Pwint Pwint X415 Industrial Analysis NCIS 315 “ Apparel manufacturing Part 1: Environment Analysis The industry is apparel manufacturing, which according to NAICS, it includes cutting and sewing process and manufacturing first knit fabrics and sewing them into a garment. According to Census Bureau (www.census.gov), the number of establishments in this industry in United States has been declining around 25% from 2007 to 2012. The value of shipment declined around 45%, annual payroll declined 30.3%, and total employment declined around 36%. If one were to examine deeper, the value of shipment in millions of dollars declined around 45% while the value of shipments per employee declined only around 14%. This means that most of the jobs in this industry are now outsourced, and people also lost a lot of jobs in this industry. This analysis is further confirmed when one looks at employees per establishment, because there is a total lost of 15% jobs from 2007 and 2012. Data is 2 years outdated because this data is released every 5 years. On the other hand, this industry's market size is 480 billion dollars, and China is the largest manufacturer controlling more than a third of the world market (www.firstresearch.com). On the other hand, US's market size for apparel manufacturing is $13 billion and is fragmented, where 50 largest companies produce less than 40 percent of revenue. The barriers to entry are low for a start-up business because one only needs a few machines and a few employees. However, if you were to compete with established international brands such as forever 21, Zara, H&M, then it would be high barriers because they get competitive advantage over pricing since they order in large quantities. Also, they get competitive advantage from outsourcing in developing countries and there is a barrier to outsource for smaller firms. Therefore, to make up for high costs, some firms only focus on niche markets to price their products at a higher price. To sum up, there are low barriers to enter into the market but to compete with big corporations with multiple outlets that it is almost impossible for start-up businesses without large capital investment available (Source: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/). Strengths include that there are so many niche markets and that there is also potential for growth with people's growing attention to fashion. Also for niche markets, the pricing can be higher and there is high margin associated with niche brands. However, weaknesses include t