Mohammad Nurul Alam
Alamgir Kabir, Chief Executive Officer, Kaiser Bekleidungs GmbH, Bangladesh, is a dynamic business leader, having over 19 years years of experience in apparel manufacturing, sourcing and merchandising. He has proven ability to grow and enhance business from the ground up with excellent management and relationship-building skills. His deep understanding of dynamic market trends and the ability to define sourcing strategies that align with business objectives for revenue and cost saving make him simply a great leader in the RMG sector of Bangladesh.
As a successful frontline leader his extensive apparel experience and managing millions of pieces of high-end apparel products annually, sourcing from many Bangladeshi factories helps him to strive for persistent success. He had managed M&S-Myanmar successfully and doubled the growth with his sincere supervision. In his successful career path, he served as a Chief Executive Officer at JIC Suit Ltd (Tailoring and Outerwear factory), have worked as Head of Menswear at Marks and Spencer, Bangladesh. He was also a Merchandiser at Tesco Sourcing and Walmart Bangladesh in his career high way.
He has completed Master of Business Administration (MBA) in marketing from Presidency University and B.Sc. (Hons) in Apparel Manufacturing Technology, from BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology (BUFT).
Kaiser Bekleidungs GmbH is globally operating, a family-owned company in the fashion industry. For more than 30 years the company offers high quality Suits, trousers, sports coats, jackets, and overcoats. They have been offering customized, comprehensive concepts that support their customers in Germany, Europe and the USA. Kaiser ‘s own brand ’BENVENUTO’ has a worldwide presence for its elegant fashion sense and commitment to high quality.
As a part of regular young leader’s interview Textile Focus had a conversation with Alamgir Kabir in regards to global apparel market and Bangladesh situation. Some highlights have been given below for the reads.
Textile Focus: Could you please share us the recent scenario of RMG sector?
Alamgir Kabir: Post-election in 2024, political situation becomes more stable in Bangladesh and so RMG business here is getting positive momentum. Last year, it was a tough year for overall business due to the slower world economy and the impact of Ukraine Russia war. All the brands took a conservative buying strategy that led to less garment order placed to garment factories which eventually led to negative impact on export earnings of Bangladesh. We sincerely hope that more orders will come our way from 3rd quarter of this year and 2025 could be again a great year for RMG sector. We have already started seeing positive movement in order flow to Bangladesh factories.
to high quality.
In addition, Bangladesh will continue to get more opportunities from trade conflicts between USA and China. Meanwhile, a ban on Xinjiang cotton centering the forced labor will help Bangladesh to gain shifted orders from Vietnam as US government holds on products of Vietnam allegedly made of Xingjian cotton. Bangladesh has a very strong set up for cotton and cotton blend fabrics. Bangladesh textile and apparel sector might also get benefits from the neighboring countries because of their crisis situation, eg- Pakistan’s political turmoil, SriLanka’s economic crisis and Turkey’s earthquake impacts. Therefore, factories in Bangladesh need to be well prepared to garb the opportunities that might come to their way in near future.
Textile Focus: Why do our Product and Market diversification is so limited?
Alamgir Kabir: Bangladesh is historically very strong on the basic products, like T-shirt, Denim, Five pockets, chino, etc. In the past, Entrepreneurs were reluctant to diversify their product ranges. They had a traditional marketing strategy to go with the flow. Everybody expanded their capacity on the basic core products which eventually created fierce price competition among the factories. However only few factories could offer products that on value addition, so Bangladesh was not in the choice list for foreign brands as destination for high-end products. Still product diversification remains a challenge for factories in Bangladesh due to following key factors:
- Backward linkage, like raw material support.
- Investment on new technology and innovation.
- Lack of Technical knowledge and expertise.
- Logistic challenges (long lead time, clearance delay, poor custom handling etc).
- Government policy.
Bangladesh as a country needs to make adjustments with the global RMG demands and fashion trend. Entrepreneurs must change their strategies, put prime focus on Value co-creation, Innovation, Customer centricity, Digitalization, Service Orientation.
Textile Focus: Could you please share the Kaiser sourcing scenario from Bangladesh? Is it increasing?
Alamgir Kabir: Kaiser sourcing runs guided by a basic idea that “Everything is possible”, Kaiser meets its clients’ requirements in terms of design, quality, time, logistics, as well as prices.
Kaiser is being a reliable and specialist sourcing company over three decades for Men’s Suit, and outerwear products. We are serving to niche market and specific product categories. We are partnering with globally renowned brands and globally affiliated factories, primarily in Bangladesh, Far East, Turkey, and Eastern Europe.
with one of the team members
Bangladesh is a very important manufacturing hub for Kaiser. We have successfully moved some high-end products category of several renowned brands to Bangladesh from other regions, and we have proven that Bangladesh can also deliver high quality garments on time.
We firmly believe that Bangladesh has huge potential to grow high end products supply to renowned global brands.
Textile Focus: How many types of special products are you sourcing from Bangladesh?
Alamgir Kabir: Our product line mainly includes Men’s suits, trousers, sports coats, jackets and overcoats.
Textile Focus: Could you please share about future plan of your company in regards to Bangladesh?
Alamgir Kabir: Kaiser has a strong reliable collaboration with the manufacturing partners for future success, so we will continue to sourcing from Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has now some world’s best in class factories, and the Entrepreneurs have started investing on latest machineries and technical expertise. Most of the Suit factories are increasing capacity and more new Suit factories are coming up, which is great news!
