Boom Boom...

The retail industry is booming with increasing number of international brands coming into the country, not that the national brands are doing badly, and the best part is they are looking at manufacturing locally.The critical question is… does the local manufacturer understand the needs and wants of these International brands? Their lead times, inventory, logistics or the merchandise mix?The just concluded OGTC meet had a large contingent from Madura and a few participants from Wills Lifestyle, both of which are producing for their own brands. Sadly, they got little out of the event as the entire seminar was single-mindedly addressing manufacturing needs specific to exports…If we compare the supply chain of any international brand who sources globally, the situation is not comparable to that of National and International brands that are sourcing locally…The manufacturing sector is shying away from best practices, the isolated efforts bringing results in bits and pieces to limited few. There is confusion everywhere and lack of knowledge, one is merely trying to ape another without knowing what is right for whom, leading to a situation what American automobile sector faced while trying to copy Japanese concepts. I am sure that the OGTC has many members who would wish to work for domestic brands to cover up their lean periods or may also wish to launch their own brands in the future… Maybe it is time now to widen the scope of the event.One thing both the international and domestic players agree upon is that it is people… people and again people who are engineers of growth. They are drivers of systems in any organization. Sessions on Lean implementation, Green is lean, Training the trainer, Lean productivity… all had one common theme, it’s people who are the "differentiators" and rightly put, it was also the theme of the seminar…A very well planned and extended seminar with amazing interest from the industry too, I take the opportunity to congratulate OGTC on the show.