The 2,000-sewing-machine-strong Ashuliabased Landmark Group is all set for major expansions. Speaking about the same to Apparel Online, Chairman of the company, Dipak Bhowmik reveals, “I am looking at setting up a 600-machine dress shirt factory this year. I am also working towards doubling the capacity of our 7-line denim factory.” 

Knit is Landmark Group’s mainstay, constituting US $ 50 million business of the total turnover of US $ 60 million. “Post the expansion, wovens will comprise 50 per cent of our turnover, which is expected to touch US $ 100 million by the end of 2016,” says Dipak who also has plans to set up a fabric unit in future. “Since the company has enough land attached to

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Kenpark and Regency, the garmenting units owned by Hirdaramani Group, have successfully implemented IntelloCut, by ThreadSol Softwares, the pioneer of Enterprise Material Management. Kenpark and Regency are the first to join the consortium of ThreadSol powered factories in Bangladesh. ThreadSol solutions not only ensure fabric cost saving but also reduce the work load and effort on the production floor, making it a widely accepted solution in the world. Suresh De Silva, GM at Regency said, “IntelloCut has reduced our effort by effectively handling multiple fabric groups and planning all end pieces which would otherwise be wasted. Indeed a solution worth recommending.” IntelloCut and IntelloBuy, products of ThreadSol, together offer complete Enterprise Material Management that helps manufacturers boost their top line by 50 per cent by virtue of fabric cost saving at the buying stage and reduced process loss at the factory level.

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SQ Group – a known name and a brand in the clothing sector, both globally and in Bangladesh, is rolling out the WFX cloud-based PLM and ERP solutions to integrate connectivity between its business processes and to improve workflow in order to remain competitive into the future. WFX PLM and ERP software is most recent and specifically geared towards the clothing sector. SQ is implementing the solutions across all product categories and divisions. The cloud-based tool will manage Group’s entire endto-end business functions from product development, budgets, material planning, capacity management, merchandising, sourcing, production, quality control, logistics and financial accounting.

WFX (World Fashion Exchange) is one of the leading companies in cloud-based software for garments, fashion and other related industries. The company has presence in 23 countries across the globe with over 450 fashion clients and 15,000 users. WFX software increases efficiencies, brings down lead times, enables costing control, helps in purchase, production cycles, reduces wastage and helps in enabling better sourcing and retail supply chains. 

Brought into being in 1993, SQ Group is a knitwear specialist and the company has forayed into lingerie, and very recently shirt. A massive capacity building featuring spoton sustainable inventiveness is now happening at SQ. The ERP solution exercise is part of SQ’s active campaign of positioning itself in profiting from China’s trailing hold as the world’s sourcing destination. The Group strives to remain updated and adopt the latest technology to maintain efficiency and output coupled with customer satisfaction to the hilt.

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With rich experience of working for 8 years in various export houses, Rajesh Taneja started his own company Indian Stitchers 10 years ago and has, in this decadelong journey, achieved a commendable turnover of Rs. 35 crore in FY 2014-15. Indian Stitchers holds the distinction of being one of the few companies in India doing organic garments in knits as well as woven fabric. Continuously adding new categories, products and new buyers has been one of the main reasons for the success of the company. Having realized early the importance of investing profits back into the business, Rajesh has never shied away from making financial commitments on growth, which has supported this entrepreneur, who though belonged to a middleclass family, didn’t

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The infamous Rana Plaza incident rings pain and haunting memories to many, but for Md. Fazlul Hoque, Managing Director, Plummy Fashions Limited (PFL), besides the destruction and heartbreak, the incident was also a trigger to come up with something extraordinary that in part could help improve the industry’s image while motivating others to contribute towards the same. And thus was born the LEED-certified Platinum knitwear manufacturing unit of Plummy Fashions, keeping with the strict guidelines of the US Green Building Council (USGBC).

Situated at Narayanganj, 20 kilometres south of Dhaka, the green knit apparel manufacturing unit perfectly envisions PFL’s commitment to people and the planet, for a sustainable and accountable business that would inspire others to follow suit. “This green effort of

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Time and again, Tirupur-based Armstrong Knitting Mills has been in the news for its various sustainable initiatives and collaborations. Amongst the most ethical manufacturers in India, the company is continuously strengthening its sustainability commitments and is unfazed by the many challenges that assail the concept over time. In conversation with Apparel Online, E. Palanisamy, Group Chairman and P. Vivek Anand, MD, Armstrong Knitting Mills elaborate on sustainability as a growth strategy, the ethos of the company and the latest initiatives undertaken.

For the father-son duo, sustainability has become a way of life and business at the Armstrong Knitting Mills, a company that has been catering to the international market for four decades now, with the last 15

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Given India’s maturity as an apparel sourcing destination, the showroom of an Indian apparel exporter has evolved to become a showcase of capabilities in design and manufacturing. The assortment of cuts, silhouettes, textures, washes, finishes and the product range is an accurate and timely reflection of global trends. Needless to say, Indian exporters are mastering the art of designing and they are designing to impress. However, to partner with the buyer as an active design-input force, is a demanding task in itself because the manufacturer needs to build an arsenal of value addition capacities, a team capable of deciphering the buyers’ demands and manufacturing the end-product in the given lead time as per the pre-defined quality standards while minimizing the operating overheads to maintain the profitability. In

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Consistent growth, backed by quality product and responsive service that can guarantee complete customer satisfaction, defines the winning strategy at Eastman Exports, Tirupur, driven by the vision and acumen of N Chandran, CMD of one of India’s top apparel export companies. Taking forward his dynamic legacy is his son Cibi Karthic, who is not only learning the nuances of the export business, but has also been instrumental in starting a new vertical through an in-house brand ‘Huetrap’, which is their vehicle to enter the e-commerce domain. Speaking exclusively to the father-son duo, Apparel Online unravels the new vertical of the company and the changing business dynamics.

Just 3 years into the business, Karthic has worked hard to

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Buyers today are smart and informed about the realities of the sourcing destinations and they know how to build pressure on garment manufacturers and exporters to reduce and negotiate on C&M costs. Against this backdrop, Greenland Garments Ltd. is trying to differentiate by focusing on value-added knits to fetch higher prices for its garments. The strategy of Greenland is simple – not to cater to the discount stores like Walmart or to the mass market. It produces garments for retail chains and players like Intersport, British Home Stores, Nightwear, Dorothy Perkins, Bonmarche, etc. The reason why the company is not catering to the discounted stores and mass market is profit margins. “While everyone is well aware of the basic garments’ pricing, it is not easy to guess the

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Completion of 40 years in the apparel business, 25 years of helming a growing organization and close to achieving the magical turnover of Rs. 100 crore, can be a proud moment for anybody but for Kusum Uppal, Founder of New Delhi Export House (NDEH), Noida, which is just another milestone in her long career. A familydriven company, NDEH has achieved 100 per cent growth in the last five years, yet is not in an expansion mood but has instead set targets for optimization of current setup. A firm believer of spreading out risks, NDEH is working with on an average 28 buyers from mass to class with not more than 8 per cent turnover dedicated to any one of them. With priority to work with virgin markets and relatively newer buyers, Kusum shares her journey and vision with Apparel Online.

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True to the role-definition of an army man, Zabed went on to take up a challenge, which he did by taking over a defunct Korean company, to revamp, renovate and make it functional, and start manufacturing in 2012. “I took over the factory to manufacture sportswear,” informs Zabed, a double major in MBA (Marketing and Human Resources), who is well-versed with the importance of groundwork and strategy – as taught and ingrained in every man in uniform – not only carried out a thorough market research and analysis of the demand-supply scenario before launching the project but also took a well thoughtout decision to manufacture specialized apparels only, to negate the cut-throat competition prevalent in the regular product categories. “There are only a handful of companies, besides

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Known for T-shirts, which form the mainstay of the company’s produce, Dennison Attires Limited, a six-year--old Narayanganj-based knitted fabric and garment manufacturing company (offering wide-range of knitted products in men’s, ladies’ and kids’ sections, including polo shirts, sports shirts, T-shirts, sweatshirts, shorts, boxers, tank tops, trousers and many more), has of late started producing lingerie as well. “We started lingerie just six months back,” maintains Syedul Hoque, Managing Director of the company, who has appointed two Filipino professionals – experts in this product category, to help Dennison out in its new endeavour, for which the company has dedicated a total of 150 machines, exclusively. 

Having started lingerie manufacturing just six months back, Dennison Attires Limited has dedicated a total of 150 machines exclusively for

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Although the current times are definitely characterized by entrepreneurship, we rarely see fresh blood entering the apparel manufacturing business with new sophisticated set-ups, and the guild of apparel manufacturers continues to be dominated by companies established in the 1970s and 1980s. This status quo of the sector makes the entry of young individuals like Naveen Agarwal, Managing Director, Naval Exporters worthy of optimism. In an exclusive tête-à-tête with StitchWorld, Naveen shares his experience of the first year in the industry. 

An idea, the seeds

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India has never been considered as a major sweater manufacturing destination for international buyers and there are very few sweater export facilities that match global standards, on top of that a green factory especially for sweaters that too in Tirupur, is indeed a pleasant surprise! International Trading Company (ITC), the brainchild of the young, enthusiastic and globally trained ZahirSAIT, is probably going to be the first ever green sweater factory in India. An apparel professional, with strong technical knowledge, ZahirSAIT is investing Rs. 20 crore (US $ 3.3 million ) in this new green facility which will have solar energy of 300 KW on its roof to take care of the entire air-conditioning system, ZLD facility, water harvesting, and vertical garden on the walls with complete

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It’s not every day that one comes across a person of Rubana Huq’s calibre and character. The multifaceted Managing Director of Mohammadi Group is an entrepreneur, writer, philanthropist, wife and mother, all rolled into one. Her modesty and simplicity however belie her achievements. Apart from being a successful industrialist, Rubana is also a well known figure in the literary circle of the country. Her prolific and insightful writings have earned her the coveted SAARC literary award in 2008. She also holds the rare distinction of being selected by BBC for its 100-women conference, from across the globe, for two consecutive years and subsequently tasked with mentoring a not-so-privileged young Cambodian woman on which the channel has also made a short film. Currently, Rubana is pursuing her doctoral degree in

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Most of the time Apparel Online discusses companies that are growing despite difficult situation with their different strategies, niche products or other such specialties to motivate and create examples to be emulated, but it cannot be ignored that a major part of the industry is struggling or just managing to survive, especially small and medium level companies. To overlook their issues is a disregard to a large section of the industry. Recently Apparel Online had a deep interaction with Girish Kumar Pareek, MD of the two decades old Savi Exports, one of the well-known export houses of Jaipur, who honestly shared the plight of companies like his in today’s difficult market conditions. 

A medium-sized company, Savi Exports manufactures

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Since its inception in 1995, Saurer Embroidery Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd. has over the years emerged as a centre of excellence in schiffli embroidery. Through an efficient management system with technical expertise, combined with hands-on experience, Saurer Embroidery ensures that its customers, both domestic and international, receive the most effective, professional and quality centric service, backed by a huge infrastructure. Speaking exclusively to Apparel Online , Ankush Kapoor, Ashish Khanna and Aditya Khanna, the dynamic trio behind the success of the company share what makes Saurer Embroidery, the best in schiffli embroidery and also future plans to up their game.

In the past few years the textile industry has registered stagnant growth with many players who had made huge capital investments going through a rough phase. “Textile machinery is very expensive and though we only do embroidery, these machines

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Sparrow Apparels, part of US $ 125 million Sparrow Group (also owners of Crown Wears), is considered to be one of the pioneers among the garment manufacturers in Bangladesh, catering in equal parts to both American (GAP, Ann Taylor, Levis, etc.) and European (M&S, Talbots, Mango and Zara) clienteles. Started in 1984, with only 200 workers, by Professor Mazharul Islam, the group is now headed by Mazharul’s son Shovon Islam (Shawn), who is the current Managing Director of the group. Mazharul is instrumental in taking the group to new heights using the JV model of business as a driver for growth.

It was Shovon’s chance meeting with Vijay Mahtaney, Managing Director of Ambattur Clothing Limited (ACL) from India at

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Green seems to have become the new slogan of the Bangladesh apparel industry! Amidst growing tribe of eco-friendly global retailers, more and more entrepreneurs are going for green buildings to ensure stability and business growth.

With at least 14 garment factories already receiving LEED certification, and 50 more in the queue to acquire the same by having cleared selection criteria already, more than 150 factories are expected to obtain the coveted accreditation by the end of 2016.

LEED or Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design is a green building certification programme that recognises best-in-class building strategies and practices, and to receive its endorsement, building projects need to satisfy various pre-requisites and earn points accordingly to achieve different levels of certifications from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).

Apart from the much-needed image makeover, especially in the aftermath of a

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In an industry where adhering to laid down ageold business practices is rather a norm than exception, what sets Omar Hamid Chowdhury, Managing Director of Syntex Group (consisting of Syntex Knitwear Limited and Hydroxide Knitwear Limited) apart is Omar’s distinctive style of running the show. Professionalism, delegating responsibilities and empowering employees to take key decisions on their own, are some of the welcome changes brought in by Omar in his Group. However, the biggest differentiator is perhaps Omar’s stress on strengthening the bottom line which is in stark contrast to many from his fraternity, whose business strategy revolves more around improving the top line while producing higher volumes with lower price tickets.

Starting with sweater using just 350 hand flat knitting machines from two floors of a rented apartment in Uttara in 2002, Omar incurred losses for the first

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