Be prepared: Who is ready for future disruption?

US-based Nike comes top of the list in a ranking of overall leadership in the themes that matter most among apparel companies and could cause disruption.

These themes, which can be defined as any issues that "keep CEOs awake at night", describe technological, macroeconomic, and industry-specific challenges that companies are currently facing, as well as the opportunities they create. GlobalData's Thematic Research ecosystem identifies and tracks these challenges, and how they create the long-term winners and losers of the apparel industry.

Nike received scores of four for environment, social and governance (ESG, Covid-19, e-commerce, strategic partnerships, virtual and augmented reality, big data, smart supply chain, artificial intelligence (AI), digital media, and mobile performances.

These scores represent GlobalData analysts' assessments of the competitiveness of each company regarding a particular theme. They are then weighted based on their importance and used to create the final industry ranking.

Nike is followed in our ranking by Foot Locker, Inditex and luxury conglomerate LVMH.

The interactive graphic below compares company ratings across the ten themes in question. The higher up a company is on the list, the better positioned it is to weather disruption in the future, while the companies at the bottom are more vulnerable to disruptive threats.