As global sourcing adapts to shifts in geopolitics, cost structures and sustainability requirements, supply-chain strategy is undergoing a period of significant reassessment. Within this landscape, Professor Charles Fine of the MIT Sloan School of Management remains an influential figure whose research has long shaped how industries understand the evolution of production networks and competitive dynamics.
Fine, the Chrysler Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management, teaches operations strategy, supply-chain management, innovation and product management. Known for his “clock speed” framework and early warnings on global network fragility, he has spent decades studying how companies build resilient systems.
At the 2025 Fashion Tech Summit organized by Li & Fung, WWD China, Sourcing Journal and MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node, Fine described today’s fashion supply chain as no longer a linear pipeline but a combat sport. Companies must move beyond recovering from disruptions to anticipating them in an era of “attacks coming from every direction.”
The Supply Chain Nowadays: Hybrid, Flexible and Always Under Attack
Speaking of today’s supply chain landscape, Fine is direct. “We’re in an age of repeated disruption,” he said. “You go from COVID to shortages to the Suez Canal to tariffs to AI. It’s been disruption after disruption.”
If resilience used to be about surviving one major shock, today’s environment demands multidirectional defense. “I used to talk about supply chain resilience like a boxing match—surviving one punch and getting back up,” Fine explained. “Now it’s [mixed martial arts] MMA. You get punched, kicked, hit from all directions. Before you recover from one blow, the next one is already coming.”
In this environment, Fine said the old debate between globalization and localization is outdated. The future is clearly hybrid. “There won’t be a purely local model or a purely global model,” he said. “Hybrid models, designed for flexibility, must become the norm.”
Such a hybrid setup gives brands options: they can scale up when needed, stay close to key markets when it matters and have backup plans when unexpected events occur. In this model, flexibility takes priority over simply minimizing costs.
Professor Charles Fine at the 2025 Fashion Tech Summit Hong Kong Session.
WWD
Digital Transformation as the Engine of ESG Progress
The conversation naturally transitioned to sustainability—an area where Fine sees digitalization playing a powerful enabling role. “One part of ESG is transparency,” he said. “You have to see what’s going on, whether a resource is sustainable or not.”
Blockchain, certification systems, material traceability tech and supply-chain-wide data visibility all fall into this category. Without digital traceability, environmental and social claims simply cannot be verified.
But there’s a more systemic challenge: consumer behavior. A data point discussed during the Summit showed the reason—global annual garment production exceeding 100 billion pieces in a world of 8 billion people.
“Consumers who buy something, wear it once and throw it away—this is part of the sustainability challenge too,” he warned. To move forward, both supply chain actors and consumers must be educated about the environmental consequences of their decisions. Environmental impact tags, standardized reporting and transparent labeling may become essential.
China’s Supply Chain: Strong at Home, Still Learning Abroad
No discussion of global fashion sourcing would be complete without examining China. Fine views China’s domestic supply chain as a remarkable success story. “Competition within China has been intense. The winners are winners because they excel at delivery, cost, quality, service and speed,” he said.
Yet as Chinese manufacturers expand globally, new challenges emerge. Operating in different countries requires navigating unfamiliar cultures, regulations, labor environments and consumer expectations. Fine emphasized that talent development will be a decisive factor in global success. To thrive internationally, talent must combine technical and business expertise—covering supply chain, manufacturing and digital tools—with cultural fluency, the ability to operate comfortably in foreign markets.
China’s large diaspora of students educated abroad provides a significant advantage. “They have cultural familiarity from studying in France, the U.S., Malaysia, Brazil—wherever,” he said. “If they also gain supply-chain knowledge, they become incredibly valuable.”
At the same time, supply-chain veterans in China may need international exposure to fully understand regional norms. Fine noted the potential for training programs—possibly led by organizations like Li & Fung—to bridge these gaps and prepare the workforce for global operations.
With its scale and global reach, Li & Fung is well-positioned in an era of shock-driven sourcing. Fine highlighted three ways the company adds value: enabling small brands to compete through a distributed backend of production, quality control and capacity planning; providing trusted ESG verification as sustainability becomes central; and acting as a strategic advisor for brands entering new markets or restructuring operations. “They can help educate and smooth the way, because they already operate in so many countries,” he observed.
The Li & Fung headquarters in Hong Kong.
Courtesy Li & Fung.
From Recovery to Anticipation: The Skills Companies Need Now
Resilience, in Fine’s view, has two components: recovery and anticipation. Recovery is reactive—standing back up after the punch. Anticipation is proactive—seeing the punch coming.
If Fine were advising the board of a global supply-chain organization, he would start with three foundational principles. Cognitive readiness comes first—the ability to anticipate disruptions and mentally rehearse responses to earthquakes, pandemics, political shocks or sudden supply interruptions, even if they never occur.
Next is digital readiness—robust data systems, connectivity and decision-support tools like AI optimization that enable companies to respond with speed and precision. Amazon was born as a data-centric company. It knows the customer incredibly well, has tight links with suppliers and captures data from every transaction,” he said. “That should be the aspiration for every company.”
Finally, physical readiness ensures access to strategically located assets, whether owned or through strong partnerships; it’s not about ownership, but about the ability to act quickly. Fine highlighted Li & Fung’s “asset-light” model as a case in point, demonstrating how global reach can be combined with operational agility to meet today’s hybrid, high-pressure supply-chain environment.
A Supply Chain Manual for the MMA Era
Fashion’s supply chain is no longer a game of linear efficiency. It’s a system under perpetual pressure, where shocks are routine and adaptability is currency.
Fine believes the companies that will thrive are those that rethink their capabilities—cognitive, physical and digital—and build hybrid networks that can flex and recover repeatedly.
The future, in his view, belongs to the prepared, the perceptive and the data driven. Whether through robust data infrastructures, culturally fluent talent, ESG transparency or hybrid production models, one truth emerges clearly: resilience is not a project, it is a mindset.
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