Only a few buying offices in Bangladesh have the right strategy and opportunity to source garments for the low priced UK based clothing retailer Primark. One such buying office, working under PDS Group and a sister concern of Norwest is Simple Approach, currently doing almost 40% of Primark’s total sourcing from Bangladesh. The company has established a strong foothold in the Bangladesh market with a total sourcing of US $ 100 million.
With the buying estimated to be more than US $ 700 million, Primark is a major buyer for the country. Through its chain of 257 retail stores spread across Ireland, Spain, United Kingdom, Holland, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Belgium; Primark has registered a growth of 25% in the first half of 2013 FY through its sales, according to the reports published by the fashion chain’s owner – Associated British Foods (ABF). “This is a positive sign for us and Bangladesh, as Primark is bound to increase its sourcing with all the expansions in its pipeline” opines Subhasis Gupta, Business Head, Simple Approach.
Since Primark is a fashion-oriented brand at very affordable prices, Simple Approach, keeping the limitations of the country in mind, has developed its own design team with technical experts, who help the factories understand the product and manufacture the garment with ease and perfection. This has become the growth driver for the company to facilitate the buyer at each level starting from the design to the delivery of the order.
Previously, Primark had come under fire over ethical issues relating to its supply chain, and thus it becomes the duty of the buying office to ensure that exploitation is not rampant in the factories where their products are being made. “As a buying house, we have two aims of ethical sourcing of product and to deliver a quality product on time,” explains Subhasis.
The country has evolved itself in past one decade, from learning to catering small order quantities, to understanding the importance of compliance. “Compliance is not an investment but a practice, which is very important for the safety of the people,” opines Subhasis. The buying house is equipped to source orders, varying from 4,00,000 to even 1,200 pieces.
Simple Approach follows a fixed and rigorous process of selecting the vendors. To ensure that the factories are 100% compliant, the company has a dedicated compliance team that follows strict standards in terms of fire policy, wage policy and worker’s health. “For me, effectiveness of the owner is the key factor. If I have good relations with the owner, it helps me in controlling my product better,” opines Subhasis. Apart from compliance and quality monitoring team, Simple Approach has a stringent file system, wherein the team makes sure that the information in the file is just apt for the factory and to make the manufacturer sign all the papers. “For the factory managers, it’s a big deal if we ask them to sign,” explains Subhasis.
The buying house’s specialty is to source various kinds of products, whether it’s woven, flat knits or circular knits. As the lead time given by the company ranges between 90 and 120 days, and for certain productsit can also reduce to 60 days, the company sources 80% of the knitted fabric locally.
With a specialty of developing businesses in Bangladesh, Subhasis Gupta has developed and initiated many projects in the country. He further added, “Being from West Bengal helps me a lot to understand the culture and people of Bangladesh. Though it’s a tough country but I can relate to the mindset of the people here.”
Apart from Primark, the company is working with Australian buyers such as K-Mart and Dotti; few agents in Italy who are dealing with brands like Piazza Italia, Zara and Bershka from Spain have also started catering to Indian brands such as Pantaloons, Lee Cooper and Being Human.
