Due to the combination of vast technology trends brought by Industry 4.0, present-day consumers need and stiff global competition and require businesses from across many industries to constantly innovate. Clients request multifaceted support from manufacturers and service providers while the transition towards new symbiotic ecosystems disrupts traditionally established processes in some sectors. This is largely happening in the global automotive industry where in-car and around-the-car services with asset-sharing concepts are taking a dominant role rather than plain vehicles sales and car ownership. In our paper, we investigate the possibilities of new and improved business collaborations between a car retailer operating in several European countries and its SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) customers across various sectors currently owning car fleets of at least five vehicles. We test several hypotheses and conduct a systematic statistical analysis of the proposed business model’s aspects on the sample of almost 200 SMEs from five countries in Southeast Europe. By using the χ2 test and a one-tailed t-test we tested both frequency data and the continuous variables. Research indicates that SMEs look for new ways to organize their fleet management strategy more efficiently and thus more precisely plan associated costs. Regardless of the country of origin, SMEs want to explore a business model with more introduced to their fleet management and are ready to accept new technologies for fleet management operations.

The research was designed to contribute to scientific efforts in exploring the attitude of fashion stakeholders towards AI and its use in attaining sustainability in fashion industry. Although the role of AI in Fashion has been studied before, the aim of this research is to challenge and analyze the attitudes towards sustainable fashion of both stakeholders and consumers. The research considers the views of consumers, industry professionals and company shareholders on the role AI plays in pursuing ideas of Sustainable Fashion. Contrary to expectations, the companies with significant turnover did not show any greater awareness of the new trends in the fashion business. Furthermore, previous familiarity with the usage of AI did not prove to promote openness towards the recommendation of apps which use AI to promote Sustainable Fashion. The value of this research lies in the findings, which help provide a framework which can be used to change the viewpoint of the key market players. The crucial finding is that the AI approach on sustainability will influence both users (changing their purchasing decisions toward more sustainable choices if provided with a set of information on ecological impact, production choices), and corporate businesses (changing the overall business strategy, planning, marketing communication and production designs). The paper offers milestones for further research on synergies between AI, fashion industry lined with UNS SDGs and purchasing behavior.