India’s biggest buying house Triburg has just added three major accounts to its already impressive portfolio, and is expecting huge business from these accounts. These new businesses are in line with Triburg’s vision to become a US $ 1 billion company by 2022, and the team is very upbeat on the possibilities that these new accounts present.
The Triburg team shared with Apparel Resources that they have been approached to associate with Transform Holdco LLC (Kmart is a division of Transform Holdco while Sears Holdings Corporation has recently been acquired by it).
The buying office will manage Transform Holdco’s Bangladesh and Sri Lanka operations along with the India sourcing. The 40-member Bangladesh office is being inherited by Triburg from Transform Holdco, for sourcing support.
The second major account is 3-year-old Primary Inc.; an e-commerce company run by a young Howard educated mom selling baby and children clothing. Its entire India sourcing will be through Triburg now.
In addition, Lane Bryant, a part of Ascena Retail Group, US, has also migrated to Triburg for its sourcing needs.
Tarun Bakshi, CEO and Founder of Triburg talking to Apparel Resources in an exclusive conversation said, “With these 3 accounts, we are expecting to add business worth US $ 200 million per year. Sears and Kmart (US) business will alone be worth US $ 1 billion in the next five years for us, if done right. Currently, both the retailers have at least US $ 150 million worth of business (sourcing) between India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.”
He further added that there are two other major accounts under process and things will be finalised in the next 2 to 3 months.
Many global retailers and brands are going through very lean phase and are refraining from hiring people so as to cut the operational cost. Given the current scenario, they are also seeking active support from supply chain partners in terms of speed, innovation, design inputs and market intelligence.
Triburg, which has built its credibility on these parameters, is able to serve their purpose better. Apart from strongly supporting its clients in these aspects, Triburg also designs the entire manufacturing and operating system to help its vendors improve and deliver faster.
“Today the fashion business is about speed, now we are not talking months but days and meeting these requirements both for brick-and-mortar and online platforms is challenging as runs are getting smaller and more personalised,” adds Tarun.
Triburg will support all Sears and Kmart apparel brands, including Jaclyn Smith, Joe Boxer and Everlast®. With regard to sourcing from India, Kmart and Sears are focusing on mixed products rather than just design oriented, while Primary Inc. asks for a lot of designs, PD and plenty of new ideas. Despite being a comparatively new e-commerce company, Primary’s volumes are also good.
Jyoti Saikia just completed 25 years at Triburg and Tarun Bakshi shared a heartfelt note on his association with Jyoti, acknowledging her role in making Triburg what it is today. No doubt, Jyoti is a mentor par excellence and many leading buying office heads owe their initial training to her. Incidentally, Jayashree Rai, another pillar of the organisation, also completed 25 glorious years with the company, recently.
The company has 12 people who are there with it for over 25 years, while 11 have been for 20+ years and another 100 have completed a decade.
