Trade+Impact Association in partnership with Williams Sonoma Inc. came together to present the first-ever Handmade Futures Summit on September 23rd & 24th 2020. The virtual event offered an aspirational look into the future, with panel discussions and breakout sessions addressing the state of the sector today and opportunities for tomorrow, featuring the Williams Sonoma team, industry experts, global buyers and leading social enterprises. Today’s blog post features Session 4: Handmade Sector Technology. Together the panellists, Ella Peinovich and Hedvig Alexander from Powered by People, Neelam Chhiber from Industree, and Vaishali Misra from Ikea, re-imaged partnerships, design, and technology for the handmade sector.

How should small businesses continue to innovate in technology?

Hedvig Alexander, the Chief Commercial Officer of Powered by People, emphasized the importance of increasing access to technology for all entrepreneurs. She noted that “just because small businesses are handmade doesn’t mean we have to be analog.” Throughout COVID, she witnessed a massive opportunity for distributed manufacturing beyond a single brand as technology became more essential for businesses to function. 

Businesses should begin to develop software for makers and build an ecosystem for preparing handmade products on a larger scale, according to Alexander. To aggregate well, artisans must increase access to sustainable financing and e-commerce along with investing in product distribution tools. Only about 22% of enterprises have some sort of technology section, so changing the focus of artisanal businesses will begin to usher the handmade craft sector into the digital age. 

When is the right time to digitalize?

Neelam Chhiber, who is the co-founder of Industree and co-founder and director at Mother Earth, recommended businesses increase their awareness of several important considerations of digitalization to grow into using technology. 

• Construct means implementing some sort of aggregation. 

• Capacity represents how much training the staff has or needs to operate the new technology.

• Creating entails developing technology that fits the need and the ability to increase market access.

• Capital requires possessing the finances for the technology to both be purchased and to run adequately.

• Connecting emphasizes the digitalization piece of business, in which business owners utilize technology to communicate with customers and partners.

After businesses have considered and found solutions to these challenges, it may be time to digitalize.

What are the barriers to digitalization?

Ella Peinovich, the founder of Powered by People, discussed several barriers to implementing technology in the handmade sector. Technology is a way of providing services; however, the cost of providing services in the analog world is enormous. Business leaders and artisans alike must now tackle the great problem of how to drop the costs of technology services. By decreasing these costs, the costs of all other services can decrease, making products and services available to a far wider market. 

Where can I learn more about growth in the handmade sector? 

The 2021 virtual Handmade Futures Summit in partnership with Williams Sonoma will be on the 15 & 16 September 2021. Registration for the event will include a one-year membership with T+I as we re-launch our member benefits program. Early-bird registration opens in June! For more information, click here.