Apparel industry must recognize its value

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"Unless you know your own benefit, somebody will tell you your value, and it'll be significantly less than you're value," explained Bernard Hopkins Jr, one of the most successful boxers of days gone by three decades. As the environment slowly comes to terms with the brand new norms following a global Covid-19 pandemic, could it be period for the ready-produced garment (RMG) market of Bangladesh and the wider global attire source chain to reassess the value of the product that it makes and increase end-consumer awareness of the real costs of the style buys that they make.  

The RMG sector of Bangladesh has enjoyed rapid expansion since its inception in the later 1970s and, before devastating ramifications of the coronavirus hit home, had established the united states as the second major global dealer of apparel, with a 6.4 percent industry share in clothing and with the RMG sector accounting for 83 percent of Bangladesh's exports, employing some 4.4 million persons and contributing over USD 36 billion to the economy.

A few short months after and the whole fashion industry scenery has changed. Stores and brands all over the world have viewed demand because of their products shrink dramatically as their clients have been limited by lockdown measures and, even as these measures are staying relaxed, are reluctant to resume the purchasing habits they followed just before the outbreak of the pandemic. The RMG market has felt the results of this contraction in the fashion sector, with orders from buyers becoming cancelled, delayed or, worse still, repayments being withheld, leaving many companies in the market facing a bleak long term.

How could it have come to this in that short time? A business that was the pride of the country has been taken to its knees in a matter of weeks which has raised some major questions about how precisely we recover and shape the sector for the future.

Lest we ignore, the rapid rise in the fortunes of the Bangladesh RMG sector were largely based upon the way to obtain "value" item, with the industry in a position to rely on a ready workforce whose salary targets were, until recently, very low. The current apparel sector in Bangladesh can be heavily reliant on "standard" low ticket price production, even though some 40 percent of exports in 2018 were on bigger ticket price fashion things. Because of this, the sector works on extremely low income, often eroded through increasing taxes, rising costs for fuel and electric power and greater expenditure on transport and wages.

Covid-19 offers exposed the fragility of the reliance upon lower ticket price items manufactured by workers who be based upon their salaries to support themselves and their dependents. For too much time a culture of selling price pressure from our clients has instilled a predicament whereby, in basic, the low the cost payed for any outfits item, the lower the income of the workforce that manufacture it.

But have we been missing a technique here? Gets the RMG industry, through the years, shed sight of the true value of the merchandise that it generates? I am not really for a moment suggesting a wholesale upsurge in the purchase price of apparel products stated in Bangladesh but what I think should be realised is normally that the costs being paid out for the product we produce are staying placed artificially and, as possesses shown, unsustainably low. In a post-Covid world we have to readdress this imbalance and, as well as our business partners set up a fair pricing system for apparel stated in the country.

We should not forget the developments and investments that have been manufactured in the RMG sector in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013. We've been rightly proud of improvements in ethical, interpersonal and environmental specifications and, at all costs, we should not turn our again on what features been achieved. This is the time to engage with our customers and make sure that they understand our necessities and the true value of the merchandise we produce rather than constantly chase orders for the cheapest purchase price.

I appreciate that this approach will be alien to numerous mixed up in Bangladesh RMG sector, but recent events have proven that people cannot let things keep on as normal. In fact it might be foolhardy to assume that things will return to normal once the ravages of the pandemic subside.

Now is the time, through engagement with our customers, to make certain that the true costs of all apparel item, whether stated in Bangladesh or found in other sourcing hubs, are evidently communicated to the finish consumer. There can be an emerging groundswell of buyers in our key market segments of the UK, Europe and the united states that desire to be reassured that the product that they pay for is produced in the just about all ethical, environmentally sound manner possible. The Covid-19 pandemic supplies the possibility to inform those buyers and, as well as our organization partners, we are able to champion the virtues of the outfits product that people produce as a country.

The Bangladesh RMG industry can't rely on the level of business that we enjoyed prior to the pandemic broke and we will need to adapt. There is a lot speak about the "survival of the fittest" within the global apparel supply chain. There exists a common misconception that whenever asked to describe the procedure of natural collection, as identified by Charles Darwin in his work On the foundation of Species and the term survival of the fittest, many presume "fittest" to mean the very best physical specimen of the species and that simply those in the very best shape and best wellbeing will survive in aspect.

However, this is simply not definitely the case. People that survive are not often the strongest, fastest, or smartest. By that explanation, afterward, survival of the fittest is probably not the easiest way to describe natural selection since it pertains to evolution. Darwin didn't mean it in those conditions when he utilized it in his republished book. He designed "fittest" to imply the members of the species suitable, or able to adapt to the quick environment, in fact it is this technique of adaption which will make certain that the Bangladesh outfits industry can survive going forward.

Through engagement with this business partners, the championing of the increases the RMG sector has made and the establishment of meaningful partnerships predicated on a good pricing strategy, the industry will continue, albeit in a numerous format to what we all knew prior to the Covid-19 crisis took hold.
Source: https://www.thedailystar.net

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