Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, Second edition - Pr School

Globalization: global markets and global supplies 11
which subsequently further increased competition. The clothing buyers are
almost exclusively located in Western countries with the US representing the
single most important market for output from Sri Lanka, accounting for 65
per cent of total exports in 2001. The EU was the second largest market for
exports at 30 per cent in 2001 with the UK capturing 64 per cent of EU exports
(SLAEA, June 2002). Slimline produces underwear and lingerie for Marks and
Spencer, Victoria’s Secret, Lerner, Express, BhS and Hanro of Switzerland. In
the following I present the episode as a quote from the interview in full:
Dian Gomes, CEO of Slimline:
‘Last year [2002] with associated companies with quota [MFA export
quota] in this category we had around 700,000 dozens of quota available
to us because they did not produce in the category. Suddenly
this year I ran short of quota because these associated companies
were also producing garments in the 652 category [women’s underwear]
and I was not aware. I simply assumed we had sufficient
quota to deal with our orders. This is how we had always operated
and we didn’t compare the notes. Come June I suddenly realised
I am not going to get any support from my other associate companies
because they need the numbers. So suddenly I’ve got stock
for about $3 million in the warehouse and I need to do 200,000 dozens
of panties and didn’t have the quota. Now I would be dead in
that kind of situation if I had to go back to the customer and say that
you got all the materials in but I did not have the quota to do it. You
might as well shut the plant down. So a unique threat got me to go
in front of my workforce [of] 3,200 people. A week previously I had
flown to the Maldives to the Gan Islands where we have another
plant Linear Clothing. Next to that plant was an abandoned plant shut
down by another Sri Lanka clothing company. Everything was perfect.
The plant was perfect. Air conditioning worked and the general
condition was good. I came back and I had to tell the people what
had happened [with regard to quota and what the implications were].
So I said to the good native Singhalese [employees] this is the current
situation. I need 300 volunteers to take a flight to the Gan Islands
work for one year and to make it happen [overcome the quota restriction].
One thousand people volunteered because we had a culture
or a mindset, which was aggressive enough to take on a challenge.
Now what we did was send 350 [manufacturing] machines. Right
the girl with her own machine. It’s like a soldier having their own gun
the tool for performance is a machine. Men, women and machine
were loaded into the freighter [aeroplane] and they were all flown to
the Gan Islands to deliver the goods. Then I suddenly realised a
threat was turned into an opportunity. I had an opportunity to do a
million dozens from Gan which is non-quota into the same customer.
So all these ‘screw-ups,’ I would say, you need to convert into an
opportunity and talk to the customer to do that. Then some of my