Greece, like other European countries, has recently suffered a significant decline in textile and clothing manufacture, as business has moved to cheaper overseas market. The small company exemplified here, however, is an exception to this trend. Its chief executive argues that, in order to survive, clothing companies have to view themselves as service providers, rather than simply as manufacturers. The company has kept afloat by creating a niche for itself as a producer of higher quality, ‘value added’, homewear and lingerie. The chief executive argues that what customers are now prepared to pay for is service, which he defines as engineering, branding and advertising. These skilled jobs, which add significant value to products, are retained in the company, whilst everything else is outsourced to Hungary. The company’s survival strategy is based on design and retail. Because European consumers demand high quality design at low prices, clothing companies have no choice but to outsource manufacturing. The company has survived for two reasons: it does not manufacture for anyone else (making it easier for them to outsource the manufacturing of its own designs. That is, they were never simply a manufacturing company, they always had a design element) and it has opened a chain of retail outlets, ensuring a high and trusted profile with consumers.

The move up the value chain and reliance on more highly skilled work requiring more expansive learning also creates the conditions for learning and development both in relations with customers and suppliers.

The second example of a company finding a niche market is an English firm which traditionally produced high quality ladies wear, but who in the 1980s were hit by changing market forces. The boutiques they used to sell to were replaced by department stores stocked with cheap, foreign imports produced at a price at which the company could not compete. In order to survive, the company had to reinvent itself in line with its core strengths. It sought a niche in the market in which it would be less vulnerable to foreign imports. It now produces corporate clothing for clients like banks, airlines and cosmetic companies. This market allows the company to offer its clients things that cheap foreign importers cannot: quick turnaround, high quality and flexibility. Whereas many big foreign importers often demand an order of at least 2000 items, the compnay will accept orders of any size. This requires a skilled workforce, capable of producing a large number of different product ranges in small batches.

For the future, the company’s biggest challenge is retaining and recruiting a sufficiently skilled work force to maintain their position in this specialized niche. This is a problem because the clothing industry is not attractive to younger workers and many of the company’s workforce are now approaching retirement age.

This is an example where learning in the workplace as a response to changing organisation of work has led to substantive reskilling of those in work but what is now required are workplace learning partnerships that could give prospective employees insight into the type of skills now required and to realise how far these are from those required in the past. On the other hand, it could be argued that the lack of such partnerships and narrow skills training offered was responsible for the 'poor image' of work in this sector.