Stitching A Broken Future: How resilience can shape the future of an ‘unheard’ community

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally disrupted the way we perceive our future. It has disproportionately hit hard economically challenged and socially marginalized communities worldwide. One such community is the informal subcontractors of the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh. Inadequate coverage by scholarly research has made this sector one of the least explored areas where responses to the current pandemic may potentially impact millions of lives. This study investigates rarely-known business strategies of this sector under a unique circumstance when disruptions are tackled to protect its existence.

The primary purpose of undertaking this research is to evaluate the role of resilient business planning in the context of an unprecedented public health emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, this paper examines how informal subcontractors of the ready-made garment industry in Dhaka are innovating business practices in the wake of an unprecedented crisis and applying new strategies to adapt to the new normalcy. Subsequently, this project undertakes a potential intervention plan which could reveal the industry’s barriers, opportunities, and surprises when explored through the lenses of strategic foresight.

The outcome of this project is a navigational tool that analyzes the intersecting spaces between organizational resilience and foresight in terms of the logical progression of innovation drivers. A deep investigation of underlying litanies of the complex sub-systems has developed multiple scenario pathways that stakeholders of the concerned industry can use to navigate into the future.