Monday, January 21, 2013

Keeping one’s niche at its core, for a fruitful 2013

A Happy & Prosperous New Year to all our Readers and Contributors! We would certainly like to forget 2012 with the hope that 2013 would be good since after many months of twists and turns, there are finally indications of an improved economic health this year both in the US and the EU…

But more than that it would be our internal working culture and developed skills; entrepreneurial, managerial and financial that would impact our position in the world market.

Over the entire last year StitchWorld kept pace with companies implementing Lean processes, working hard to improve worker efficiency and productivity to stay in competition.

Today, however the question is, are they justified… when the issue is timely deliveries and the constraint is financial or an erratic supply chain or poor material resource planning? How could the increase in worker efficiency or productivity help?

Be it known that, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China or Vietnam are not in competition with India… we have our own niche and the constraint is not the shop floor… it is in the pre-production stage with all the channel partners to be blamed and to some extent the Government for its policies.

We have one of the highest UVRs among exporting countries, not because we are expensive, but because we have a niche product for which buyers pay… we should stick to our core strength and grow on a strategy built around that core.

This year a lot of our articles will be focused on backward planning and how to excel in small quantities. In the year gone by, many of our articles under 'Best of 2012' fell under four broad categories – Best Practices, Management Concepts, Product Focus and Technology Reviews. While the intention is the same, this year the micro focus under each will be slightly different.

In this first issue of the year, StitchWorld presents synopses of some of the most appreciated articles under these categories that readers voted for. We are encouraged by the responses and always welcome constructive feedback.

Another very interesting article and a new product category for the readers of StitchWorld in the current issue is a rundown on the fast growing orthopaedic aids market, highlighting one of the most successful manufacturers in the category – Mohali based Tynor Orthotics, which is producing a total of 2,50,000 units of orthopaedic aids per month. The article is an example of how success comes to those who have the courage to venture into niche products/markets. Going forward this should be the focus for many progressive companies.

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