A humbly arrogant yet charismatic entrepreneur, Mithun is at the helm of the organization driving it with passion, commitment and latest global fashion knowhow.

First, I must wish my friends from the industry a very healthy and safe lifestyle. By using the word lifestyle, I have highlighted the essence of the new normal, never normal and no normal, a much talked about phrase today.

It is the change in lifestyle that will be the new normal be it reflected in the way we dress up, go shopping, go partying, re-engineer shop floor and travel!

Global apparel industry, both retail and manufacturing, has been bearing the brunt of changing business landscape, and India is no exception. The collapsed apparel retail markets like the US, Canada and the EU – which constitute around 85-90 percent apparel export earnings of India– have impacted the export revenues of the country, as fashion brands have been continuously asking the factory owners to give discounts on undelivered orders. The factories have found themselves in quite a bizarre situation and survival in the long run could be a daunting task if this continues to be the case.

Now the time has come when the manufacturing unit should consider business reengineering to cut the dependencies on the external buyers. The manufacturing unit has a strong backend to produce for the brands which can give them a long term edge.

New-age brands have a window of opportunity this year to set up a strong direct-to-consumer channel and build loyalty. It is time to stop stigmatizing brands because of where they’re made and blindly believing that ‘Made in the West' is always the best.

There are international brands such as GAP, Abercrombie & Fitch, Esprit, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and many more that proudly use India as a part of their supply and value chains that are capable of producing luxury pieces that compete on a global scale.

Brands by Indian manufacturers create elevated, tailored offerings with a meticulous attention to detail. Needless to say, the presumption of poor quality is moot. But somehow the manufacturers and exporters still have hesitation to create their own brand even when they have the expertise of producing for all the major international brands. Factory sweat never gets to steal runway glamour.

We don’t have Indian fashion brands come alive in international glossies. Or connive with India’s tech prowess to viral the world. Every crisis comes with an opportunity and what can be better than for these units to turnaround the tables with a much lesser investment and leveraging their own capacity to earn retail margins directly by selling their brand on a concept defined as ‘from factory’s floor to customer’s door.’

A strong brand identity positions in the mind of customer as providing quality worth paying for

Now let’s talk about how to build a scalable brand.
1.First and foremost is to find a robust skillful team having the right domain expertise that will do the whole hand holding from A-Z that will create the brand from scratch till the brand attends maturity. Fashion is amazing in the way it balances art and commerce, but it’s a business. Don’t start a business because you only know one aspect of it.

2.With similar set of machines the exporters and manufacturers don’t have much difference between what they offer and what the competitors offer, they’re not using any proprietary technology or a secret formula. They’re simply manufacturing garments within the niche. There is no identity or individuality in the market as they are at the backend of the whole fashion ecosystem. But a brand becomes publically known because it is catering to the end consumers.
The importance of the brand identity cannot be understated – especially in the world of fashion. A strong brand identity positions in the mind of customer as providing quality worth paying for. With a good brand identity, you’re positioned as better quality in the customer’s mind. In short: A good brand sticks in customers’ minds.

3.Next is brand positioning which holds utmost importance as expanding themselves digitally is important; however, the competition is also very wide for the brands to survive on the digital platform. Meeting the need of consumers is the goal, but this alone is not enough to guarantee success – the real challenge is to create the need of the consumers. Hence, the brand positioning and competition mapping will benchmark the top brands via different factors like: product range, price grid, fabric, etc. to analyze where the brand is trailing. Conducting predictive analysis, cohort analysis, product market fit, visual search, natural language processes, and structured photographic data, brands can identify trends before they’re in fashion. As a result, they can then develop bespoke designs they know will resonate with a target audience.

It is important to determine how a change in product fabric, design details, colour and price affect a customer’s response. This all takes place before the garment is even created, minimising the costs and the likelihood of not attracting sales. On that note you need to be associated with a hands on team who are keeping a close watch in terms of what others competitors or brands are doing in your domain and what are the upcoming trends and also analyzing their past trends basis which one should get into predictive analysis to safe guard the inventory as unsold inventory becomes a liability. Inventory is a challenge for a manufacturer as they work on pre-sold goods. They have prowess of manufacturing, design capabilities, technical knowhow but predictive analysis, data crunching, competition mapping, understanding the market can bring in more umbrellas ahead of the rainy day.

4.Apart from having a team of skilled designers who design clothes and having an expertise in producing, one should have a data processing team which helps the designers to create commercial garments. Of course fashion and art are, and will always be, inextricably linked. But fashion, as an industry, has a money-making agenda, so how do art and apparel collaborations fare commercially?

It is important to have a team of creative with a dual talent for business: not just artists, but artists who create to sell. The vast majority of designers work in anonymity for manufacturers, as part of design teams, adapting trendsetting styles into marketable garments. The power of the internet means we now connect with our consumers in a very different way. The ability to analyse customer data and interrupt this information into trends and product lines has become a fundamental skill for a designer of the today. Being data-oriented and capable of understanding the expectations and needs of your target audience and customers based on their behavioural data will be crucial.

Designers have to be both creative and analytical to deliver fashion which is also commercial in this very competitive market. To thrive in the world of fashion, the data and design team must work in sync together. The creativity will need to be informed by data alongside the many traditional sources of inspirations that will fuel your designs.

You also need to have the expertise to quickly spot new competitors, identify upcoming solid trends vs fads, and major shifts in the industry, so that you can adapt your designs to stay ahead of the market. The fashion industry is now more reliant on data science and business intelligence than ever before.

5.Market Penetration: The strength and the prowess of the backend should lead from the front. Considering traditional way of creating a brand, the Exporters and manufacturers don’t have to make a high investment in order to create a brand in terms of Capex, opex and time.

As it comes to selling the products through online the reachability of the product becomes extremely high as compared to a retail setup. One doesn’t need to invest on a retail space as we all know real estate is not cheap. Since we would be asked to follow social distancing, the digitization of selling the products rather having a retail space should be the priority. Space saved would be money saved and high reachability will eventually result in higher revenue.

6.It is important to reduce the market time to make a product available for the customers and also provide the correct information. Managing multiple marketplaces individually can be challenging, as every platform has its own standards of attributes and requirements. Hence, a cataloging department is also necessary to list the products. The team will reduce the chances of rejection, market time and increasing the time for sale. The expert cataloging team will immediately update on all the platforms making the product available for the end customers as soon as possible, while maintaining the consistency of offerings and information.

7.Yes, conducting a parallel business is important, but do it right, don’t get into another set of crises. Get the right set of team, prepare and then open. Don’t get into new product categories just to grab business, rather understand the category in demand and then cater to it.

It is time to rise from the complex of the ‘buyer is king’ and should move towards ‘Vocal for Local’ and ‘Local for Global’ approach.