Our mission is to be a world class company and to be an apparel manufacturer for the international market with an innovative approach. We also follow our parent company’s strategy and values of consistency and integrity.

Our strategy is to offer flexible services through providing multi-products to our clients such as aprons and fire fighting suits. I decided on this strategy as most garment manufacturing companies receive seasonal orders such as coats in the summer for sale in the winter so I have tried to balance our capacity through a multi-product business model. It involves a lot of skill and investment to be able to move from fashion garments to industrial garments as it is a different way of stitching and using the machines.

People are a really important part of manufacturing as garments involve a labour intensive production process and people cannot be replaced by machines. I always try to put into the hearts and minds of our people the idea of caring as workers need to have a stable mental outlook as this can directly impact their work. The sewing and production is an art; just like writing and one person’s work can be completely different if they are not in a good mental state due to personal problems. Therefore I encourage my management team to always communicate with their workers to ensure their productivity.

I have over 20 years of experience in the sector and I think that any country which offers low labour costs, a large population and has parts of the population with a low level of education can have a garment industry. Indonesia has these attributes for the garment manufacturing industry to be successful. From 1987-1992 Indonesia was a very attractive market for garments and many companies from Korea, Japan and Hong Kong set up in the country. From 1992 they moved out to China and then they moved back to Indonesia. This is due to the shortage of manpower and the rising wages in China.

Indonesians have a good working culture as they are obedient and compliant. Once the education level and opportunities increase in Indonesia, it will raise the price of production and make the industry more challenging. Minimum wages in the Jakarta area have also risen which is making labour intensive industries more difficult to be viable.

In South East Asia, Indonesia is probably the most attractive market for garments given the size of the country.

We have three types of products; uniforms, fashion garments and sportswear. In 2012 we entered the USA through children’s wear for the brand Jill and Jack. This year (2013) we aim to produce 1 million pieces for the American market. We are also now working with Adidas and we began with 2.6 million pieces and now we are aiming for 6 million pieces for this year.

For uniforms, we first went to the United Kingdom in order to supply to the Royal Air Force and we are currently bidding to supply to the Norwegian military.

It is really important to have a network in the garment industry as many buyers will just look at price as opposed to your reputation and your quality. Most of the business we get is through contacts as opposed to advertising or trade shows. They just look at the price but the price is not a reflection on the ability to timely execute an order and even the price of the goods when they are delivered in hand as costs add up when good quality control is not implemented.

We therefore mainly network through distributors and principals for gaining new clients as conveying our quality is the most important thing. Making new clients understand and appreciate this focus on quality is definitely a challenge.

I will continue to focus on uniforms such as high visibility garments and protective garments. Our hospital garments for example are made from anti-static and anti-bacterial fabric so you pay a premium even for the fabric. We aim to add value to our products as this is how we can compete. For example we offer Goretex for football shirts with reflective strips; China uses reflective strips that last for a short time whereas we use durable products which use materials that can cost up to ten times the price.