Buying Agents Associations (BAA) and Fibre 2 Fashion today organised an interesting webinar ‘Rewiring the Home Front’.
Industry leaders and domain experts like Jagdish Hinduja, MD, Gokaldas Images; Rahul Mehta, Chief Mentor, CMAI; Dr. Darlie Koshy, DG and CEO, ATDC; Pallav Ojha, CEO & Co-Founder, India Beach Fashion Week; Vineet Lall, Director, Mega Matrix; Christine Rai, Chairperson, BAA, Chandrika Thatai, Co-founder of Fashion Accessories and Rohini Suri, Governing Board Member, BAA from the industry shared their views on many issues.
It was highlighted in the webinar that time has come to galvanise the youth and women towards the fashion industry in a new way. Besides, there was also a talk that India should look at entire fashion ecosystem, which will help increase employment opportunities.
Jagdish insisted that there is no point to have so many councils in the textile industry and it is time to work strongly on policy level, while Rahul was of the view that one needs to keep in mind that with one body there will be a conflict of interest.
Though the industry has put such efforts through National Committee on Textiles & Clothing (NCTC), at an official level, there will be structural issues in addition to many other concerns.
All the panellists agreed that in these tough times, unlike before, one needs to think about today, not tomorrow. At the same time, one has to understand cutting (core, support and enhancement) expenses are not cutting corners.
The biggest change is that the industry will now focus more on overall productivity which earlier was not the case.
In the domestic market, there is a strong need to change the business model which is currently based on excessive credit and excessive inventory.
Regarding skills and training, experts believed that it is high time to move beyond entry-level training which is the focus of Government schemes so far. There is a need to reboot the skilling system.
The experts also said that the migrant workers need to be valued and recognised, and should be welcomed with good HR practises. Importantly, there has to be a thought process for these workers.
The issue of young designers was also discussed as the designer community needs hand-holding; they are not much aware of the things be it Government schemes or trade bodies, etc. FDCI should also focus on these designers. It was said that there is a strong need for incubation system for them.
Richa Bansal, Consulting Editor, Fiber 2 Fashion moderated the webinar.
