Today was by far the shortest day of the trip to date with a morning company visit that ended before the afternoon even had a chance to begin. The company we visited was Consorzio Della Moda founded in the year 2000 that acts as a organizational tool for small family owned companies to have a collective stance in the international market to better their chances of success without recourse and collapse. The private business group has a total of 48 members currently in its team all of which are 100% made in Italy and based in Verona. With those 48 companies though, their network extends to over 400 companies through which deals and business practices are able to occur to optimize the way the fashion network can run. With the highly sectionalized company based on specific aspects of the supply chain they are in, it allows for customer service to be highly efficient and effective at managing any minute issue, since the responsibility to every sector can be specialized to a small group of individuals.

The consortium was created as stated above to increase the international strength of Italians made products were they stand a better chance in numbers rather than alone. It also allows for people to be easily hired when a job is needed to be covered quickly and well. The consortium mostly acts as a public relations job for all these companies where their main job is to make “Italian made” a staple of quality and fashion forward thinking. Additionally with the layout of the company, growth is very geometric where everyone is helped by one another, so the addition of new companies acts to exponentially increase the effectiveness of the collective. Although all these companies would be competitors with one another in Italy, the put aside their “cat and dog fighting” to better themselves by adding stability to their practices. After this company visit we had the rest of the day to explore the city of Verona. It was a truly peaceful and relaxing day.