Based out of Ludhiana and just 5 years old, Paramount Clothing (sister concern of Paramount Impex) has already achieved several milestones – if it is exporting its own brand on one hand, it’s also building a robust network of distributors in various countries with equal zeal…, and all these with a thorough professional approach! Apparel Online met the dynamic Rakesh Kapoor, President, Paramount Group, a multi-tasking personality (involved in politics, sports as well as in the local entertainment industry) and discussed about his apparel business and what sets him apart from others in Ludhiana.
Despite the odds of domestic as well as international market in recent years, Paramount Clothing, which is the brain child of Rakesh, has been able to bring in the ‘X Factor’ that has propelled the company into a league of its own, from a city which is not known for its dynamism. Today, Paramount’s production capacity stands at a whopping 1,00,000 pieces monthly, besides outsourcing around 45,000 pieces of garments per month (mainly knitted varieties), while maintaining its amazing growth curve all through.“I have passion for exports, be it steel products or apparels. Even though my team focuses more on the domestic market but I insist and push them for the international market. When I started exporting steel products in 2001, things were new to me but now it’s a routine. Today, we are exporting around 40 per cent of our total apparel production to countries like Japan, Australia, UAE, Lebanon and Jeddah,” says Rakesh, who joined his family business of various kinds of tractor linkage parts, trailer accessories, general hardware, etc. and turned it into a completely export-oriented company.
However, it was only in 2010 that he got into garment production, which according to Rakesh is nothing short of an ‘interesting expedition’. “I was not aware even of the various types of yarns, but when one of my college friends wanted to start something in organized retailing and that too in Punjab, I jumped into it. Initially I was involved in just giving suggestions to the Ludhiana’s Direct Factory Outlets while also starting with one local brand. But when it proved very successful, I decided to make it large and took over the marketing rights of an Italian brand – Wilkins and Tuscany (W&T) into India, which is a known European brand, and later got its manufacturing rights as well. We started with menswear and our good growth motivated us to add kidswear just in 2-3 years,” shares Rakesh.
His strong networking into local as well as overseas market and experience of other export business helped him in shaping the apparel business with success, as it brought in a fresh perspective in running the business. Locally available resources, the strong garmenting culture of Ludhiana and easy availability of raw material played to Rakesh’s advantage, who attributes his group’s success and growth to sheer professionalism. In his own words, “Ours is a professionally-run company as we have proper teams with clearly assigned roles and bestowed with decision-making powers. Besides, for the apparel business, our Country Manager Sanjeev Arora plays a pivotal role. The National Sales Head and heads of other departments all report to Sanjeev, not me. I don’t spend much time in the factories and my office is also far away from all the units… I don’t need to go to factories frequently as Sanjeev is always there for guidance and supervision,” underlines Rakesh, who is not very keen on following others’ business strategies but rather chalks out his own. “I never follow others or their strategies. The strong and experienced team that I have is my strength; we know what and how we have to do things in our organization,” points out the Paramount Clothing’s owner proudly.
Recently the company appointed distributors in UAE and Lebanon with commitment of certain volumes of minimum orders. These distributors cover maximum stores in their respective countries and their specialization in apparels, strong networks and better understanding of the local market helps Paramount garner more orders while also ensuring safer payments. “Any buyer in these countries who wants to take our products needs to get in touch with the local distributors. This has also given a certain level of comfort to the buyers as they are dealing with the local and known entities. Our distributors’ book in advance to see our sample sets; it is almost like the system followed in our domestic market but it is very effective. There is nothing that we are missing in this system. We will see about the implementation of the same in other countries in near future,” adds Rakesh.
But how easy it is to export your own brand in unchartered territories? “Our sale pitch is simple; compare our quality, designing, comfort and price of our brand with any other brand of the world. We meet the quality of any top brand as well as the price of any brand that offers the lowest. And this becomes possible with the reach in more markets with lesser margins. Buyers that we met in IIGF or many other BSMs across the world where we participated were ready to sell our brand. As it is an Italian brand, most of the customers in Asia as well as Gulf buy it happily. Once the reach of the brand increases and gains popularity, a slight increase in price will not be an issue either,” underlines Rakesh emphatically. The product development part of the brand being in Italy definitely gives an edge to Rakesh.
As for outsourcing, the company outsources only such products which are a bit difficult to manufacture, or are time taking, like the jackets. “Complete control, from fabric sourcing to packaging helps us to give quality as well as cost-effectiveness even in the outsourced garments,” concludes Rakesh on a positive note.
