The Hindu Business Line : Raymond focusing on retail supply chain

"The difficult part we face is getting the right supply mechanism for materials and the manpower to improve the efficiencies in delivery of the product."

MR GAUTAM H. SINGHANIA

Hyderabad May 7 With big retail plans already under implementation, textile and apparel major Raymond Ltd is faced with the challenging task of quickly firming up its supply and logistics act, says Mr Gautam Hari Singhania, Chairman and Managing Director.

"More than getting investments in place, the difficult part we face is getting the right supply mechanism for materials and manpower to improve efficiencies in delivery of the product," he told Business Line here.

An early entrant in the retail business, with its chain of Raymond stores, the company set up its 350th outlet recently, and has decided to increase the number to at least a 1,000 in the country in the next three years, Mr Singhania, who was here visiting the MeBaz outlets, said.

Increasing capacity

To meet the supply requirements, the company, which has increased its capacity at the Vapi plant, is hiking investments in facilities in Bangalore and also looking at a greenfield unit in Kolhapur.

The Vapi plant has seen an investment of Rs 320 crore to emerge as the most modern, integrated worsted suitings unit, with warping, weaving, spinning and finishing facilities.

Its capacity has been increased to 6 million metres per annum, Mr Singhania explained.

Denim focus

In the case of denim, which has been a focus area for the company in the global markets also, a comfortable capacity has been built.

With a Rs 100-crore investment during the last fiscal for an addition of 10 million metres, the capacity has been boosted to 40 million metres per annum. However, "The going has been tough last fiscal in this segment for Raymond. Even globally, the market has been difficult," the CMD said. On the question of competition from China, Mr Gautam Singhania said, "The Chinese are not going to be very competitive now. Our team which went to China last week has reported increasing labour costs, raw material, and so on, which pointed to their losing ground in the global arena".

European markets

Since the acquisition of Regency in Portugal for $3 million a couple of years ago, Raymond has been able to access the European markets.

In the domestic market also the company has tied up with a couple of Italian majors to bring popular brands to the consumers.

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