UK retailer All Saints Spitalfields opened its India liaison office about two years ago with Rakesh Saigal as country head. Based in Delhi, the India office is sourcing women’s embellished apparel, leather garments, leather SLG’s and accessories, men’s & women’s footwear, casualwear encompassing both tops and bottoms along with women’s jewellery. Bipin Sehgal, who was earlier Director at Baird McNutt for nearly 12 years, joined All Saints as Director & COO in April when Rakesh opted out.
Though the operation of the India office of All Saints was initially restricted to the country, Bipin shared with Apparel Online that now the India office is controlling the entire South Asian region. “We are expanding our sourcing and manufacturing activities in the Indian sub-continent and initial production has already been placed in Bangladesh. We are also now overlooking production in Mauritius and sourcing fabric and garments from Pakistan, with plans to start production in Sri Lanka.
Overall we wish to get to a position where we can ensure that the product is competitively sourced, impeccably manufactured to the ‘AS’ specifications and is shipped on time. The brand is growing, as will our responsibilities and resultant turnover,” states Bipin as per who 2013 is going to be a challenging year.
Currently the India office is sourcing goods worth Rs. 120 crore/annum. Right now the India office is consolidating the categories that it currently services. “We will move to new categories only once we have a complete handle on our current operations,” adds Bipin who started his career with Triburg Sportswear. Since his induction, Bipin with his past experience of developing business has streamlined sourcing, vendor payments and is now looking at building meaningful relationships with his supply chain partners on a long-term basis.
