims at adapting Systems Thinking and Scenario Planning (STSP) so that it supports the development and planning process in a given sector. Thus, this research applies STSP adapted to an analysis of the clothing sector in the northern region of Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. As a result, in academic terms, this research proposed and validated a method for analysing industrial sectors of the clothing industry. In the sectoral context, this research identified elements that leverage the sector’s competitiveness, besides generating knowledge and learning aimed at strengthening the sectoral structure identified, and fostering the formation of a new clothing cluster.