Collective efforts needed to build brand India in textiles

The brand India promotion will have to be made in a fixed time frame, and first it should target the countries with a tilt towards India. There should be a proper study about the all-important aspects of customers' choices about fashion trends, materials, and preferred size but the product should have the credibility that it is highly sustainable as well as the best quality

There are hundreds of foreign brands having a good scale of marketing operation in India and making good money also. The number of such brands is continuously increasing.

And how many Indian brands are there that have a good presence globally and making money as foreign brands are making in India, hardly a few. To sell a product and sell a brand, both are different things. It is good that the international scenario is in India's favour and our country's export is expected to grow continuously but why can't we put our efforts into creating both, strong individual brand of Indian companies and a strong brand India (product made in India for the overseas market for established brand) If we could do this, it will add multi-fold value for India.

Making a brand and that too in the fashion domain takes consistent efforts and credibility for years. Still, there are individual companies, strong brands having their stores out of India and they can excel in their efforts for this but collective efforts are required to create a brand India. The Indian brands and brand India should have such a strong image that people across the globe should be motivated to buy and even pay a premium to see the Made in India tag. It will motivate international brands, and retailers to source more textile, handicraft and garment products from India.

The brand India promotion will have to be made in a fixed time frame, and first it should target the countries with a tilt towards India. There should be a proper study about the all-important aspects of customers' choices about fashion trends, materials, and preferred size but the product should have the credibility that it is highly sustainable as well as the best quality.

Time and again, many top global brands face heat from unhealthy practices of the manufacturing process and there is always a market for new but quality products so, with proper planning and execution, there is a strong need to present the brand India across the world.

And for that our nation has to be super strong on all the verticals, especially cotton and sustainability. Cotton is our nation's core and traditional strength that needs to improve on the quality front.

Nearly two years ago India came up with its premium cotton brand Kasturi Cotton representing whiteness, lustre, brightness, uniqueness, softness, purity and Indianness. SU RE (Sustainable Resolution), the Indian garment industry's largest commitment to moving toward sustainable fashion.

There are few more initiatives but the scale and efforts need to enhance and constant restrategise as per the requirement of the fashion industry. To make brand India strong and its image like famous brands, the involvement of the entire value chain and industry is must, not just that some stakeholders who have resources and already doing well are enough. Regarding the cotton level, Government's joint efforts will require and these seem in right direction too as just few days back, the Ministry of Textile and the Ministry of Agriculture had a high-level meeting. The meeting also had seed producers, farmers groups, ginners, spinners and exporters of textile products. Time and again it has been said that India needs enhancing cotton productivity, quality and marketing. Now it will not be wrong to expect that efforts in this direction will get speed, especially testing and technology for the improvement of cotton.

A ban on China's Xinjiang cotton is also needed to capitalise and only India can do this with its quick overall improvement.

For sustainability, more than Government, it is an industry that needs to pull up its socks, the three core concepts of sustainability- people, planet and profit, need to be focused on equally. Concepts like recycle, reuse, circularity and wastage control to maximize use of natural resources is thrust for a selected segment of the industry. Though the entire industry can't follow sustainability in true spirit but it need to be spread at the maximum level. Simultaneously industry needs to work on people also as at the grass route level, the workforce is still neglected or just getting the wage and facilities as per the law of the land. Right from blue-collar jobs to white collar, nothing beyond is there for the workforce.

With the focus of states as well as Central Government on the textile industry, various schemes, favourable international scenarios and high sentiments of the industry, there can't be a high time to focus strongly on brand India and Indian brands.

(The author owns a garment manufacturing setup in a rural area, which employs mostly women workers)