Mr. Robert McKee
Global Fashion Industry Strategy Director Infor
Domestic developers tend to lack the specific expertise and domain skills the businesses actually need.
In an exclusive interview to Fibre2Fashion, Mr. Robert McKee talks about the Indian textile industry and the various software applications put to use by it. He also discusses about Infor as a leading software solution provider in the country.
Synopsis:
Robert McKee has held several senior positions at various textile organizations and companies. Owing to his immense experience and knowledge in the field of textiles and fashion, he was given the post of Global Industry Strategy Director at Infor.
He is a regular speaker at industry events. His knowledge and skills in retailing, sourcing, manufacturing and product development within the fashion industry has earned him the repute of an industry guru.
Excerpts:
What have you got to say about the Indian textile and apparel industry?
There are many facets to the Indian market. Firstly, there is the perennial issue of labour prices. The textile manufacture, apparel, and fashion industry is obsessed with low labour rates. However, in the value chain from yarn to finished product, it is often the smallest factor. Many Indian businesses are now realizing this and switching their focus towards more substantial issues that can transform the business.
It is also worth remembering that apparel and textile manufacturing typically occurs early in economic evolution. India has already gone through this phase, and if anything, is typically a little further down the line of economic evolution than China. For example, there are now many businesses involved in heavy manufacture and hi-tech goods.
This is not to say that the textile market in India has finished. It has an impressive track record and possible future growth. But the fact remains that it is unlikely we will see a huge spurt of growth now: Indian textile manufacture has moved into a more stable phase.
There are one or two factors that may yet energise this growth and provide a catalyst for the Indian market. Firstly, the development of trade agreements that makes India more attractive for consuming territories such as the EU. Secondly, a dramatic improvement in the infrastructure related to exporting goods.
Infrastructure is less of a problem for India as the growth of the economy has meant an increased domestic consumption base (to the point that India is now importing goods). Moving goods around the domestic market is far easier than international export.
How do you think will Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software be beneficial to textile and apparel related units?
ERP systems can contribute towards reducing the burden of compliance and auditing (and controlling the costs therein). It is critical to assessing and then improving efficiency issues that might otherwise be overlooked.
We are seeing more vertically orientated organisations covering more of the value chain. For these clients, ERP and supply chain software is critical to enable the control of all the products and components in the supply chain and manufacture of a given product.
Businesses need to ensure low levels of inventory for the sake of financial health, but at the same time they know they cannot tolerate late goods' deliveries or lagging development. Integrated efficiency is the watchword here and the combination of ERP and supply chain execution software is vital.
Which software packages are available for the textile retail sector?
Retail typically requires a range of software spanning logistics elements such as warehouse or stock management, workforce management, customer relationship management (often in very immediate terms), financial management, supplier management, performance analytics, procurement and demand planning.
It is worth bearing in mind that textile retail will differ drastically from other areas of retail such as fresh produce or electronics: Infor has over 2,600 retail customers across 67 countries and within fashion this spans names such as Tommy Hilfiger, GAP, JC Penney, Macy’s.com and Billabong. As you can imagine these brands will have different processes as well so it is more a case of supporting the individual business processes rather than applying a blanket software package. We call this being “specialized by industry”.
Till now, how has your experience been with the Indian textile and apparel industry? Has the poor infrastructure in the country affected your business plans in any way?
Infrastructure in India remains notoriously unreliable, especially for volumetric goods such as fashion that may take up a lot of space but do not necessarily weigh a great deal. It is usually the case that India has the space to manufacture and store these goods, but lacks the infrastructure to move them.
What do you think about Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software? Where does that fit?
When it comes to PLM software, there is an exciting, macroeconomic driver at work in India that will, over the next five years or so, drastically change the face of the Indian textile, apparel and fashion business. We are beginning to see the birth of both concept and design development for home grown brands in India - not just for the domestic market but also for export.
Why do you think is there a need for western software packages in the apparel and garment industry when there is ample of manpower?
There is often a challenge in demonstrating why a business needs to invest in western software packages - when factory owners have access to a local market that is awash with people that can build it, including India’s small army of PhD educated software developers.
However, these domestic developers tend to lack the specific expertise and domain skills the businesses actually need. As a result, larger enterprises and aggressively growing start-ups alike are beginning to see the need for standardized software away from proprietary, domestic alternatives.
What other software do you suppose have the capacity to benefit the Indian textile and apparel manufacturing units?
With regards to manufacturing, best practice will lead some leading manufacturers to deploy asset management software in order to ensure continued uptime and also to assess the energy consumption of key manufacturing facilities.
As the domestic market develops and the textile manufacturers have a more diverse set of markets, it is likely that CRM will also become important for main manufacturers. It is likely that this will be deployed via the cloud.
Where do you see Infor in the Indian textile and apparel industry five years down the line? What changes do you suppose will Infor bring in the Indian textile industry?
There are four main technological factors driving change and innovation: social business, cloud, mobility and analytics. Applied to the Indian textile business, we see a likely profound impact from social business and mobility, especially as mobile phone and smart phone penetration continues to increase throughout the region.
We have already begun developing workforce management (WFM) and Business Intelligence (BI) mobile apps, social media interaction for our CRM products and increased analytics components throughout our financial management applications.
Published on: 17/01/2013
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
