The Hindu Business Line : Vijayeswari Textiles turns focus to European market

Coimbatore, Sept. 27Even as the spiralling down dollar realisation has left most commodity textile exporting firms off-the-guard, the Coimbatore-based Vijayeswari Textiles Ltd has set its vision beyond managing the cross-currency volatility.

The high-end home textile exporter has sought to spread out its export market reach, not depending solely on its volume-giving US market or resting with the clientele from the UK, the next best customer base for its premium range bed linens.

The company is now all set to tap the rest of the European retail segment. To translate this shift in its marketing approach, it has taken in a European executive on its rolls to help identify the market and the ‘right product’ to meet the needs of European consumers.

European V-P

Designated a Vice-President, this executive, with a 20-year past experience with an established bed linen manufacturing company in Portugal, will look after market support and product development for Vijayeswari.

“The idea behind getting the support of a person with this expertise is that he would bring his knowledge to the company to get the best product to fit for our line of manufacture, and assist in the right product development,” said Mr A.L. Ramachandra, Managing Director, Vijayeswari Textiles. Along with its efforts to spread-out to the rest of Europe, the company now lays thrust on fine-tuning its internal ‘efficiency engineering’ to achieve volume production, also in the area of ‘fashion’-oriented home-textiles, and its ability to meet ‘small lot’ orders — the two characteristic needs to survive in the European market which is also marked by the lack of pricing elasticity due to severe competition in this segment.

The company has to chisel its product development plan to meet new marketing challenges with an eye on cutting costs as buyers would continue to resist increasing the price for the same product, said Mr Ramachandra.

The compulsion for Vijayeswari to find an alternative market to the US is due to the anticipated decelerated consumer spending there in the light of the recent interest rate cut.

Its supplies are also largely linked to retail stores which meant that the shipments are for the long-term and the retailers are also known to be emphatic on their margins.

Vijayeswari Textiles is now investing in its downstream facilities covering weaving, processing and made-ups production line that would turn up higher volume of special fabric weaving and higher designed embellishments to lift its product value.

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