After finishing his graduation from the USA, Imranur Rahman, Managing Director, Bando Designs Ltd., came to Bangladesh to join the family business of garmenting. Though the Sterling Group has 5 factories looked after by the Chairman Siddiqur Rahman who is Imranur’s father, Bando Design was created as a separate project, especially for kidswear. The company is currently working with H&M, Next and Debenhams. Among them, H&M is the biggest buyer, accounting for 95% of the total production, which is mostly basic items in bottoms and very small quantity of mass fashion items.
AR: Tell us about Bando Design and why kidswear’ was the preferred range?
Rahman: Childrenswear needs more attention as compared to others. When you go to shop for yourself, you don’t care much, but when it’s for your children, you’ll be very cautious. So, you’ve to be specifically clear on quality issues. The time when I started, there were not many kidswear makers in the market. I decided to opt for kids’ items since everybody was focusing on adult items. This was in 2005 (about 12 years ago). With that mindset, I started Bando Design. With time, Bando Design has become synonymous with children’s clothing. Our whole set-up including the mindset has become childrenswear-related. The entire environment has been created for only childrenswear and that too in woven items.
AR: What makes your company so special?
Rahman: We are a very upfront and disciplined factory. Even when Accord started factory inspection, we were among the first batch of 15 factories that got the certification. Apart from this, we have never missed a shipment deadline. We do 99% shipment on time every year. I have in fact not seen a single cancellation in my career till now. My business is volume-based. I can produce 1.5 million pieces in a single style. That’s my strength. Every year, I produce 3 million pieces of 3 styles only. 95% of my total production is into kidswear and overall, we produce 7.20 lakh pieces per month and on an annual basis, we do 8 million pieces.
AR: What type of fabrics are you using?
Rahman: We’ve been using cotton mostly. For kids, cotton is the safest bet. Although previously, we had to depend on China heavily for the fabrics, now we can source almost half of the total required fabrics from Bangladesh and the rest from China. There are some good companies in the country like Envoy, Shasha denims who are doing really well in this segment. Hence, without any strong backward linkage, we can’t survive.
AR: What are the core challenges you’re facing in the kids’ category?
Rahman: The mindset has to be changed. The workers have to know what they are doing. Every department should be aware of what are the requirements. For adults, we can have some leverage of 1 or 2 per cent for errors, but for the kids, we can’t. It’s zero per cent tolerance in terms of quality and safety.
Similarly, our second challenge is related to testing facilities. I’ve all the facilities for the same in-house. We have been doing button pull test from day one and the laboratory was installed almost 5 or 6 years ago. Yet, we have to go for third party audits because we lack in some test provisions. The lab which we have currently is category-2 version; we need to improve its standard up to category-3. We’re going to install that category-3 lab in our new factory ‘Laila’. When the new lab comes up, we need not go outside. Sometimes the buyers, however, demands to test the products in a third-party lab.
Thirdly, although we are using organic cotton, I find buyers now demanding more of better cotton than organic.
AR: Is kidswear a growing category?
Rahman: Yes, it has to be, because kids’ volumes are always there. Adults’ volume may decrease but kids’ volume always increases. Our buyers like H&M book us in advance and help us in selecting fabrics and other accessories. It is because of their support that we have grown so much, and though our new factory is not for kidswear only, the building is built for H&M. It is a buyer dedicated factory, but it will be work on multiple products and we will do some design-oriented kidswear too.
