Outstanding Woman in Business of the Year 2003

Giving handloom a cutting edge

Monjur Mahmud

The time was the 1960s when people in the hill tracts could not imagine starting a business -- and, especially for a woman, it was absolutely unthinkable. During such adverse circumstances, an indigenous woman came forward to show how lifestyle can be improved through business. She is Manjulika Chakma - the first tribal woman entrepreneur in the country. Born in 1943 in Rangamati, Manjulika took bold initiatives to develop traditional looms in her area and establish the first business concern of tribal handloom products.

Traditionally, agriculture had been the main occupation in the hill tracts region dominated by tribal people. The art of weaving was taught to women as part of regular household chores. In her very childhood, Manjulika learnt weaving from her mother Panchalata Khisha. They had such looms in their family, locally called 'komor tant'. They used to produce traditional loom products in 1950s.

Manjulika says during 1950s and early 60s many indigenous women in hill districts used to produce clothes for their own uses only. They never thought about starting any commercial venture. So it was a real challenge for her to take such initiative.

Manjulika joined Shah Boys High School as a teacher in 1961. Around that time, she thought of doing something for her fellow weavers. She purchased two traditional looms in 1965 and started applying new weaving techniques while continuing her teaching profession. Thus, her journey as an entrepreneur began with a capital of only Tk 500. It was a very difficult task, but she overcame all hurdles through sheer hard work and dedication.

Sometimes she had to stop production because of inadequate capital and raw materials. Marketing was another problem she faced at the initial stages as there were very few buyers in Rangamati at that time. People outside the hill tracts hardly knew about the products. But she didn't lose heart. Opening a very small showroom at her residence in 1965, she started selling her products.

Over time, she succeeded in attracting buyers and received huge appreciation while handloom products became a profitable business. This encouraged her to concentrate on her business full time. Eventually, Manjulika's Bain Textile became a popular name in handloom. Presently, Bain Textile has three showrooms in Rangamati and one in Cox's Bazaar. Besides, her products including various clothing and household items - are sold in selected outlets in Dhaka such as Aarong, Prabartana, Karika, Aranya and Kumudini.

Products have been developed and diversified at Bain Textile considering the tastes and demands of buyers at home and abroad. The company has a long range of products such as tribal dress (pinon, khadi), shawls, bed covers, shalwar kameezes, shirts, panjabis, T-shirts, frocks, sleeping gowns, skirt-tops, side bags, purses, sofa covers, napkins and towels.

Bain Textile earned Tk 4 lakh in 2000 and Tk 6 lakh in 2001 from exports. Around 80 weavers, experts and helpers are engaged in her handloom business, apart from the more than 100 tribal women in four villages who produce handloom products for sale.

With separate weaving, dyeing, design and tailoring units and exclusive showrooms, Bain Textile emerged as a complete business house. Manjulika still plays a key role in supervising the whole production process right from procuring raw materials like yarn and chemicals for dyeing, preparing them for use and controlling the quality. She is a master in preparing vegetable dyes. It's a secret of her success in making her products popular.

In the early days of her business Manjulika had fund constraints but banks could not do much for her as it was very difficult for them to provide loan to a person without collateral. Manjulika did not have any assets to keep as mortgage against bank loans. Two local banks came up with proposals to give her loans but she could not make a deal with them.

Manjulika says a lot of changes have taken place in the techniques of producing handloom products but they have not lost their basic characteristics. Traditional tribal looms have been transformed into modern ones but the products are still attractive because of their unique colour and designs that demonstrate the rich heritage of tribal community.

At a time when local and global markets are flooded with fabrics manufactured in modern and high-tech plants, tribal handloom with ethnic designs is still popular with a different taste and appeal. Manjulika played a leading role in popularising these indigenous designs amongst both local and foreign buyers.

Manjulika's bold initiative created new entrepreneurs also. Her tireless efforts encouraged others to start business of handloom products in the hill districts. Over the years, about 20 to 25 such handloom enterprises have been set up and showrooms opened where several thousand indigenous women are working.

Thus, she has contributed towards employment generation for women in the previously almost unknown field of tribal traditional looms. Bain Textile helped the indigenous people take part in economic activities and improve their lifestyle. Manjulika's work has also created a market for ethnic handloom products and brought them into the world of fashion. Her future plans include establishment of another unit equipped with power looms to increase production volume.

Manjulika's struggles did not come to an end although she is now a successful woman entrepreneur. She has been able to turn her very small initiative into a reputed business concern. But she could not yet open an outlet of her own in Dhaka due to lack of capital.

Manjulika won Shilu Abed Award in 2001 and Best Successful Woman Entrepreneur Award in 2002 in recognition of her outstanding contribution in the field of business and craftsmanship.

She participated in the International Industrial Fair in Kolkata in 2003 and 2004 and Chiang Mai Trade Fair in Thailand this year. She is going to participate in the Australian trade fair beginning April 6. By taking part in these shows, Manjulika wants to popularise Bain Textile products abroad and increase export earning. She always feels that participating in a fair abroad is a good way of learning and also improving the quality of products.

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Best Joint Venture Enterprise of the Year 2003

Spinning hopes into the future

Shahnila Azher

One multinational company claims to make enough thread, every 4 hours, to reach the moon and back - impressive statistics indeed and that company is none other than Coats Plc, one of the largest textile groups in the world and a global leader in thread business. They are present in Bangladesh as Coats Bangladesh, originally established in 1989 as "Tootal Thread Bangladesh Ltd.". With the merger of Tootal and Coats Viyella Plc worldwide in 1991, the operation in Bangladesh became part of the Coats Viyella Plc - a network that now encompasses more than 150 countries. Coats Bangladesh is a joint venture company with 80 percent held by Coats Plc, UK and the remaining 20 percent equity belonging to A K Khan & Co Ltd of Bangladesh.

Globally, Coats is a preferred thread supplier to major High Street brands. In Bangladesh, Coats captures approximately 50 percent of the export-oriented industrial thread segment and is currently a clear market leader and preferred supplier to key international buyers operating here. The business model followed by Coats is briefly as follows: yarn - the basic raw material - is sourced from specialised mills in China, Indonesia, India, and the Philippines. Yarn is processed into thread at the local factories using advanced technologies and equipment. Ensuring quality consistency across markets is of supreme importance; hence even the lubricants used are patented in-house versions. The finished thread is then supplied to the large 100 percent export-oriented garment factories. Value added by Coats during the entire process - from start to finish - is around 30 percent.

The product portfolio of the company is comprised of staple spun polyester, trilobal polyester (for embroidery applications), polyester core spun thread and other speciality threads as per customer requirement. The local company shares the worldwide "Global Offer" capability of the Coats Group - meaning that, in Bangladesh, it can supply the same range of Coats global brands at demanding international specifications as anywhere else in the world. Equipped with a base of 30,000 colour shades, the company also provides dye-to-match services whereby state-of-the-art technologies match the specific colour required by a customer to colours available at a global bank and reproduce customised thread locally at the shortest lead time possible. In fact, approximately 35 percent of daily output is comprised of dye-to-match products. This electronic colour communication and matching system is a proprietary item developed by Coats in collaboration with the University of Derbyshire in the UK, Sun Microsystems and a few other specialised companies.

Furthermore, the company offers value-enhancing advisory services at its Embroidery Solution Centre to ensure that customers are getting superior design quality with minimum stitching and cost implications - ultimately resulting in higher productivity at the shop floor. This specific combination of quality product and integral services has yielded remarkable results - Coats Bangladesh now enjoys double-digit sales growth which reached more than Tk. 1.2 billion in 2003.

On the production side, Coats Bangladesh established its first manufacturing plant in Chittagong in 1990 with a limited dyeing and finishing volume of roughly half a ton a day. Since then, driven by the simultaneous growth in the garment sector, capacity has increased manifolds to a figure of 14 tons of sewing thread per day. As part of the company's continued commitment to Bangladesh operations, a second state-of-the art manufacturing plant was set up at Gazipur in 2002. At Coats Bangladesh, investment in capacity takes place annually at a rate of around 12 percent a year and expenditure of around US$ 1.5million this year will upgrade capacity even further. The company's emphasis on quality was recognised by ISO 9002 certification and its focus on environmental issues is evident in the receipt of Oeko Tex certification.

The company is operated by 866 employees across all grades. Over time, the talent of its management team has proved to be a noteworthy asset. Shafiq Uz Zaman, the current managing director, is the first Bangladeshi CEO in Coats Bangladesh during its entire operating period here. The three expatriates, who had occupied senior board positions up until 2001, have all been replaced by local professionals. Furthermore, four Coats Bangladesh managers are now serving in different Coats markets in the UK, Pakistan, Thailand and Sri Lanka. Realising the necessity of developing management potential, the company invests heavily in training and development - it extensively uses the facilities of Cranfield School of Management (UK), Asian Institute of Management (Philippines), Indian Institute of Management and Bangladesh Institute of Management.

Coats Bangladesh began manufacturing industrial thread in Bangladesh when the market was 100 percent dependent on imports - over the last 12 years, it expanded capacity every year and is now one of the largest dye-houses in the Asia Pacific region. Retrospectively, Zaman, who had been part of the original team bringing this company to Bangladesh, remembers the initial years as difficult. "The industrial thread market supporting the export-oriented garments factories was heavily dominated by Chinese and Korean players at that time. Customers had to be oriented to a new philosophy that in order to have a good quality garment, you also need to sew it with a good quality thread - at the end of the day, it makes a difference for the person buying the garment at retail level".

Now, Zaman views the future with a significant amount of confidence despite the looming post-MFA (multi-fibre arrangement) challenges. "For some time in 2000-2001, I was based in Vietnam and since our operations had a joint venture with the Vietnamese government, we were quite involved in their preparations for the free-trade scenario. I was expecting the same level of concern as I noticed there when I came back to Bangladesh, but found it to be missing." Asked to elaborate on our vulnerabilities, he mentioned, "We are too dependent on external markets for lead times in raw material sourcing. One of my customers who was supposed to invest about $ 12 million in Bangladesh changed his mind and shifted to Mexico. He says he is going to save on the cost of time." A Mexican factory has definite concrete advantages since it can source raw materials locally, manufacture and ship to the US in shorter lead times than most others.

"We need regional collaboration to ensure that neighboring countries will supply the basic material, we will use our strong base/infrastructure of garment manufacturing while improving quality and productivity, and then ship out to end users. This is already happening but is needed on an organised basis at government level - without specialisation, we won't survive the competition. What will be needed to survive after 2004 are essentially three things - how cheaply we can produce, how productive we are, and how quickly we can produce and ship". Zaman is optimistic that the impending threat of free trade will be a blessing in disguise - forcing Bangladeshi garment manufacturers to be more productive and cost-efficient.

Coats' initial lead and subsequent success in this sector had lent confidence to others: local entrepreneurs came forward to invest in the industry so that, today, domestic production meets 75 percent of the RMG export sector's total thread requirement. Wiser by the experience it has already acquired from the market, Coats Bangladesh plans to continue investing in technology, capacity and human capital development in the coming years.