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The study of buyer-supplier Relationships in Textiles & APparel
The industry is not short of data.
It is short of understanding.
The INQOVA Research Lab is building a new layer of industry understanding, at scale - the scalable research instruments, a scientifically sound inference engine, and a behavioural segmentation system to understand how companies in the textile and apparel industry make decisions and approach change.
Understanding built from the ground up, with the companies in the industry, delivering real value back to them.
Two companies in the same category can be opposites.
We can describe our products and trace our shipments in growing detail, through digital product passports, traceability, and compliance reporting - all of it serious and necessary. We can read the companies’ outer descriptive layer - what is made, where goods are shipped, the certifications held. We currently cannot read the inner motivational layer - their risk appetite, how they collaborate, and what sets each company apart in the marketplace.
What is made
Where goods are shipped
Certificates held
How priorities are set
How companies collaborate
Differentiation in the marketplace
How decisions are made
New regulation, the push to digitise, and pressure to cut environmental and social harm all demand the same thing of the textile and apparel industry - companies must change how they work. Whether a company changes depends far more on how decisions are made and what is prioritised, than on its size or registered location.
The effort to soften the side effects of globalisation has gathered an enormous amount of data about the industry. We categorise this data the only way we can - by size, by country, by a company’s position in the value chain. Yet, two companies in the same category can be opposites. One prioritises transactional cost savings, the other consistently makes strategic investments. One develops with customers, the other develops for customers. One is all in on speed to market, the other goes all out on innovation. Our current categories treat them as the same.
We are missing behavioural data, and a model of why and how companies act in the marketplace. It is the layer that would turn our mountains of data into patterns and principles we can act on.
Profiles. Patterns. Archetypes.
We profile companies, not products.
Each participating organisation is read along a fixed set of behavioural dimensions, drawn from established organisational research - how it sets priorities, coordinates, learns, changes, and relates to its customers. The result is the organisation's behavioural profile.
As profiles accumulate, patterns appear. From the patterns, the Research Lab builds archetypes - recurring kinds of companies, recognisable across countries and positions in the value chain. The archetypes are not designed in advance. They emerge from the evidence.
Combined with the firmographic data the industry already holds, the behavioural layer makes it possible to tell one company from another on the deeper level that matters - to understand how companies actually operate, at scale.
Profile
Pattern
Archetype
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One structured assessment. The whole organisation.
The research instrument is the Organisational Profiling Tool, a structured assessment built by INQOVA to reach the global textile & apparel industry at scale.
Participation is by organisation. Within each participating company, people across customer-facing roles each complete the assessment - 38 questions, ten to fifteen minutes. There is nothing to prepare, no documents to gather, and no systems to connect.
One person's answers describe one view of the company from within. Together, the answers compose the organisation's behavioural profile. Data protection is built into the design.
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Your organisation,
seen from the inside.
Participation returns more value to your organisation than to anyone else.
The cost is about fifteen minutes per participant. The rest of the work is ours.
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The company, seen by its own people.
Several of your own people answer independently. Where they agree, the picture is firm. Where they differ, the difference itself is a finding. Leadership teams rarely get this view.
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Your position in the industry.
Your profile places your organisation against the industry, not by size or country, but by how you operate. For most companies, it is the first time they can see where they stand.
3
A mirror, not a scorecard.
The profile describes. It does not rank, rate, or judge. There is no pass and no fail.
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Yours to keep.
The profile belongs to your organisation. How you use it is your decision.
Your profile is yours.
The industry only ever sees patterns.
Your organisation's profile is confidential.
It is never published, never shared, and never shown to another company, an association, or a government. It is not used to rank, score, or screen anyone, and it plays no part in any procurement decision.
Everything the industry receives is aggregate - the shape of a sector, the spread of archetypes across a country, the patterns inside an association. No participating organisation is ever identifiable in published research.
The companies who take part get the sharpest picture. Everyone else gets the patterns.
Value for the whole industry,
starting with the companies in it.
Textile & apparel manufacturers
The research is built with the manufacturers, and the most direct value flows to them - their own profile, and their place in the industry. The pilot is live.
Apply here.
Associations
You know your members by size, sector, and region. Our research shows you who they are by how they operate, so programmes, services, and advocacy can be designed for the members you actually have, not an average member that does not exist. We partner with associations on member research.
Get in touch.
Governments and policymakers
Regulation written for one large category lands unevenly on the companies inside it. A behavioural picture shows how a rule will land on different kinds of companies before it takes effect, and gives the manufacturers most affected a structured way to contribute their evidence. Energy regulators already work this way. Textiles and apparel has nothing equivalent. We contribute evidence to policy work.
Get in touch.
Research institutions
Primary data at industry scale, on a layer the literature itself identifies as under-studied, with documented and traceable methodology. A standing programme open to collaboration, from study design to joint publication. We welcome research partnerships.
Get in touch.Sponsored by INQOVA. Answerable to the research.
INQOVA is a commercial company. The Research Lab is not.
INQOVA has funded the Research Lab since its establishment and provides the industry access the research needs. It does not direct the findings. The Head of Research holds final editorial authority over everything the Lab publishes, under a written charter. An advisory board, now being formed, guards the Lab's mission and independence.
The Research Lab is being established as an independent non-profit research body in Copenhagen, Denmark - separate from INQOVA's commercial activities. Findings are published under the Charter, regardless of who funds the work.
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We are currently enrolling a limited number of organisations into the research programme.
Participating organisations receive their behavioural profile and their place in the industry.
A research lab born inside the textile & apparel industry.
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The Research Lab is led by Dr. Logan McCage, Head of Research, who has built the programme since January 2025.
Behind the Research Lab stand eleven years of INQOVA working alongside textile & apparel manufacturers across every major producing region - Asia, the Americas, Europe, and Africa.
That decade is what makes research at industry scale possible - the access, the trust, and the understanding of how this industry works.
Common questions.
Is our profile confidential?
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Yes. Only your organisation ever sees its profile. It is never published, never shared, and never shown to another company, an association, or a government. Everything the industry receives is aggregate, and no participating organisation is identifiable in published research.
Is this a personality test?
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No. The unit of analysis is the organisation. The dimensions come from established organisational research, and the archetypes emerge from the evidence as profiles accumulate. The profile describes how a company operates. It does not judge people.
What does participation involve?
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Within your company, people across customer-facing roles each answer 38 questions, which takes ten to fifteen minutes. There is nothing to prepare, no documents to gather, and no systems to connect. The rest of the work is ours.
Who is behind the research?
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The Lab is led by Dr. Logan McCage, Head of Research, and sponsored by INQOVA, which funds the research and provides industry access but does not direct the findings. The Lab is being established as an independent non-profit research body in Copenhagen, Denmark, with findings published under a written charter.