Distribution and Service are two key challenges while working with retail brands says Brijesh Bhati

How do you see the Indian textile industry is growing? Kindly state few numbers to quantify the same.

Textile as the country contributes about 4% of total GDP of the country which presently stands around two trillion dollors. India as the country has multiple advantages, for example, India is the second largest producer of Cotton and largest producer of Silk and second and third largest producer Viscose and largest producer of Jute. Also, textile employs 45 million people directly.

As the India is progressing towards multi facets within textile industry started from yarns to process to apparel. India is definitely poised to be one of the largest players within the textile industry of the world. Today, percentage of India as compared to world trade is around 4 to 5% whereas China stands at 25 to 30%. India with the advantage of labor, natural resources and ongoing industrial development is all set to be largest employment provider, revenue earner and clocking export currency.

Despite of encouraging numbers, why do you think no organized fabric brand has strong brand recall in women’s space, whereas there are many names in men’s segment? Being the part of Arvind limited which has diversified retail portfolio, what is your strategy to tap this void?

Yes it is very much truth! As far as we are concerned, we are the division of Arvind limited and our focus is B2C fabric space which isdirectly catering to the retail. Today in the women’s wear fabric space, there is hardly any organized player which has strong brand recall unlike men’s wear where we have very easy brand recalls like Arvind, Siyaram, Raymond amongst others. We are already have two fabric brands Tiptop and Chigori which enjoys a very strong recall especially in Southern belt of India. We are investing heavily to make them equally popular pan India. We want to be in top recall for all women needs whether it is western wear or Indian wear.

What kind of distribution Ankur Textiles has right now? And, going forward what are the strategies to scale up?   

We have 150 distributors which are placed all over the country. Practically, all districts have our touch points. And with these distributors we cover 10,000 retailers which we want to double in next three to four years. To achieve this, now we have created separate secondary sales stores through which we would be investing time and energy in promoting Ankur brand and its various products and new launches especially in tier2 and tier3 and also the metro cities.

Being a textile manufactures, what kind of challenges do you see while working with organized retail brands?  Which are the external retail brands with whom you working with?  

Working in retail space is challenging from service point of view as well as distribution point of view as we need a very prompt distribution system. We have to make the merchandise available to retailer as when it is required which itself a humongous task. If anything is not available just in time then we are missing the opportunity. So we have to be just in time also we need to meet the deadlines of all the festivals, occasions, India being a diverse country with so many regional preferences, so whatever being sold in south India may not be sold in North India and vice versa. So we have to be very alert and on our toe. So customer service is yet another key challenge that we have to address while working with retail brand. Also you need to provide good range of product to satisfy a decent retail chain which is not possible all the time.

We are looking for collaboration with ABFRL for ‘Liva’, rest details I cannot share with you right now.