products so as to sharpen their competitiveness. (c) To disseminate information on various compliances/standards/concepts such as ISO 9000 QMS, ISO 14000 EMS, Social Accountability (SA 8000) standards, eco-friendly textiles, technology upgradation, quality inspection and testing, cost reduction alternatives, product innovation and diversification, Ecommerce, etc. which have a bearing on competitiveness and market access. The Chamber of commerce of the Italian textile town of Treviso has twinned with <strong>Tirupur</strong>. The Indo-Italian Chamber has thus arranged for Treviso Tecnologia, which is an organisation representing a wide spectrum of the textile industry in Treviso to visit India and <strong>Tirupur</strong>, where seminars on possible collaboration in the textile sector will be held. Co-operation is envisaged between Treviso Tecnologia and the KnitwearFashion Institute of <strong>Tirupur</strong>. ‘<strong>Tirupur</strong> could well be Treviso, Italy's famous textile cluster that makes garments for the best names in fashion. But it's not. Unlike Treviso's small companies, the ones in <strong>Tirupur</strong> do not buy raw material together. Neither do they share information, nor use their collective scale to market their weaves. Treviso's small companies gained their international reputation by collaborating. The Textile Committee, which earlier policed these very factories has now taken upon itself to bring about this harmony. The Textile Committee is trying to help the small companies work around their weaknesses. The Committee, through a dedicated cluster development agent (CDA), is asking companies to work collectively to solve their problems. For attaining adequate scale, it is goading smaller companies to form consortiums - pool their manufacturing capacity and solicit orders together. The Textile Committee's secretary, R.C.M. Reddy, states the obvious when he says that only cost-competitive companies can survive in the garment industry. This means they have to source inputs cheaply, or deliver products at a competitive price. Without size, small companies in <strong>Tirupur</strong>, Panipat and Ludhiana can do neither. Reddy's starting point, therefore, is to help companies cut costs to survive. His cluster development agents in various cities are coaxing manufacturers to form consortiums so that they can show a 'respectable' manufacturing scale to buyers, and strong buying power to vendors. It's alarming then that things are moving sluggishly. Yes, a consortium in <strong>Tirupur</strong> has bagged a large order from Sara Lee. Another in Ludhiana is buying raw materials together. The solitary consortium in Panipat went to South Africa recently in a bid to win new orders. But these are still isolated instances. On the whole, the entrepreneurs are not stepping forward. They lack trust in collaborating. They expect the government agency to develop all the infrastructure. And many are still wondering if the demise of quotas will boost business. ‘ (Businessworld 5-4-2004) Tewari Goebel 2002: In the Tamil Nadu case, the most striking example of small business “intermediaries” that we found was TANSTIA-FNF, a novel alliance between Tamil Nadu’s largest federation of small- industry associations, TANSTIA, and a German NGO, the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung. The partnership (TANSTIA-FNF) was established in 1995, and is registered as a non-profit organization whose goal is to provide small firms with assistance to meet the new global challenges of today’s business environment. Though established at a time when the growing debate on labor standards and third party certification of small suppliers in developing countries was in sharp focus, the alliance did not grow out of concern over that debate about standards and certification. Individual suppliers who have been able to gain the confidence of their principals are no longer limiting themselves merely to what they produce themselves, but are starting to trade in products which are made by other manufacturers. This trend is apparent in the case of goods for export as well as for the domestic market. IICCI::24 14
According to a recent article in the Business World, companies in <strong>Tirupur</strong> have begon to prepare for the psot-MFA period by investing in new machinery, and hiring consultants to raise quality standards, implement entrepie resource planning systems and training employees to improve productivity. 15
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