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Facing challenges in embroidery business …?
Wilcom addresses the issue with solutions
In early 1990s, when Wilcom entered the Indian market, the embroidery industry was overwhelmingly export-focused, producing corporate identifications, logos, names – something it colloquially calls the‘ left-chest embroidery’. The domestic market was also mostly focusing on emblems and logos. Moreover, there was a clearly different market and industry segment, based on Schiffli machines that produced continuous embroidery lace for curtains, bedsheets and to some extent, fashion garments.
Initially, the embroidery industry was dominated by Tajima, Barudan, ZSK and later SWF, all of which were considered robust, long-lasting machines, producing high quality embroidery. Significantly, the industry went through rapid and fundamental changes in the decade between 1995 and 2005. And the game changer was the entry of low-priced Chinese multi-head embroidery machines that were about 70-80 per cent cheaper than the high-quality brand with equivalent size. This caused major disruption in the industry.“ By the early 2000s, there were more than 30 Chinese machine brands imported to India; the import of such machines peaked at about 30,000 machines in a year in the mid-2000s, mostly landing in Surat which became the most concentrated embroidery hub in the country,” shares Janos Horvath, Vice President( International Sales), Wilcom.
During the same time, Indian economy entered a new phase and a sizable middle-class with strong economic power and money to spend started to emerge. Traditionally, Indian dresses used to be embellished by hand embroidery, and mirrors; stones and sequins were attached by hand and only the wealthy could afford such heavily embellished dresses. With the entrance of Chinese machines, embroidery became a major mass production industry for the new emerging middle-class.
Janos Horvath, Vice President( International Sales), Wilcom
“ By the early 2000s, there were more than 30 Chinese machine brands imported to India; the import of such machines peaked at about 30,000 machines in a year in the mid-2000s, mostly landing in Surat which became the most concentrated embroidery hub in the country.”
– Janos Horvath, Vice President( International Sales), Wilcom
Adding further strength, multi-head embroidery machines developed wider frames, smaller head-space and had many new special devices( sequins, cording, taping, beading, laser, etc.), which expanded the use of these machines into the industry segment that was traditionally schiffli only, as now, the same job could be done in any normal workshop. These changes meant that Indian embroidery industry shifted gear from western, export-focused dominance to domestic market-driven one. Over the past 20 years, there has been a flood of Chinese machines, some of which produce embroidery of stitching quality, comparable to the highlyrespected leading brands.
With so many new entrants in the market, the stitch quality expectations dropped sharply in the late 1990s and through the decade in the 2000s. This was not an Indian but a world-wide phenomenon.“ We could see many emblems and cheap tourist garments with shockingly bad quality embroidery. Back in the mid-1980s, one of the clients of Wilcom produced badges for the US Army wherein the quality requirements were so exact that the number of stitches in each part of the chevron were specified and not one less or more stitch was accepted by Quality Control,” elaborates Janos.
With time, the mass production is giving way to small quantities; therefore, the overhead is becoming proportionally higher and higher. Now, one needs to have extremely good understanding of costing of the product because 1-2 per cent difference in price in a quotation can mean either losing the order to competition or getting the job but making a loss on it. This is more characteristic to high labour cost in Western countries. Indian companies have not been exposed to such sharp cost sensitivity and probably do not monitor their costs to such detail. Gone are the days when the Government incentivised the industry, labour was cheap and also the buyers were not very tight on pricing.
52 Apparel Online India | OCTOBER 1-15, 2018 | www. apparelresources. com