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Arthur Uche, managing director, Beyond Clothing Limited, a leading garment manufacting company based in Aba, the commercial hub of Abia State, has stated that Aba will dominate the fashion industry, if the garment makers understand how to scale their businesses.
Uche, in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay in Aba, affirmed that Aba garment makers are successful, because they understand their market.
According to him, those individuals that you are seeing understand their market, may not have a larger vision, they don’t understand how to scale, but they understand the market.
“If you go to Ngwa Road, you will see somebody, who has been producing boxers shorts for the past 30 years, that’s his market and he is still making boxers, he has buyers from Togo, Cameroon and other parts of West African countries, even outside Africa.
“They understand their market, but they don’t know how to compete with the Chinese, which is the missing link. If they understand how to compete with the Chinese, they’ll beat the Chinese”.
He said that the major challenge in the Aba garment industry is Knowledge and exposure, noting that most of those in the garment business do not understand that they are in manufacturing.
“For example, manufacturing is not a one-man business. Garment manufacturing is a labour intensive business. One person cannot do it, ten people cannot do it, twenty people cannot do it. it runs on the back of intensive operation. And in that intensive operation, the entrepreneur must make out time to study and understand all of those components that come together to make you a successful garment maker”, he noted.
He stated that knowledge is what is needed to succeed in garment manufacturing, not procurement of machines, stressing that machine does not guarantee a successful garment factory.
He added, “The first thing you do when you want to set up a garment factory is to ask yourself, which market is ideal for my product. Then you test your product. If you are getting market for that your product, then you’ll start looking for the right machines that will produce those products.
“You should also note that you are competing with China, Bangladesh, Turkey and India. These people have extensive knowledge of the industry. So, you have to understand your market, it is market driven, it is not machine driven.
“Once you understand your market, whether it is zero percent or one percent, then you start deploying resources to that direction and start acquiring knowledge in serving that market. And as you are serving that market, you are growing gradually and expand to other products”.
