Pinakin Chaubal holds Master’s degrees in Management and Textile Engineering. He has been a long time assessor for NATA ISO 17025 laboratory accreditation and has contributed to the review and drafting of several Australian, Joint Australian / New Zealand and International Standards on textiles, clothing and footwear.

Global brands like H&M, Zara and most others are getting settled in India at an unprecedented rate. In fact, it’s more a case of who hasn’t entered the zoo, rather than who has. Global selling platforms like amazon.com have been successfully wooing Indian suppliers. Historically price sensitive apparel products like inner ware are moving to brand sensitive categories in the minds of local consumers. Now where does all this leave your product? At the centre stage!

In this competitive market, if your product does not take the centre-stage, it will lag, struggle for a while and may eventually suffer from severe competitive arrest. Brand managers demand products that are consistent with the image of their brand in the marketplace. So, it is in the interest of every player in the market to ensure that their product strategy is foolproof.

Product Excellence is the name of the game. Creating great products consistent with consumer demand is a well-orchestrated act between your product development, sales and marketing functions.

Take the humble men’s undershirt as an example. In the past, it provided protection from sweat and body odours through its mere presence and fibre content. Now depending on the activity the target user is likely to use it for such as sports, extended uniform-like use and so on, technologies are available to incorporate antimicrobial and sweat wicking properties in the fabric. The garment could be constructed such that it offers ease of movement. And depending on the target consumer market aimed at, the product could be turned from an inexpensive undershirt into an aspirational branded T shirt. Of course, the sales channels and marketing demands would be vastly different.

In case I have scared you into thinking that this is a big ticket item, let me show you over the coming weeks and months that you can play the game successfully.

Put simply, make it your business to offer great products. If you do not excite your customers, employees and investors with your products, financial success is not ensured.

Through this platform, We plan to provide thought leadership that should propel you into truly generating your own product excellence strategy and back it up with actions.

We want to remind you that you are part of the $3,000 billion global apparel market. Should you invest in your own products, the rewards are yours to reap!

Feel free to post your comments and what you may like to see here. It would be great to get your feedback!