Mohammad Nurul Alam
Moyeen Uddin Ahmed, Regional General Manager at Gloria Jeans (Russia) responsible for Bangladesh and India office is an accomplished professional in Bangladesh apparel Industry with 25 years of solid Leadership, management, international sourcing and operational experience. He has been ranked and served in different managerial position in various renowned brands in home and abroad such as Grand National Apparel INC, Toronto Canada as a Sourcing Director, Roots Canada Limited in Toronto as a Sourcing manager, OTTO International Bangladesh as a General Manager, REDCATS Asia Ltd. (A concern of PPR group), as a General Manager, SARA LEE Printables Europe, GmbH as a Country manager and International Sourcing manager, JC Penney Purchasing Corp. as a Merchandising office starter, LEVI-STRAUSS & Co. Bangladesh as a Merchandiser and Comtextile (H.K) Limited Bangladesh to start career.
His Key Strengths include on team building and leadership, sourcing and procurement management operations, costings and negotiations, production planning and execution, strategic vendor networking, vendor analysis and evaluation development and planning.
Moyeen Uddin Ahmed completed his MBA, major in Marketing under Preston University, USA. and MSS from Chittagong University. He has multiple overseas training on Technical training, Thailand, approval / PCR training in CEBU, Philippine and Speed Leadership Training under PPR University, France.
Gloria Jeans is a vertically integrated retailer and leader in fast fashion segment in Russia and CIS countries since 1988. The brand is leader of fast fashion market in 3 countries (Russia, Belorussia and Kazakhstan) it has 660+ retail stores in 300+ cities and 15000 employees in 2021.
Recently Textile Focus team met him and talked about present and future challenges in regards to global and Bangladesh apparel sector. The below is a brief overview on the discussion.
Textile Focus : How do you see the economic growth of the Bangladesh RMG Sector?
Moyeen Ahmed: As the apparel sector is my bread & butter and I have grown up to a height with the growth of this trade, so I heartily admire and grateful to the Bangladesh RMG sector, because apparel sector is the country’s economy-wheel. My thirty years of apparel experience and working with RMG industry made me believe that the economy wheel rolled from this sector and moved to Shipping, Forwarding, Real state, cosmetic, pharmaceuticals and so on. Huge job opening created because of this sector too.
Early decade of the RMG sector in the country we never had backward linkage support, there were only garments process and making (Cut & Sew), today we are leading as number one Knit exporter in the world (volume wise). We produce almost 85% of total Knit products including fabric, trims and all the materials for garment export and very few items require to import to give support for backward linkage today. On other hand, we are setting the milestone by having 200+ green factories in country and increasing spinning, Denim & Woven mills every year.
Textile Focus : What is the Current Sourcing strategy of Gloria jeans? Is it increasing?
Moyeen Ahmed: Gloria Jeans is the Russian apparel brand and is the leader in Russian market and during last 2 years Gloria Jeans increased 30% business. The business of GJ is increasing and our company is planning to expand business/retail stores outside of Russia in coming years.
Textile Focus : Apparel manufacturers told overall production cost is increasing due to present wage hike but buyers are decreasing price, how GJ ensures fair price ?
Moyeen Ahmed: Price depends on types of product, quality and styling. But it has been seen Bangladesh fails to get volumes of order due to not having competitive price in the international market where competitors are offering price less than Bangladeshi manufacturers. Bangladesh product has duty while Vietnam is duty free. I sincerely seek attention of Bangladesh Govt. stakeholders/minister to look into this to grow business in Russia market.
In regards to wage hike and to provide up charge, I would say, this is matter of competitiveness. Because we work on open costing and only the supplier who is able to give competitive price they can secure business. We are ready to pay more for worker’s benefit but suppliers should reduce overall cost and improve process loss to be competitive. We feel suppliers can adopt wage hike by reducing wastage from value chain and enhancing efficiency in the work force.
Textile Focus : How GJ is Maintaining Sustainability ?
Moyeen Ahmed: Sustainability is a huge chapter to discuss and in Bangladesh context the progress of sustainability is quite good but still long way to go to prove its capability and real ground progress. Actually working for sustainability requires collaboration of all the parties. Suppliers, manufacturers, brands as well as individual apparel users should take the responsibility and do collective efforts.
Gloria Jeans is committed to work on sustainability and so we buy Bio finish products by paying additional cost, we also buy products based on organic cotton and environment friendly garments.
Textile Focus : What is the sourcing plan of GJ from the Bangladesh market ?
Moyeen Ahmed: Bangladesh is one of the biggest apparel supplier for Gloria Jeans and by ten years of business relationship we understood Bangladesh is the hub of RMG industry where potentiality lies to increase business volume. So our range of product categories are more diversified in Bangladesh. Now we are buying knit, woven, denim with basic to critical washes, jackets, outerwear and cap etc.
We are using made in Bangladesh fabric such as denim, twill, shirting and all kinds of knit for various products. Because of innovation and quality development at high-end category we are shifting some of high-end product from Turkey, Vietnam, China to Bangladesh. By this way Bangladesh is getting more volume of business from Gloria Jeans but the country should focus more on Duty challenges & competitive price to increase business.
Textile Focus : What is your personal strategy to be successful in a higher position like Brand’s office?
Moyeen Ahmed: I have been working in the RMG sector for 30 years and played vital managerial role for 25 years in different renowned brand’s office. My prolonged experience and industrial knowledge helped me to up personal and professional growth.
Textile Focus : Please share and deliver advice for the new commer who want to build career in the RMG sector though current situation is not good?
Moyeen Ahmed: Dream big – SKY is the limit. There is no alternative of hard work, luck need sometime! Practice digging into details will boost your confidence. Proactiveness, fast and smart solution of issue is the key. Never hold back any issue, communicate to sort out. Visit factory and fabric mills to understand the process and terminology. It will assist you and can be useful tools while in meeting with customer or writing e-mail even when you are interviewing with someone.
