FICE project offers the chance of recovery from covid-19
Spain’s main footwear industry body FICE has announced that it will run a programme called Global Through Innovation for a second time.
The programme seeks to help footwear brands expand their businesses in global markets through embracing new technology, including automation in production and e-commerce platforms.
Working with the country’s export promotions agency, ICEX, it ran the same project last year, helping footwear brands including Panama Jack, Ria Menorca and Eli 1957 adopt new tools. For this second programme, footwear companies have until March 12 to apply to take part, with the new edition of the project itself starting in April.
A specialist consultancy called Izertis will run Global Through Innovation, carrying out a specific assessment of each company that takes part and drawing up an innovation plan for each one to follow.
Footwear companies that sign up will have to pay to take part, but ICEX will bear 50% of the cost. The maximum any company will have to pay will be €25,000.
FICE said on making the announcement that it regards this project as “an excellent opportunity for companies to embark without delay on a path towards greater competitiveness to overcome the effects of covid-19”.
It said a funding plan from the European Union will seek to do this on a larger scale, but that it may still take some time for that support to come through, whereas Global Through Innovation represented concrete steps that footwear companies can take towards their recover immediately.
