From The Readers Minds!

3rd Edition

Editorial

It was late one evening when Anindya gave me a call to discuss a new idea for the blog. With excitement in his voice he said;

Joining his excitement, I said “ Do you want to add quirk & a little bit of humour to these stories?”, should we keep the narrative simple and personalised… and so the discussion continued.

After sometime the next set of blogs started taking shape in our minds… And what followed was a series relating 8 incidents from Anindya’s life which have not just taught him something, but also taught the readers many things.

As always our readers have joined in with enthusiasm and shared many valuable comments. We thank you’ll whole heartedly for extending this support & truly making Inside Apparel a platform for everyone’s expression.

Some of the comments are shared in this article. Enjoy!

NURTURE AND EMPOWER

A qualified younger talent in your team (which has been put together by adopting professionally recruiting methods with team leader being a part of it ) will only yield desired results if the team is empowered enough.

Nurturing and promoting them leads to a very conducive environment for generating newer concepts & innovative ideas

Insecurity will never blind an open and delegating leader as it ultimately ups his / her rank and image

At the end it’s the product not personalities that’s going to drive the market.

- Paresh Shah

INCENTIVISE RISK TAKING 

This is relevant for all companies. Innovation is a risk taking venture. Companies by design are structured to mitigate risk. I personally dont think its a problem of the Mr. Team Leader alone. How do companies incentivise risk taking and encourage it (within limits). Creating a “safe space” for risk taking is important. One suggestion could be to set aside a certain % of “innovative” styles to be created and then see what the results are. 

- Gunish Jain (CEO BlueKaktus)

CHANGE IN ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

This is so true. But how to address such issues is also very important. The company as a whole should have a mechanism to check and resolve. Otherwise the company looses all the talent to competitors and will struggle to grow and eventually fail, even with ‘know it all’ team leads. What if these team leads never realise their shortcomings ? What if there is no one to bell the cat ? I would like to know your opinion on that..

- Prasenjit Adhikari, Creative Director Arrow @ Arvind brands

PERFECTION IS GOOD TO IDEALISE. 

In a real situation, you have to keep an eye on a multitude of factors and take calls accordingly. 

These things make me wonder – Do Perfection Exist? Like Beauty, Perfection lies in the eyes of Beholder, to what scale you want to bend down to ensure it’s PERFECT. Commercial calls and conditional approval are taken to avoid such situation – but do we mine that data – the winner/losers out of the calls taken and learn to bend our curve of perfection, to get to the path of winning the situation- keeping in mind the past mistakes. 

- Sarika Arora, Head corporate sales at Royal Data Matics Pvt. Ltd.

THE PANDEMIC HAS MADE THINGS HAPPEN. 

This year we have for the first time moved from top down approach to a collaborative approach and have been successful in reducing delivery lead time and the collaborative creativity took efficiency to another level. Delivery in 45 days in india !

Colour approval digitally and closing styles over zoom calls.

It has been a rush and if we collaborate at design and buyer level with production and factory at one time we will reduce 50% of the time line.

This is with caution it’s the smart working between the brands and the factory supply form mills there has seen no change but the process time reduced with the transfer of responsibility to the factory for yarn colour approvals and flexibility in the approach.

- Akhil Khanna, Managing Director, SRV Knittech Pvt Limited

QUALITY AS IT SHOULD BE 

The prime job of any quality person or head is the ability to predict and forecast errors. He must consolidate the requirements of designer, brand value, vendor capabilities, sourcing requirements. Every product has a CTQ (critical to quality). Inspections are again classified as Predictive, Preventive and Detection. If all three fail without any documentation its quality team’s responsibility. This defines how good our processes are.  The final check between the design/development /procurement /manufacture is the audits before it reaches customer.  

- Ajay Ravuri, General Manager, Quality @ Arvind Fashions Limited

COST OF POOR QUALITY

Once the COST of Poor quality is clearly understood across the cross functions and driven top down , the probability of everyone smiling is higher , if not it will remain a B-Lame game.

- Sandeep Golam, director operations at Denimach limited

ORDER PLACEMENT IS A FINANCIAL LIABILITY

This is a typical situation in our industry. Orders are placed without details. Sometimes due to ignorance at other times due to assumptions. To solve this issue a good sourcing head always makes some fields mandatory for an order to exist. An order is also a financial liability to a company so in many companies the finance guys are also involved for second level for an order to exist. Typically an order should be raised on the system by the buyer. Level 1 approval should be the junior sourcing merchant who has to execute the order. Level 2 should be finance to accept the finances are allocated and level 3 should be the sourcing head to accept the order for the team to execute. If this basic procedure is followed by companies there will never be a slip in the system 

- Poonam Sood Lal, Consultant, Co-Founder Sash Exports(Buying House)

TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE 

I like the humour intertwined with a critical message. This reminds me of a placard on the desk of the sourcing head of an apparel company. It reads as- "In this place everyone wants stuff delivered yesterday. If you want something today,  then come tomorrow" Jokes apart, the situation described was commonplace but hopefully with the advent of the systems, things have gotten better.

- Krishna Kumar (KK) IT Entrepreneur and Supply Chain Enthusiast

HOW THINGS WORK TODAY 

This was then, what is the scenario now, with so many brands of various scale, with 35% of consumption of Garments is happening on a platform that doesn’t allow customer to feel much at the time of purchase but views quality post purchase, in the convenience of his or her home. The expectation of today’s customer even if she buys disposable fast fashion product or a well curated product is almost the same. Why do brands have to then focus on educating the customer about the quality standards and how one thing is better than the other. Millions are spent to tell the quality story through various mediums, does the customer really knew or wanted the given quality ever? It sometimes make me wonder what is the basic hygiene in quality and how much extra do brands put and then educate and charge thousands extra.

- Himanshu Singh, Co-founder, Meraki

WHAT ABOUT BRAND VALUE

This will help to  get some business immediately but where is Brand value? If one brand is setting different quality level with different price range, especially in apparel sector, I  think it will affect  brand value in long run. 

- Dipin KK

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY IS KEY TO SUCCESS

We live in interesting digital times where customer choices are driven by known and unknown influencers and influences. Going forward technology will have to deduce what you simply observed in buying behaviour. The principle remains the same though ! 

- Nithya Easwaran, Managing Director at Multiples Alternate Asset Management Pvt Ltd

OFFER SOLUTIONS TO CUSTOMERS 

What you shared can be applied actually in every industry and domain.  Your ability to gauge and manage what your customer is thinking and offering solutions that will not make him uncomfortable for whatever reason can be a great skill that all of us should learn. 

- Yogesh Agiwal, Founder & CEO - Crossover Leadership Journeys

AN EXPERIENCE

I can totally relate to this article. I once went to a store and asked the sales person to get me a waist size 32 jeans, and he said that as per him I should try 34. I told him – “Do you know my waist better than I do!!!” and walked off. The next store I went – I told them that i wear size 34 and it fit!!!

- Gunish Jain (CEO BlueKaktus)

COMMUNICATION IS KEY 

Communicating with the customer will reveal his quest for a fit preference while gauging the size should be learnt while indulging in a conversation.

And not to say the knowledge about the product on the floor is vital. This is so because same size is a different size for each brand.
What size 36 could be for one brand will be different for another brand.

- Sanjay Lal – Co-Founder, Sash Exports (Buying House)

WHAT YOU SOW IS WHAT YOU REAP

Many many many time I have walked into Branded stores and for more than a few minutes no one even comes near me. All the store staff including the store manager are busy with their own thing when there is no other customer except me. They all see me in the store. But … the store manager is super busy with his computer. The store staff are chatting about the movie they saw or some gossip.

Every time I have walked out …. the worst is when no one even has asked me whey I am leaving or what am I looking for. In most cases I have gone with clear intention of a specific purchase. This has happened in the last 20 years hundreds of time specifically with Branded stores in Malls as well as high streets. Some times I have even shouted at them about their attitude and have told them that they are killing the brand.

But the most interesting thing is …. I have seen this happening to me far less in small multi-brand stores run by Owners. There some one will come to me within a 90 seconds of me walking into the store, asking me ‘Sir, what do you?” or “sir, Can I help you?”.

So you can understand when many Single branded stored owned by the companies do less sales … RMKV, Nallis, Kumaran, Chennai Sillks doing roaring sales even during the Pandemic time.

This was one of the biggest lesson from second-class educated my father who ran retail stores: Greet the customers within 30 seconds of entry and ensure some is there to attend to them (This used to a shop where we had counters between the product and the customer) & Ensure no customer is unattended if it managing more than even three customer families at a time during seasons.

What came to me is a simple principle “You have to give attention if what to grab anyone’s attention”.

This leads to a very simple fundamental principle of life: “What you give is what you get back from the world”.

I remembered a Tamil quote that I read in early childhood: “வினை விதைத்தவன் வினை அறுப்பான், தினை விதைத்தவன் தினை அறுப்பான்.”
It means: “You reap what you sow.” 

- Raja Chidambaram

These anecdotes have reflected on many facets of our industry. From the leaders to the consumers, from communication to attention…

Each and every anecdote shared has opened our eyes to multitude learnings and given us something to think about. It's always good to learn from others experiences, for they are the mistakes you avoid & learnings you gain.

With that note, I would invite you’ll to share and express!

RELATED TOPICS:#Apparel,Shilpa Polavarapu