Challenges Faced by Red Road Clothing
Names: Adeela Ahmad, N01417664, Business Management.
Arshdeep Kaur, N01551117, Business Accounting
Mamata Chapay, N01584930, Business Accounting.
Sophia Vamvakidis, N01361448, Business Accounting.
Tanya Henry, N01588062, Business Accounting.
Thi Thanh Huyen Nguyen, N01574144, Business Accounting.
School: Humber College
Course: BMGT 205: Human Resources Administration
Professor: John Pucic
Date: 29th May 2023
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Challenges Faced by Red Road Clothing
The Following report analyzes the challenges faced by the Indigenous Owned Company
and its potential ramification on the human resources management within the company. Our team
has opted out to select the Indigenous Owned Company in the fashion industry “Red Rode
Clothing” Red Road Clothing is an indigenous fashion company that is inspired by the Indigenous
Culture, and tradition and embodies the values of cultural pride, authenticity, and sustainability.
Our goal is to examine the difficulties and environmental factors that Red Road Clothing must deal
with and their potential effects on internal HR administration. The report explains the Legal,
Demographical, Economic, Cultural, and technological aspects of the challenges the company
faces.
Starting with the legal aspects Red Road Clothing Company is a small Indigenous
Canadian business. Like almost any other small business, Red Road Clothing has been impacted
on their business by many elements, especially legal. Up to now, Red Road Clothing still has a
very small business scale, little capital, and does not even have its own website (Taylor, 2018), so
it is necessary to pay special attention to legal issues, especially in the condition that without a
lawyer to advise on legal issues. Here are some key effects of the legal on Red Road Clothing
operations, such as Regulations of formation and operation: Laws that prescribe the processes and
procedures for establishing and operating a business. This includes registration, licensing, paying
taxes, complying with intellectual property regulations and other rules. Read Road Clothing must
comply with these regulations to ensure legalization and protect their interests Intellectual Property
Rights: Red Road Clothing should avoid the risk of infringement of intellectual property rights by
respecting intellectual property rights, including trademarks, copyrights, and patents. They should
copyright their products and avoid using protected materials without proper permission, such as
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using copyrighted logos or selling counterfeit products. Infringement of intellectual property rights
can lead to legal disputes and financial debt. Tax and financial regulations: The law regulates the
payment of taxes and the financial management of businesses. Red Road Clothing must comply
with tax filing, tax payment, financial reporting, and other related regulations. Compliance with
tax and financial laws helps businesses avoid conflicts with tax authorities, avoid penalties, and
ensure transparency and sustainability in business operations Consumer protection regulations:
Consumer protection laws ensure that businesses provide safe, quality products and services and
do not take advantage of consumers. Red Road Clothing needs to comply with regulations on
trademarks, advertising, product information, and consumer complaint resolution to ensure its
reputation and trust. Regulations on labor and wages: Labor law regulates the rights and
obligations of employees and businesses. Red Road Clothing must comply with regulations on
working time, rest regime, social insurance, wages, and other rights of employees. This ensures
fairness and equality in the employment relationship and helps maintain a stable working
environment. In addition to these impacts, legislation can also affect other areas such as
environmental protection, data management, and privacy. Red Road Clothing needs to understand
and comply with relevant legal regulations to ensure legal, transparent, and sustainable business
operations.
Secondly, Demographics are the statistical characteristics of human populations used
specially to identify markets. It is no doubt that indigenous-owned companies have faced
challenges when it comes on to demographics. Indigenous people are the original people of North
America and their descendants, Canada has a growing population of people from all over the
world. In 2022 only, 43710 immigrants were welcomed to Canada, and In 2021 Census of
Population counted 1.8 million Indigenous people, accounting for 5.0% of the population in
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Canada, so as we can see Canada is a very diverse country and so I think many ways demographics
can affect the sale and demand of Red road clothing’s products as it is a 100% indigenous owned
company selling clothes inspired by the women of the indigenous community. If Canada’s
population is growing with people from other countries, then that means the demand for diverse
clothing will get higher and the demand for indigenous-owned clothing companies’ products will
be declining. And so demographically that is one of the main challenges that Canada’s indigenousowned companies are facing in today’s day and age.
Similarly, the economic activities of individuals in indigenous communities have a great
diversity in both historical and modern times. Additionally, economic conditions have occurred
and will continue to occur under colonialization, social exclusion, and political and economic
circumstances. Previously, indigenous economics was mainly centered on activities like fishing,
hunting, and gathering. The elements such as settlement size and length, gender labor decision,
and interaction with other groups have a huge impact on how indigenous groups were formed.
Also, colonization has a negative impact on indigenous economics as the settler economy
advanced, the fur trade got declined. The main challenge faced by red road clothing was
employment. In general, the employment rate for Indigenous people is less than for non-indigenous
people. The employment rate varies by different factors such as provinces and territories, and
gender. On the other hand, they also faced problems regarding income, indigenous communities
generated less income than other communities because of the labor. They do not have as much
labor as other non-indigenous communities. Red road clothing also faced problems in recruiting
people because most of the indigenous people are engaged in the activities like fishing, hunting,
and gathering. And these activities are not even considered employment.
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Again, A red road clothing company is one that focuses on promoting the Indigenous
culture and identity, Empowerment of Indigenous Communities, Cultural Exchange, and
Education between the indigenous and non-indigenous communities. The brand motto is to support
the indigenous culture by utilizing traditional patterns, designs, and symbols. As the HR
administration, one should recognize the company’s value as it builds a solid basis for community
involvement, brand reputation, and employee engagement, all of which are essential components
of attaining long-term success. HR faces challenges to make sure employees understand and value
the cultural protocol of the company. Also, As an Indigenous fashion company, Red Road Clothing
can encounter issues with cultural appropriation. To ensure that the company's designs, marketing
materials, and practices are respectful and appropriately portray Indigenous cultures, HR must take
the initiative in this area. To stop cultural appropriation and advance genuine representation, clear
laws and rules should be implemented. Similarly, ways of life and ingrained values differ between
employees, misunderstandings can easily arise. A culture’s unspoken rules of etiquette and typical
styles of communication are important to understand if you want to build strong cross-cultural
relationships with different employees. HRM must factor in cultural concerns in everything from
hiring practices to handling conflicts in the workplace.
Talking about the technological factors, according to our research, we don’t specifically
find Red Road clothing technological challenges: however, we have found other indigenous
business owners who are facing these challenges. We found 3 main technological challenges that
the indigenous business owner may have faced or will be faced in the future. Own website
creation, Cyber security/maintenance, and Automation. The first challenge that indigenous owners
are facing is creating their own websites. The website itself can bring its own challenges such as
1. website maintenance and 2. cybersecurity. Website maintenance is an important part of an online
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store as you must keep updating products and stores running smoothly to ensure sales continue.
Slater currently has a Facebook page. They sell all their products through Facebook so when she
has her own website maintenance is extremely important because if customers can’t find the
products on Facebook, then there is no alternative. If the business continues to grow, we believe
not only will more employees be necessary to keep up with demand but also machines and some
automation may be required. In the textbook, it states: “In several automated production facilities,
even small production batches become economically viable since the time, cost, and effort
involved in changing setups are minimal” (Schwind,2022). Aside from some products, most of the
products are handmade! Automation could help with standardization, inventory management, and
efficiency as well. We don’t necessarily believe that a largely automated production facility is
needed for this point in the company but getting equipment to automatically complete some other
work can be a real asset to the company as it looks to expand. Moreover, having a website wasn’t
the only thing required to gain popularity, a lot of work also goes into handling the social media
pages of the company on Facebook and Instagram. They might also be delegated to professionals
so Slater and her daughter could focus on managing the company instead of doing all the essential
work by themselves.
Politically, Indigenous businesses and companies have historically faced difficulties in
breaking into the Canadian economic market, as they exist as separate entities due to the Indian
Act of 1876 (Flanagan 2022). The Indian Act was originally created as a legislation that was meant
to protect Canadian Indigenous peoples within their own spaces during the Canadian government’s
attempts to assimilate them into Western culture (Flanagan 2022). Each reservation was owned by
the Crown but inhabited solely by Indigenous tribes; any decision relating to the land and its
economy had to first be approved by the federal government. Despite the federal government’s
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plan for these reservations to act as tools to help integrate tribes into the new Western society
imposed upon them, the Indigenous peoples of Canada maintained their cultures and traditions,
forcing the government to attempt to find a way to include reservations within Canada’s market
economy. Although many have called for the repeal of the Indian Act as it was historically
extremely restrictive to Indigenous Canadians, many First Nations groups advocate for it to remain
in Canada’s legislature as they benefit from the protections that have been added to it through a
series of revisions since the formation of the act (Flanagan 2022). One such revision outlines the
creation of separate institutions that were designed by the federal government but are utilized
solely by Indigenous groups, meant to help these groups contribute to Canada’s economy. The
institutions created for this purpose vary and pertain to oil, taxation, land management, and
entrepreneurship. As an Indigenous-family run business, Red Road Clothing is affected by the
revisions made to the Indian Act regarding business and economic transactions done from within
reservations. The focus on giving more resources and help only to those reservations that are the
most valuable, either by location or access to natural resources, is stifling to all other businesses,
specifically small entrepreneurial ventures (Flanagan 2022). If the federal government can
continue to amend the act to put a focus on creating more urban reserves as well to include newer
types of businesses (Flanagan 2022), like Red Road Clothing, then it will give more access to
Indigenous business owners to have better autonomy over their business and practices.
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