Shah Rayeed Chowdhury Director of Evince Group said his panel speech at the 17th edition of Bangladesh Denim Expo.
if I really thought about this before coming here. And in fact, I prepared a list of things as well. I mean, the question was, how do we prepare for the loss of LDC benefits?
So, when I was preparing my answers, I was thinking about answers like, you know, go for automation and then make fewer mistakes, and then source materials and so on. But in fact, one of the key things that I finally thought about was we, in terms of thinking about answers, we go so much into complications. We forget the basics, and in this regard, I feel we should go back to the basics of our business and our trade. I think that is the most important. Basics in terms of relationship with our buyers, sometimes we focus so much on the external, we forget about the internal.
If we want to keep the business, whatever the challenges are coming up ahead, one of the things that I learned, in fact, from a London business school last year, was if you’re the person who’s in control of the relationship is in control of the business. So, being in touch with our buyers, actively improving on our communication, improving, of course, in our source of raw material, collection development, these are some of the things that down the line, we all tend to, in fact, forget.
Automation, these things, it is bound. If you want to remain competitive, if you want to remain in line, you have to. Even so, of course, we are investing a lot, my elder brother is here, actually, he’s looking after the production side, we are two brothers. I’m looking after the marketing side; we are tremendously investing in terms of automation. However, the man behind the machine is more important, so training, and training facilities, that is even more important. That’s why we are investing a lot in building our team.
Previously, we used to focus a lot on Sri Lanka and other people, but we are trying to develop in-house people in Bangladesh, even trying to get support from China and other places.
China, I mentioned because we actually, we are the master friends of many, so in Bangladesh, we have a really good relationship with people there. So, we are trying to actually think about automation and technical knowledge in a different manner, to remain competitive in the long run, coming to your question about compliance. In fact, compliance is not, it is a prerequisite, it is a very underwhelming discussion, coming to the end of 2024, we are moving into 2025, it is a prerequisite, it is a mandatory mindset. If you do not have that mindset of being compliant, what do I need to remain compacting, that is not the way it should be. Rather than what is more worrying, I think it is about the SMEs and other small business stakeholders because even for a group of companies like us who are in the business, we are the second generation now.
Our father actually started the business back in 1983, so we were bred differently, you know, this is a legacy business, you have to keep moving forward, remain compliant, etc. But for people who are SMEs, small business holders, especially for GSP plus, when the compliant requirements will be standardized for everyone, that will actually be a challenge. However, I think the media also has a big role to play here, portraying, and I think 12 South Africa was also mentioned the way we are being portrayed to the world, which is extremely important. Even you might be or you may not be surprised to know that small factories that are not fully even compliant in countries like our competitor countries, even in India or others, they are producing for high-end brands. But you know, the media, the way they are not negatively portraying, that I think that also has a big impact on positively encouraging the economy and even encouraging the small businesses.
Last day I want to say, I mean regarding this point, even though we have our newest platinum-certified factory, only which is a beautiful factory, we mean the buyers are really impressed. So I had this personal experience when buyers are coming, usually every time I am attending them, doing the tour and everything. At the end of the tour, she was sitting and having some snacks with me, and then she was saying, wow, what a beautiful factory, you know, 30 lines, you’ve done it, fully compliant, sustainable, everything is good. But you know, I am doing a lot of orders in Myanmar and she is laughing, I am doing a lot of orders in Myanmar and there are no fire doors even in those factories.
So at the end of the day, is it only about price, is it only what are the factors, I think we should already think about going forward.
