The importance of developing niches is undisputed, particularly when competition is constantly on the rise. Intramex Group established its first niche immediately after the quota regime came to an end by opting for vertical integration, inspired by the operations of Indian textile giant Arvind mills, one of their suppliers in those days. The company was the 2nd group in Bangladesh to bring all facilities under one roof. “Now, except for the factors outside our control such as strikes at port or delays in approvals, we mostly deliver on time and the key reason is our integrated setup,” reveals A.T.M. Anayet Ullah, MD, Intramex Group. The backward linkages served as a stepping stone for the group and today they have the capability to offer basic and value added products from under one roof.
Established in 1992, the conglomerate has grown to hold 12 factories along with buying operations all over Bangladesh. Catering mainly to French, British and Australian buyers, the group offers a range of high-end bottom weight fabrics along with solids and yarn dyed shirting fabrics. The woven fabric division delivers over half a million yards of fabric per month while the knit division has a capacity of 7 tonnes of fabric per day. “Gradually, we have grown to provide embroidery, printing, dyeing, singeing and mercerizing facilities in-house enabling us to successfully manufacture the fabric we used to buy from Arvind in our premises without compromising on the quality as we use long staple fibre. We don’t even need to outsource cotton fabrics any more, which saves us a lot of time,” informs Anayet.
Owing to their excellent control over the fabric supplies and value addition processes, the company has shifted from its strategy of value added small quantity orders and sought growth in manufacturing basics for the Australian market in large volumes, over the last two years. “With each passing day even basics are becoming slightly value added and slowly the value added business is moving to Bangladesh as well,” reasons Anayet.
With good control over supply chain, blurring lines between basics and value added products with the increasing application of some value adding elements even in basics, efficient manufacturing setup geared for quality, the US $ 60 million Intramex Group is a preferred supplier to many international brands, registering consistent annual growth of 10-15%. For seamless operations, the vertical integration is complemented by two different set of people to deal with fabric and garments division separately. Functioning as individual units, the garment division places orders with the knit and woven divisions as per requirements. “Apart from a common top management, knits, woven and garments are micro-managed individually and treated as different profit centres,” says Anayet.
Anayet also emphasises on the importance of relationships with the buyers who are free of daily correspondence to remain a preferred supplier. “While buying offices prefer intensive communication, however when working directly with buyers the situation is different, as they have complete trust and confidence in the manufacturer, developed over many years of relationship and they do not want to be bothered about small issues, preferring that the exporters take a call, based on depth of understanding of the brand/buyer,” shares Anayet.
In the meanwhile, even as the industry grapples with the challenge of compliance, Anayet is critical of the international push for change, which had reduced the efforts to mere business opportunities for many. “Alliance and Accord do not show any signs of being organized. Sometimes they go for building assessment and sometimes they focus on fire and safety. Considering that companies from China are coming here with projects of safety equipments worth over US $ 1.5 billion, an altogether new area of business has opened up,” concludes Anayet, expressing his dissatisfaction at the way others are making money in the name of workers’ welfare.
