Skill Development & India: Challenges !

Would you like to become someone who is looked down upon in society? Say an ambulance chaser? Just imagine that you have a choice to become a doctor or a fashion designer, and the society you live in accords more respect to a doctor, would you prefer the later route? Besides livelihood people work hard to earn respect of society around them. Can you say I bought a Ferrari by selling contraband? People are identified by their profession and skills so skills are important part of what a person is? Isn’t it?

Government of India has realized that no economic development is possible without inculcating critical skills in people of India. Economic growth based on capital has limitations as compared to skills the capital as resource is less impact on sustainable growth. CK Prahalad & Gary Hemel introduced the concept of Core Competencies into Management literature. Michael Porter, another strategy stalwart, advised many governments to persuade them to build a Competitive Advantage for their economy and companies.  Presence of large number people having knowledge of English language available at low cost provided  competitive advantage to India in the BPO sector for couple of decades. China took few years to scale up their assembly & manufacturing on the basis of manual skills present in the Chinese people. Indian people on the other hand don’t seem to have manual skills needed for achieving success in manufacturing space.

Ustad Ahmad Lahouri a Persian is the architect behind India’s iconic Taj Mahal built during Moghul period. Silks in India come from Karnataka as people have traditional skills in silk rearing & weaving Punjab has grey yarn spinning industry as cotton is grown in large quantities here.  Religious men from Hinduism & Islam claim to predict your future on the basis of their knowledge of astrology etc.  But skills in India have been associated with caste classification of society as per the Hindu belief system. And perhaps the caste system is the culprit for vanishing of skills among the people. Another view is that since the British ruled India for couple of centuries wanted to prepare clerical slaves for the Empire, so they manipulated the education system to produce educated people with just average communication skills rather than preparing masses for vocations as the British wanted to flood the made in UK goods into India.

Well past is past! Presently most Indians prefer to work on white collar jobs rather work with their hands. It’s rare to find a great carpenter or blacksmith in India. Why? Because when a carpenter’s child gets a clerical job then he would not be called a carpenter but a clerk. A clerk or babu is considered a more respectable profession in India as per caste system. Therefore thousands of engineers graduating from technical universities can score exceptionally high marks in written exams but hardly anyone can use hands to fix a machine.  Unless the government addresses the social stigma attached to skilled people not many would be prepared to learn the skills required by India for nation building. India can create national level competitions every month in various critical skills and honor the winners with large sum of money. Higher income can diminish the hurt involved in learning new skills in caste ridden medieval society of India. 

Branded Desires: Hosiery & Fashion Apparel industry of Ludhiana

Punjab has several well established hosiery & apparel manufacturing companies that have been struggling to go up the value chain by creating & establishing a clear brand identity for their products. They understand the financial benefits of such a strategy in terms of higher margins & customer loyalty. There have been several discussions organized by various stakeholders in the process to enlighten the entrepreneurs about the value of investing in brand building but nothing noticeable has been achieved till now. On the contrary many established brands have lost their equity to poor management of the brand.

Ludhiana industry has been serving as sourcing base for many global brands for couple of decades now but it has failed to create a brand of the same stature.  I remember one such company brining an international sports brand to India but utterly failed to market it successfully.  Why can’t those companies produce a brand when they can manufacture for the globally recognized brands?  Let’s try find out answers.

Let’s agree that Ludhiana hosiery & apparel manufacturers have the requisite technical knowledge & technology to produce great products for the most demanding buyers globally. But same could not be said about the marketing skills & knowledge.

Foremost challenge is the lack of knowledge about the product & business. You must be wondering why I made such an acerbic remark. Well please approach a hosiery & fashion apparel manufacturer and ask them if they are in FMCG business? The answer would be an emphatic no! Its lack of formal knowledge about the business that is keeping them away from a real success they deserve.  Since they do not understand that they are in FMCG business therefore they do not follow the accepted principles of the business. They continue to run the business on their gut feel without investing in knowledge systems crucial for competing in global markets. An FMCG company requires a certain level of regular investments in marketing to maintain & grow the consumer base.

Most companies in Ludhiana tried using services of leading advertising agencies but could not keep them engaged due to various factors. The national level advertising agencies also failed in delivering convincing marketing plans & demonstrating the value of retaining them at such high costs. They agencies have a view that they were not given freedom and time needed to create strong brands in this segment.  After trying to work out with agencies the industry went into retail mode after a gap of certain time.

Ludhiana hosiery & apparel industry is closely connected socially and otherwise. Therefore if some tactic seems to working for one player others immediately follow onto the bandwagon.  Marketing requires strong differentiation any imitation would sure end up in a medium term loss.  After trying with the advertising industry most players took to retailing in almost undifferentiated manner.  With the exception of one player almost everyone else took to multibrand  tier two towns route with advertising that worked against the very nature of branding.

If an advertisement promises a 65% discount, would you believe that? If another one declares get 4 products on purchase of 2, could it build trust & loyalty in the market. A serious business would never treat their customers with such utter disdain.  So if everything is wrong what could the industry do to create a true brand from the land of hosiery & apparel commodities?

If Colorplus & Hidesign can do it despite global competition, a Monte Carlo or Duke too can also create big brands. Firstly, focus on creating an entirely new brand for a small market segment. Invest in branding as per FMCG lines. Pay attention to packaging as it forms a crucial parameter of success in this industry.  Devise a distribution plan based on the consumer than the supply side. I have always believed that sooner or later we will have a brand from Ludhiana that will conquer the markets again.  Lastly, Hire outside professional help from an outside agency like us to keep checking the feedback required to keep you on the correct course