Heiko Bauer from Groz Beckert Germany (2nd from right) at the inauguration of Gurgaon office and lab
Taking its commitment to customer service a step further, Groz-Beckert recently inaugurated two new regional offices at NCR region (Gurgaon) and Mumbai (Thane). These regional offices will represent all divisions of the company – Knitting, Weaving, Felting, Tufting and Sewing. The regional office North at Gurgaon is also equipped with a ‘Sewing Application Centre’ to offer needle advisory service to customers in the garment industry. Through a detailed analysis of sewability of the fabric and thread to be used, needles having the required features and specifications are recommended by the centre to optimize both quality and productivity during the sewing process. At the inauguration of their Gurgaon office, Dr. Anton Reinfelder, Managing Director, Groz-Beckert Asia, in a one o’ one interview with Team Apparel Online shared his India plans…
AO: What prompted you to open this office in Gurgaon?
Dr. Anton: So far Groz-Beckert Asia has been operating from its headquarters in Chandigarh, its two branch offices in Tirupur and Ludhiana and representatives based in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai to cover all the textile centres in India.
In the last few years, we have seen that the expectations of our customers have increased, demanding more than just the timely delivery of needles; they require more technical support and advice or consultation services towards quality and productivity issues with reduced response time, so we decided to go closer to the customers, as Chandigarh is not an easily accessible location.
For Groz-Beckert, India is the second largest textile market after China. So we feel that we owe this to our customers to be closer to them and give them faster services. In the last few years we have seen a big interest from customers and even buying houses in our Sewing Application Centre (SAC). So we have shifted this centre to Gurgaon to promptly address the application issues in the sewing area.
AO: What all services do you provide at your Sewing Application Centre?
Dr. Anton: Many times the customers have issues in sewing; getting the right combination of fabric, thread and needle, so this centre provides solutions to these problems. Now that we are close to the customers, more clients would be able to make use of this centre to find solution to their problems. We want to provide customers our prompt support towards quality and productivity issues because we feel; such efforts go a long way in improving the competitiveness which is so critical in today’s scenario to grow and when they grow, we too grow with them.
AO: At an average how many clients come for solutions to your Sewing Application Centre?
Dr. Anton: About 15-18 customers approach us in a month with problems or seeking advice. In some cases, customers approach us with multiple number of fabrics – say five to six types. The buying offices are quite keen on right recommendations and at times they tell their vendors that before commencing their commercial production, they should take needle application advice from Groz-Beckert. As a matter of fact this is part of production planning process, wherein before a new fabric or a new garment actually goes into mass production, they seek our advice for selection of correct needle with other recommendations that helps them towards optimization of their sewing process; enhancing their quality and productivity. The biggest advantage of Sewing Application Centre at Gurgaon would be that the customers can see the tests and trials happening here; it’s not just about getting advice but they also see how it is done.
[bleft]For Groz-Beckert, India is the second largest textile market after China. So we feel that we owe this to our customers to be closer to them and give them faster services. In the last few years we have seen a big interest from customers and even buying houses in our Sewing Application Centre (SAC). So we have shifted this centre to Gurgaon to promptly address the application issues in the sewing area.[/bleft]
AO: What next do you plan for India?
Dr. Anton: We would like to stabilize our operations at new locations; now that our customers know that we are here, we would look forward to better and closer relationship with them. Along with the implementation of this decentralization, our existing branch office in Tirupur also gets upgraded to regional office south, responsible for all the four states in down south. Also Bangladesh is another big market for us where we already have our branch office in Dhaka.
We are also keeping technical service application engineers for knitting division, one each at regional office in Tirupur and Gurgaon so that they can go to the customer’s site and study their individual needs. They can study at what efficiency the machines are running, what are the areas of improvement, where are the gaps that need to be filled for improving efficiency and productivity.
Well, we also produce cylinders for knitting machines and have a big range. Our application engineers are also trained for taking measurements of cylinder at customer’s site wherever we do not have the drawings with us and thus produce such cylinders subsequently…
