Panel at Bharat Tex: Workforce productivity key to competitiveness

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to Bharat Tex participants set an ambitious vision, urging the industry to achieve a threefold increase in textile exports to US$ 100 billion before 2030 through his "Five Fs" strategy (Farm, Fibre, Fabric, Fashion, and Foreign). The Prime Minister during his inspiring address specifically highlighted opportunities in textile recycling, projecting it as a $400 million domestic industry within a $7.5 billion global market.

Bharat Tex offered a rich bouquet of knowledge sessions on important themes for the industry. In a through provoking session at Bharat Tex 2025 curated by Rajesh Bheda Consulting, industry leaders unveiled how productivity improvements could transform India's apparel sector, potentially unlocking $7.8 billion in value and creating production capacity equivalent to 1,350 new factories, as estimated by RBC, all without additional infrastructure investments.

"Productivity improvement is a must if India is to enhance competitiveness of the apparel industry and increase its market share. That is the only way the industry can improve its Profitability while investing in People and Planet. Imbibing productive mindset will help pursuit of waste elimination and improve resource efficiency across the processes. All of these can support in making progress on SDG targets while delivering business results," emphasized Dr. Rajesh Bheda, Managing Director of Rajesh Bheda Consulting (RBC), in his theme presentation, setting the tone at Bharat Tex 2025's pivotal panel discussion 'Unsung Warriors: How Leveraging Productivity can enhance competitiveness.'

The session, chaired by Mr. Akhilesh Kumar, Deputy Director General, Ministry of Textiles, moderated by Dr. Bheda, brought together an influential panel of industry leaders: Siva Ganapathi (MD, Gokaldas Exports), Pallab Banerjee (MD, Pearl Global Industries Limited), Suchira Surendranath (Director, Brandix India), Deepika Diwan (Sourcing Strategist), and Elango Viswanathan (CEO, SNQS International).

In an industry where raw materials and technology follow global pricing norms, human resource productivity emerges as the critical differentiator in firm-level competitiveness. This underexplored factor earned the apt session theme 'Unsung Warriors.' Despite India's significant potential, the nation's apparel industry continues to lag behind global competitors like China, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh in productivity metrics, with exports stagnating between $15-17 billion for over eight years.

Dr. Bheda presented compelling data: "The Indian apparel industry must work on unlocking the US$ 7.8 Billion productivity opportunity waiting to be taken through 15% improvement in productivity across the industry. This can create additional production capacity equivalent to 1350 garment exporting factories, just by investing in human systems without needing investments in new buildings, machines and utilities, thus improving the resource efficiency, contributing to sustainability and reducing environmental impact while improving profitability."

Case studies presented demonstrated remarkable results from collaborative improvement programs between factories, brands and development agencies: 26% productivity improvement, 26% reduction in quality defects, 25%+ decrease in absenteeism and migration, and a 7.99% increase in workers' pay. Data from 39,000+ workers upskilled using training systems like RBC-Parasmani (3G Tailor) and Sudokkho showed over 25% improvement in production capacity.

Siva Ganapathi of Gokaldas Exports emphasized, "If you get the right people in and then train them right, half the productivity battle is won! Production floor suffers because right people are not there, or they are not trained right. We need to move away from 1.8 workers to a machine to two machines per worker, if possible." He stressed the importance of selecting appropriate KPIs across the organization.

Brandix India's Director, Suchira Surendranath, shared insights on cross-country efficiency variations: "The difference in efficiency is to the tune of 3-5% depending on the product specialization and market catered." On skills training, he added, "RBC's 3G Tailor Training System helped us immensely. We have trained over 100,000 people till date. The simplicity of the training process is so much that people learn quickly. And the beauty of the programme is an unskilled trainee is able to achieve 80% performance within three weeks of training and contribute to her family, factory and the economy."

Pearl Global's Pallab Banerjee highlighted recent digital transformation: "Though in last two years productivity has improved in our Indian operations, it is still lower than our Bangladesh factories. For making further improvement, we need to address the challenges by unlearning old practices, and re-learn global best practices." He emphasized the importance of multi-skilling for manufacturing small-quantity value-added products.

Sourcing strategist Deepika Diwan brought a buyer's perspective: "I have been associated with several factory improvement projects when I was leading M&S and Sainsbury's. Ethical Model Factory Project of M&S resulted in productivity improvement and benefits for workers. A 10 to 15% of productivity improvement as explained by Dr. Bheda is absolutely possible in 3 to 6 months itself with few simple changes like process improvements, movements, layouts, etc." She added, "Even the mid-price retailers are struggling today, so the industry needs to work together to create a win-win situation and productivity improvement can certainly help. It is a myth that buyers are fighting for lower prices. The reality is that many buyers look for trustworthy suppliers who give on time delivery, right quality, are innovative and also bring in some sustainability component."

Elango Viswanathan reinforced the core message: "Profit doesn't come for outside, but it is present inside the factory. We have to correlate productivity to profitability, and for this right kind of training is needed. Sustaining the labour force is a challenge. I would like to request the government of India to support MSME with funding support for technological upgradation, manufacturing excellence programs and housing infrastructure for migrant workers." 

The panel discussion generated healthy engagement with audience leading to takeaways on the improvement potential, the link between productivity, profitability, worker welfare and sustainability. The key message was, " it is time for the stakeholders to work together to drive out Waste, empower the workforce so that they do not remain Unsung Warriors and leverage productivity for enhancing competitiveness".

Note: The headline, insights, and image of this press release may have been refined by the Fibre2Fashion staff; the rest of the content remains unchanged.
 

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (HU)