If a four-legged table were to have just three legs…

Third-party advice from consultants often brings a sense of unease and apprehension across an organization. They are often decried for a set of reasons. To cite a few – the consultants are outsiders, their interpretations and impressions of the organization are not coalescent with the top management’s vision, little hand-holding, glut of ‘know-how’ but dearth of ‘do-how’, and the list goes on. Virender Goyal, MD of Hong Kong-based APLOS agrees, “The consultancy model is not much appreciated anymore as they are accused of only telling the solutions, while costing the organization anywhere between US $ 100,000-200,000.” Virender is not looking at defending any such accusations. “We have instead chosen to meet the customer’s requirement – to create an actual difference which reflects in the company’s balance sheets,” he explains. Positioning Aplos as a Transformation Enabler and Change Management firm, Virender has turned fortunes for sick apparel units to reach a turnover of US $ 200 million in a span of two years. Controlling close to US $ 700 million of turnover across 11 projects, Virender shares his understanding of business…

“The bottom line is how fast we can develop an organization and for how long it will sustain and the challenge is in changing the mindset, and creating a positive vibe, to change the ‘horse power’ to ‘hard power’.” – Virender Goel, MD, Aplos

“I have a rule of three. In every circumstance and in every premise, if the top three factors are looked after, a sea of change can be achieved,” believes Virender. Corroborating his mantra, he has an interesting analogy, “If a four-legged table were to have just three legs, it would still be as stable!” The belief has played a crucial rule in Virender’s modus operandi when working towards enabling Operational Excellence with his clients. According to Virender, the three legs that need to be strengthened for Operational Excellence in a business will be – Feasibility, Financial Liquidity and Sustainability.

Since looking after several areas, the Aplos team is equally diverse and is comprised of 20 individuals which includes LEED specialists, Environment specialists, Lean specialists, Process specialists, and Software & Hardware specialists.

Feasibility is looked after by a critical sensitivity analysis of the enterprise to identify the breakeven points. “These breakeven points might vary from place to place. For example, before starting business in Bangladesh one will consider the situation of politics, when working in India one will consider absentee labour, trade unions, etc.,” he explains. The financial liquidity is an unexplored territory for most consultants, but Virender treats it as paramount. “Lead time in garment industry is from 30-120 days and payment is to be made within 60-90 days, so for that a company needs working capital to rotate. We work on freeing the locked capital from the company’s balance sheets,” shares Virender on the financial restructuring activity he undertakes. For sustainability, the focus is on ‘financial sustainability’ as well as ‘environmental sustainability’. In this regard, Aplos has significant achievements. In a project where per month utility cost was US $ 262,000, it was brought down to US $ 60,000 per month. In another project absolutely zero waste was exiting from the factory, and every kind of waste was recycled to generate energy. “From 6,000 workers’ leftover food in the plate, 70 cubic metre gas is being generated,” Virender highlights. Interestingly, Aplos was the think tank behind Cosmopolitan Industries Pvt. Ltd. (CIPL) – the maiden green project in Bangladesh. Bitopi Group – a US $ 100 million Bangladesh based company mainly manufacturing bottomwear – is another project being handled by Aplos. Virender is looking at developing it into a US $ 200 million company by next year.

‘Aplos’ is a Greek word meaning ‘simply’, ‘sincerely’, ‘graciously’, and ‘bountifully’. It is also an acronym for ‘Applying Passion & Leadership for Optimum Sustainability’.

Once this diagnostics activity is completed, the Aplos team is ready with a plan of action. The projections for improvements are based on historical data, market condition and worldwide benchmarking. Talking about the timelines, Virender comments, “For a company with 1,000-1,200 workers, it takes us around 3-6 months. But for a company with 7,000-8,000 worker-strength, it definitely takes 1½-2 years.”

The Difference

“Not only do we promise to improve KPIs or productivity; we go beyond and work on bottlenecks – which is usually at the top management and there is very little resistance at the bottom rungs – just like a bottle,” notes Virender. This essentially means that Virender is extremely cautious of the clients he chooses to work with as he critically assesses the top management’s attitude before getting on board for the project. “The firm’s compatibility with the Aplos-way is often clear in the first three months of our interaction, but if we get past those three months, the fortunes are sure to turn,” the MD professes. Once the compatibility is established, the process of bringing about 360 degree transformation commences. “First we create a model, and then we own it, because we need to own that model to make a difference and then we simultaneously operate at the customer’s place by practically controlling and running operations on the floor and finally we transfer back,” he adds.

The challenge however for Virender is not the process re-engineering, but the mindset transformation. “We create a mechanism where culture and change can organically happen. Moreover, we don’t ask the client for their hand to pull them out of the trouble; instead we offer our hand and pull them out. We don’t give them directions; instead we work with them to make a difference,” he explains. To further enable transformation smoothly, Aplos has a dual team methodology to aid the implementation. One team is from Aplos and the other is created with fresh trainees from the client’s organization and who directly report to Aplos team. “When you bring expats, you bring resistance in the client. To avoid that we develop the skills of the local countrymen,” avers Virender. These trainees prove to be asset to the company later on and act as Aplos ambassadors. “Besides, by the end of the period, we’ve built their concepts and they’re ready to take up higher positions in the company, and the company in turn is on an organic growth path,” points out Virender. This ensures that even as a factory is undertaking the most transformative activity, there is no collateral damage and change is executed in steps. “We work like a surgeon does in an open-heart surgery. We open the heart, but make sure it is still working, keeping the unit alive to make sure that not even a single iota of loss is borne by the client in the process of change,” he explains.

The Future

“Business is not an art. It is a science and to use science as an art is what I strive for. Moreover, not too many things are beyond logic and technology, i.e. science and that is why we want to transform the business through technology,” opines Virender, who is working on developing an ERP solution for garment manufacturing firms. “Leading international companies like SAP could be used by benchmark manufacturers like BMW and Boeing, but to think of it, they are barely generating 20 POs in a year. An apparel factory is generating 200 POs in a month and for an ERP to handle so much of coding and decoding is foolish,” he shares. The company is working on building an ERP which will minimize the coding and decoding process and the data will be directly embedded as QR codes or CF codes.