The Hindu Business Line : Brand building in textiles important, says Plan panel

Mumbai, Oct. 9The Working Group report of the Eleventh Plan has earmarked brand promotion in textiles as an important strategy for improving value realisations of exports through a Public Private Partnership approach, according to Mr Vijay Agarwal, Chairman, Apparel Export Promotion Council.

This move is necessary in a scenario where India is losing out on a significant amount of export earnings. “The final retail value of an apparel product sold to the consumer in export markets is five to 10 times higher than the ex-factory price of the product depending on various factors,” explained Mr Agarwal.

In the recently concluded Tex Summit, the Textiles Secretary, Mr A.K. Singh, said, “Though India has an appreciable presence in global textiles and clothing markets, it is an irony that not even a single Indian brand is recognised at the international level.”

“retail backwards”

The reason for this, according to Mr Venkataramani K, Brand Director, Peter England of the A V Birla group, is that retail is new to India. “We are used to the multi-brand mom & pop store environment and the focus has predominantly been on performing in the domestic market.”

He explained that brand building is “retail backwards” and though Peter England has international plans, they were not ready for it “yet”.

Some brands like Spykar feel they are ready to enter the global markets. The brand ran a pilot programme in London to understand the market and consumer psyche. “We are applying plenty of efforts and resources in figuring out the various aspects of the market to achieve what we have in India,” said Mr Sanjay Vakharia, Marketing Director, Spykar Lifestyles Pvt Ltd.

Spend factor

He added that Indian entrepreneurs never attempted it before because of the predominantly manufacturing nature of the industry. “We have never looked at brand building as an exercise as we were not comfortable on spending and then being happy at non-tangible gains from it,” he said.

Bombay Dyeing, which recently tied up with the UAE-based luxury retailer Rivoli, has plans to push its brands in the global market. Mr S.K. Gupta, Executive Director, said, “We will enter the global market in a big way soon. Indians were not confident before this, but now is the right time to tap the foreign markets with our brands.”

Brand promotion is an expensive proposition and requires carefully designed multi-stakeholder strategies on a sustainable basis, said Mr Agarwal. He added, “Capacity of the Indian industry, by virtue of being an SME, is fragmented and decentralised. It is not rooted in the domestic market itself, which is a pre requisite for international presence.”

Last year, the textile industry did exports to the tune of Rs 35,500 crore ($8,875 million).

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