To compete, corporates brand staff wear  ( September '3,2004, BS)

Increasing competition has vastly raised the importance of corporate branding and put all facets of a company’s image under the design scanner. One such facet is the corporate attire – what a company’s employees wear to work — which opens up new vistas for apparel biggies like Madura Garments, Arvind Brands and Raymond’s.

Though this is a fledgling category for apparel firms, they appear excited over the long-term prospects. In fact, several apparel majors like Arvind, Raymonds, Madura and Indus League have set up either separate teams or divisions to target the segment. Madura has a gone a step further and positioned its T- shirt label Byford as a vehicle for corporate/institutional branding.

Apparel firms well understand that this category has a limited potential.

However, they also realise it cannot be ignored because of the value it has for companies because of brand equity it generates for them. Despite offering its entire brand bouquet for this segment, Madura anticipates to get around Rs 30 crore in the next two to three years from the current Rs 10 crore. That works out to 5 to 6 per cent of its topline. Ditto with Arvind.

It targets 5 to 7 per cent of its turnover from institutional sales.

Apparel firms say this segment was quite complex as each sub-category under it had varied requirements. For example, the two main sub-segments are poles apart. One is HR incentives offered by IT, pharma, insurance, banking and a few manufacturing firms.

The other is corporate gifting by FMCGs. While the first is strictly design and quality-oriented, the second relies more on low pricing. Further, the time to service corporate orders can be as low as two weeks, as opposed to eight months for the regular retail supply chain.

Nevertheless, the apparel firms are busy lapping up clients. Madura has already reached 400 corporate clients and executed over 160 orders across ITES/BPO, manufacturing, FMCG, pharma and educational institutions. Oxemberg from Siyaram Silk Mills, according to Prasad Shetty, GM (Marketing) has under its belt clients like Dhirubhai Ambani International School, GAIL and a few five star hotels. Indus League has over 50 institutional/corporate customers, K A Madappa, Head-Global retail said.

Besides, companies like Arvind and Indus League have flagship customised showrooms within the campuses of Wipro and Infosys that merchandise the IT majors’ co-branded apparels and accessories.

Apparel firms have also discovered during clinic trials in this segment is that corporates prefer staples or the evergreens that are never out of stock, according to Pradeep Mukhim- Head of Institutional and International Sales, Arvind Brands.