Information technology is affecting virtually all industries. Textiles are no different.

The latest trend in this industry is that of single-point sourcing, that too at lower prices. Gone are the days when the buyer had to move from country to country purchasing yarn, getting it processed, waiting for the fabric to be produced, and eventually getting a garment made.

Today, manufacturers need to go out and search for sellers. It has become necessary for them to build supply chain relationships with buyers, by way of joint ventures or marketing-sourcing arrangements. Prodipto Ray of KSA Technopak says, "For the manufacturer, this setting helps assure order quantities from buyers. The buyer, assured of his supply, can now assist in design and technology". The advantage for the buyer is that he secures a regular and reputable supply source for some of his mass market and low to middle end segment products. He is saved the trouble of hopping to numerous destinations. Such arrangements help the industry move up the value chain.

An Indian entity, which has built a strong supply chain to log on to an international supply network, is the Ashima Group. In 1998 it joined forces with Cone Mills of the USA to market its fabrics under the internationally known Cone brand. It thus gained Cone’s technical assistance and access to its marketing network.

But such stories are rare. Overall, production facilities in the textile industry are poor. Most facilities have extremely outdated machinery. This more or less offsets the labour advantage that India enjoys. Hence the worry about the export potential of the industry once the quota system expires in 2004.

According to data available with KSA Technopak, the spinning sector has the most modern equipment. But even here, around 65% of the capacity is more than ten years old. Out of the estimated 33.3 million ring spindles, poor maintenance has rendered 5 million useless. Another 5 million spindles are old and suffer from extremely low productivity. Others have been made obsolete due to changes in technology.

The Indian mindset is partly to blame for this scenario. Instead of scrapping fully depreciated old machinery, producers prefer to sell their products at lower prices. No wonder then that, according to a KSA Technopak analysis, productivity in the Indian spinning sector is poor when compared to competitors such as Mexico, Turkey and USA. These countries have improved their production per spindle by over 50% between 1993 and 1996 just by replacing old machinery with new spindles that have higher productivity.

Internet is the next buzz word that has bitten the industry.The world over companies have realised the importance of E-commerce and supply chain management. Single company rule, under which a company used to have its own cotton fields, manufacture clothes and then sell through its own retail shop, is over. Now there are many companies involved in the various aspects of textiles, ranging from the sourcing of raw material to putting it on the shelf in a shop. One would expect large companies in India to follow suit.

This is already happening. In the south most of the exporters are already on the web. Companies are getting to source thier supplies by using the world wide web. B2B transactions are rampant as companies are also getting the systems of the suppliers upgraded.

Many, however, feel that it will be very difficult to sell clothes or apparels through the world wide web. The reason given is that consumers like to feel the cloth before they buy it. Thus selling clothes is very different from selling cars or TVs.

This leads to the fact that clothing and readymade apparel is not standardised in India. To be on the web, India will have to standardise its products. But this holds true for all consumer goods, not just apparel. The only difference might be that consumers could just be more choosy when purchasing readymade garments.