Country: Global

Having started its operations in Bangladesh in 2006, CJ International is a Swedish buying house spearheaded by Roshan Withanage as the Managing Director. Besides Bangladesh, CJ International also has offices in India, China, Pakistan and Hong Kong in addition to its partners in Latvia, Estonia and Thailand.

Working predominantly with Scandinavia, sweaters account for almost half of CJ International’s total business from Bangladesh, while the remaining 40 per cent is shared by knit and woven products, and 10 per cent by home textiles (bathrobes, towels, etc). It has a well-equipped design studio in Sweden, in-house product development teams (both for design and yarn development) and a testing lab (employing a full-time technician and complete set of equipment including an International Lab Standard washer, a dryer, a GSM cutter and GSM weighing machines among others) and its very own knitting factory, Young 4ever Textiles Limited (specialized in all kinds of knitted products), with a production capacity of over 4,00,000 pieces per month.

Rule of Three

According to me, the three most important factors for being recognized as a preferred supplier are:

• Commitment and Reliability
• Quality, and
• Transparency/Honesty

Sync with Changing Dynamics

I personally see that very few suppliers are changing as per the global apparel trade requirements. Suppliers need to be fast in feedback and proactive in design and trends. Also, they need to be more accommodative to the buyers’ needs. Those who give a personal and customized response will definitely win in the long run.

Biggest Challenge!

Minimum order quantities are too high, unlike in China. Suppliers are also not geared up to take on new trend-based challenges; they look too much into doing what they have been doing till now.

The Future

The garment exports in Bangladesh will continue to grow not because they are great or they deserve it but due to the simple reason of low labour cost and low energy costs when comparing the competition (which gives less choice to the buyers). If they were proactive, innovative and customer-driven, they could have grown much more.

AO SURVEY FINDINGS

The respondents also agreed that the other major considerations for a preferred supplier would be defined on the basis of: The respondents also agreed that the other major considerations for a preferred supplier would be defined on the basis of:

• Upfront Attitude of Management (Transparency/Partnerships)

• PD Skills/Innovation• Speed to Market

• Product Price/Quality Ratio

Advantage BD

Low prices, and established industry with years of export knowledge (compared to the African countries).

Supplier Pool

Even though I personally would like to agree that a preferred vendor list can help simplify business and give a sense of stability and continuity in supply, a modern business shouldn’t restrict itself to only a limited number of suppliers. But we are not in a position to do so due to the simple fact that more than 50 per cent of the vendors are not reliable or responsible. Therefore, it pays to stick to the known few vendors. Although it’s a matter of time before the industry ups its standards and all the vendors come to an almost equal platform.

With global connectivity improving and advancement of e-commerce, it will be normal to shop around for new vendors more often, but it will take a bit more time in Bangladesh to happen.

Business Policies

I totally agree that we should be flexible enough to change our policies provided that the vendors, who are not the preferred ones, are ethical and do not harm the environment. Being rigid on our own policies will make us lose our competitive advantage in the market as flexibility is the key in this business.

Maintaining the Edge

In this age, when most of the businesses review the supplier list almost every few years to get the best bargain possible, the following qualities/factors can help a supplier maintain that competitive edge:

• Be proactive to changes,
• Adopt LEAN management,
• Be flexible to the buyers’ requirements,
• Look for a niche market (can do parallel to one’s core basic products),
• Continue absorbing new technologies, and
• Look for new supplier markets with low infrastructure costs and labour to establish oneself parallel to one’s current production base.

Synergies Sourcing Bangladesh Limited, headed by Atif Ahmed as the Director, is the local sourcing arm of Synergies Worldwide (with global headquarters in Bangkok). It was founded by Munir Mashooqullah, an industry evangelist and a sought-after speaker on supply chain, who retired after 28 years’ of active involvement with the company and handed over the reins to Guido Schlossmann (President and CEO), a former Li & Fung executive.

The global supply chain managing company, which provides low-cost sourcing solutions in apparel, fashion accessories, footwear, home textiles, decorative accessories and other goods for retailers/brands in the fashion and hospitality industries, sources different products from various manufacturing centres based on their core strengths.

Its’ Bangladesh operations today account for almost 50 per cent of the company’s total sourcing.

Rule of Three

Our first requirement starts from Compliance, moving to Quality and last but not the least, ending at Commitment. These are the most important factors we consider before enlisting any vendor to become our business partners.

AO SURVEY FINDINGS

98% of the buyers are confident that Bangladesh will remain a preferred destination, not only for basic items but also for growing importance on orders for value added and small quantity orders.

Sync with Changing Dynamics

To remain in sync with the requirement of today’s fashion retail business, our country really needs to fast-track improvement and enable further development/enhancement of raw material supplies as still there are so many qualities which we have to import, which consequently increases our lead time, whereas on the other hand, our fast fashion clients are reducing their procurement lead time every season. This remains a challenge for us to compete with the other countries which have vast variety of raw materials (fabric, yarn, etc.) locally available.

Biggest Challenge!

Denim apparel manufacturing overall has advanced quite a lot but it still requires some learning, especially in washing process to produce garments with less chemicals and yet give better output. Therefore, awareness and implementation of this knowledge should be ensured very soon. Moreover, green product is the most discussed subject today for which we have already taken major initiatives 3-4 years back by proposing sustainable collections to our clients. Our country needs to fast undergo this shift towards sustainability for a better and assured future.

The Future

The growth of the industry is satisfactory in my humble opinion considering the fact that many of the big retailers are struggling at their sales end. Bangladesh still needs improvement in many of the areas for which manufacturers are closely working with the concerned associations.

Advantage BD

Bangladesh will remain important for the kind of infrastructure each factory has established. Besides, manufacturing cost is still one of the lowest in Bangladesh. Most industrialists are also continuously working to add automations to enhance productivity to control costs.

Supplier Pool

We do believe in building partnerships with manufacturers as it takes a lot of time and energy to build relations plus technical understanding, but we are still open to welcome new reliable manufacturers as there is always some unique strength in each of them which adds value to our product mix.

Business Policies

We have tried to maintain a flexible yet strictly ethical policy in vendor management in which there is always a room for special consideration as long as it complies with our CSR criteria.

Maintaining the Edge

Well, it’s not easy to define just one area to maintain our competitiveness but sourcing competitively-priced raw materials has been our core focus to maintain the lowest possible cost rather than just bargain on CMs with our manufacturing partners. We try to balance our cost down in every possible area but the challenge continues…!

A buying entity with years of experience in servicing overseas buyers from USA, Europe, Australia, South Africa and Israel, Nahid Trade International (NTI) is represented by its CEO Nipun Nawaz.A buying entity with years of experience in servicing overseas buyers from USA, Europe, Australia, South Africa and Israel, Nahid Trade International (NTI) is represented by its CEO Nipun Nawaz.

Rule of Three

According to me, the three most important factors to be a preferred supplier are:

• How Well-organized and Established the supplier is, and how many workers and machines it has; because if it does not have enough workers, it will not manage to finish the orders on time.
• Financial Strength, and if it has any banking issues or not, is also very important. Without strong financial standing, the supplier will not be able to complete orders and even if it does so, there will be a lot of risk involved.
• Reputation and the Past Track Record.

Sync with Changing Dynamics

The industry is undergoing change to some extent to adjust to the changing requirements of the global apparel trade! We have become substantially adaptable now and have started accepting more fashion stuffs than before as people are interested in fashionable items compared to the basics. Also we have become a lot more flexible in payment procedures; we have started accepting contracts, CAD (Cash Against Documents), and minimum advance and rest CAD as payment modes. All these changes are in pace with the rapid modifications taking place in the apparel trade globally.

Biggest Challenge!

The biggest challenge is the ‘Deadline’! The lack of professional commitment is the main reason behind failures in delivering orders on time, but suppliers in general have a bad reputation sticking to the timelines. Timing is of utmost importance in our business. But it becomes almost impossible to maintain dates with our suppliers, as a result we cannot keep our commitments made to the buyers, resulting in delayed shipments.

The Future

The future is very good for Bangladesh in garment exports. We are still cheaper compared to many other countries in various product categories. And it is because of this very advantage that we are ahead of our competitors. As per statistics, we are apparently growing every year and if this is the reality, it is very good. But, individually speaking, I think we could have done even better.

Advantage BD

Cheaper price is the biggest advantage for Bangladesh and this is something which keeps us in the preferred list amongst the buyers. However, one has to understand that we are cheaper only in terms of basic items but when it comes to fashionable apparels, we tend to lose the preferred tag and this is one area, I think, we need to improve a lot.

Supplier Pool

Even though a preferred vendor list can help simplify business and give a sense of stability and continuity in supply, many people argue that a modern business shouldn’t restrict itself to only a limited number of suppliers. What these people think is absolutely true. All the big brands in this world may give 70 per cent of their production requirement to the preferred suppliers but for the rest, they always opt working with the one who is not in the preferred list. The buyers also like to compare the services of the new suppliers with the regular/preferred suppliers.

Business Policies

Most organizations rigidly follow a suppliers’ criteria checklist but sometimes vendors’ interests/policies are quite diverse from some of the businesses’ core values. In such a scenario, the supplier must always comply with the requisite and laid down criteria; there is no room to overlook the same. However, there is a probability of ‘if’ here. Suppose a supplier can give a very competitive price and with just the perfect products, I may perhaps check its services once with a trial order and if it does a good work without affecting the business, policies can be altered accordingly.

Maintaining the Edge

To continue being in the preferred list, suppliers have to be more meticulous and sharpen their services in terms of timing and quality. Buyers know the prices very well and if the supplier tries to charge more, this is not going to be acceptable.To be in the preferred list, suppliers must maintain their timing in every aspect of the production till delivery. When you keep your dates and at the end of the production, you deliver 85 per cent perfect products, buyers will be happy and suppliers would continue to be in the preferred category.