Indian apparel cos to focus on value addition

"India needed to move up the value chain by focusing on its strength of product development," Indus Fila Vice-Chairman and MD Nitin Mandhana said today, during the announcement of the Fabrics and Accessories Trade Show in the city from August 17-19.     

"We need to bring management of efficiencies. We have not done enough to manage better efficiencies compared to countries like Bangladesh, China, Vietnam and Cambodia," he said, adding "we need to look at alternative methods".     

India could no longer count on being cost competitive with countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh and Pakistan offering more cost arbitrage, said Atul Ujjagar, Country Director Nike India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.    

"We need to garner value addition as well as improve infrastructure... There has to be a political will towards this. Currently, we do not have synergies so how can we hope to compete with others", he said.    

Pointing out the emerging trend in the apparel front, Atul said with growing pressures on price points among suppliers, India would see consolidation taking place with a few big players. All brands would enter into strategic partnership, he said.     

India would also see emergence of "lean manufacturing" where wastage is cut down. There was growing awareness for green manufacturing whereby environmental concerns were addressed during the manufacturing process.