IMPRESSIONS from a Cross-section

Well it is very difficult to name one. But yes, I had been working with these good companies and that is what I think been great thing about. To work with good professional companies enables learning a lot from them and is great opportunity. If one works with commitment and good intentions then good results are but obvious.

Unbelievable! Fantabulous! It is one of the best and the most sunshine experiences ever, because denim is a great product- a lifestyle product. It is very interesting, young, fun product. It is really amazing as a product that is versatile too. Personally, I feel really snug in Denim and enjoy wearing it in office too. Best part of my professional life, I feel is to be at helm of affairs making such a live product and that too with Arvind Group – one of the best makers of denim.

There has always been a very strong focus on Designing & Innovation at Arvind. And that is what really keeps us going. It is the part of our DNA. We eat, think, sleep, and breathe designing. Innovation & Designing is what we keep thinking and transforming into final product to our valued customers.

At Arvind a lot of investment is done for innovations. One can find encouragement to new ideas at every step of entire value chain of our denim making processes. We have fibre/yarn innovators, process innovators, finish innovators, equipments innovators, fabric and garment designers. That is how we invest in big time.

Further, there’s excellent infrastructure, state-of-art technology and a dedicated customer counselling team that continuously resolve quality issues and provide desired wash results.

Good from the outside and from within is the hallmark of a good product. Denim from Arvind offers reliability, quality and value-addition through services like shrink-film wrapping, bar-coded labeling of rolls, providing washed and unwashed shade blankets with every order, besides faster documentation.

Denim, as far as India is concerned, is evolving its own signature. What we see really happening is two very distinct levels of preferences in denim. You have the international brands and regional brands available here.

There is the market for the Denims that are made in pattern almost similar to international trends that the international brands like Lee, Wrangler and Levis sell. These trends are very close to what they sell internationally too.

Then we have the distribution over the mass segment of India which has its own unique identity. There you see a lot of ‘Indianization’ of denim happening in the sense of color coming in, a lot of brightness into denim, such that it is no longer the traditional ‘BLUE’ denim but it is more of the way you find colors in India, the way you find embroidery in India. This is very distinct flavor of denim in India.

Internationally speaking, not to mention, trends depend upon market in US, Europe. There are different trends in different segments. For example, stretch is becoming favorite, stretches and comfort stretches are getting into men segment, new finishes, new coatings are getting very strong. However, original, classic, deep dark indigos also continue to be in vogue in these markets.

With the current situation where Europe and US are sort of pushing themselves hard out of recession, they are into tremendous pressures in terms of sales. They really cannot do too much about the customer who is not entering their store and not buying, but what they can really do about is sourcing more efficiently, bringing down the cost of goods sold.

Till now, as there was a lot of manufacturing happening in region within Europe and US or close to US, which were basically high cost centers, but because of inertia, comfort and some historic reasons, people were comfortable to source from these centers. Now, under situations when they confront hardship in sales and market is not strong any more, many of them are looking at side ways sourcing, walking an extra mile to see if they can source better, and competitively.

That is where India comes into picture because here there are companies that can offer an equally good product, in fact at times better product at much better value. So in terms of bringing value to the customers, it is better to source it from India. So serving developed market out of India, be it- Europe, US, Japan or North Korea, there is huge opportunity that India has in store.

Absolutely! India can. India has got great potential since always. More so, in current times because of various determinants like China imports cotton whereas India exports. So India has got a larger access to cotton locally thus facilitating its manufacturers source cotton more competitively. Moreover, of course like China, India also has got great textile history and tradition. Also besides cotton, India also has access to other raw materials like polyester, silk, viscose, and such fibers that go into textile making.

More importantly, compared to China, India has got more skilled, English speaking, design oriented manpower which includes very strong middle management. Amongst other, the greatest advantage that India has is that even if you walk in to any company, right from the top to bottom, you can have a conversation with anybody with out any trouble as they will understand what you talking about. Workforce here can well comprehend all aspects be it technical part of it, design part of it, or managerial part of it. They will be able to communicate. These aspects give tremendous comfort to any customer who is sourcing from India. And that is the huge strength that India has and its competition lacks on.

Well, I think that is because Arvind has got good mix of businesses. We are going on with market share agreement as our company strategy. We have healthy mix of businesses between domestic and international market, and within that we are very well engaged with the hi-end brands, the retailers, with vertical brands like GAP, with brands of India covering mass market of India, and with distribution segment in India. This makes our portfolio really balanced one, and gives us ability to leverage our market share.

We have mapped different segments very clearly and targeted certain market shares. So once you know certain segments are growing at certain pace, and you own some stake in that, then you are no more looking at denim in general or in broad term, but looking as market share in that segment. As long as the company keeps eye on that and doing wise things like keeping cost under control and giving very good product at affordable cost, the company can mark presence in that segment.

Similarly as far as the brands like Levis and Gap are concerned, if a company can make a well designed product and back it up with quality, consistency, service and support such that it is almost a solutions provider to them, then company can be rest assured of becoming preferred supplier for them.

In the same way for fashion-lifestyle brands, if company is able to continuously come up with hi-end design and innovation, i.e. what they look for, then it gets capable to keep them engaged as well. So it is just like the ‘horses-course’ strategy i.e. for every race course there is different horse. Similarly for every segment company has to understand as to what really is solution for that segment and offer solution accordingly, and with that it gets strong foothold and consistency in that business, because more often every segment comes under pressure at same the time.

That is because we are looking Bangladesh from long term stance. Anywhere in world, in every environment there remain some challenges to be mooted. So any such information or any such happenings coming across is taken up as one bit of info. In fact Bangladesh has got huge advantages, as you can see their textile export has grown consistently. Their exports is at about half billion dollars wherein the textile part is less and major is garments share.

Now, 60% of our export business gets shift to Bangladesh. Though these orders could be nominated on behalf of different customers may be located in US, Europe or wherever, but basically it gets converted into jeans and other denim garments in Bangladesh. Large conversion is happening in Bangladesh and they are simply competitive on that front. For us, our objective is to get closer to customer and better serve them. Hence this move is our futuristic approach.

In a year or so this plant will get functional, and we see a huge success thereon.

Arvind takes sustainability as a focal point of its business. Sustainability is a very strong differentiator for us. And I think globally today, amongst all players of denims, Arvind stands out in terms of sustainable denims. Arvind has been communicating that very assertedly to our customers by the way it is building its whole product. For example, we are enabling cotton farming grown organically working close with farmers in the state of Maharashtra. Besides, recycling of cotton, manmade fibres, using natural- eco safe dyes stuff etc. We have one of the largest suppliers of natural indigo. So sustainability is very large area of operations at Arvind.

In general, globally sustainability or sustainable product making, being costly, has by and large kept restricted as blessing for niche market only. Arvind’s endeavor is to bring it to masses, making it affordable so that it is not something only to be talked about but is something of value in common to customers. For example we are doing one of the largest programs with Walmart on sustainability, and with customers like H&M and C&A. This means we are taking such products all across so that this concept is not just topic of discussions but something which a consumer can actually affordably buy and enjoy. Our rigorous effort is towards how best we make a sustainable product an affordable one. And that is our strength too. And that is very big advantage value that we are offering to our customers.

Some mills in Japan and Europe had been known for making sustainable products. These mills offer such products at high cost and thus they cannot reach the masses. Arvind has been able to act on these concepts in very industrial manner. It was of course the challenge as to how to take it industrially, commercially and at the same time to a larger number. Arvind has definitely been able to achieve this.

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