The work wear market in India is
seen as an attractive option as order sizes are usually large, competition is
not very high and the margins are good. The increasingly large base of MNC
manufacturing hubs in the country has also buoyed the work wear segment.
The
uniform business would also provide a substantial hedge for India’s top garment
suppliers reeling under the impact of a slowdown.Companies are becoming more careful
and conscious about their corporate images now and even the smallest of
companies want uniforms. From security service agencies to coal mining, the
work wear have become indispensable. The largest demand is from industries that
are involved in manufacturing sectors and hire a lot of workers on a contract
basis. Even sectors like hospitality and retail are giving good demand.
Unfortunately, in India this is a
highly unorganised market, with most of the work wear manufacturers located in
north and east. For example Superhouse group in Kanpur and Amrit Export in Kolkata
are major industry in this sector.
However, with the advent of work
wear giant like Cintas and Lindstrom the scenario of the work wear market is
changing. Cintas has over the years
diversified into other business areas like first-aid products and fire
protection equipment. The company operates over 400 facilities in US and Canada
and employs more than 34,000 people.
Since the work wear concept is
still new in India, so the foreign work wear company is just keeping the simple
business strategy. They are adding the modules to increase capacity rather than
building a huge manufacturing unit and retail unit. Before entering the Indian
market Lindstrom carried out a market survey in 2007, it assumed that
multinationals would be its big customers, but their assumption was proved
wrong. Today 70% of the market comprises is local Indian companies.
The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
have brought the abrupt change in the Industry and market growth in India. There
is solid entelechy for the job opportunities and money flow. This can be
regarded as a true bliss as the industry hub area will grow rapidly. The other
side of coin triggers for the sagacious look for the whole pseudo development. Thus
it exemplifies the random situation. So certain standard and norms should be
followed. The 3 things should be kept into notion: Identification, branding and
uniformity.
The work wear market is a large
market: between one quarter and one half of all European employees wear
workwear. In 2001, the European workwear market was worth $3.59 billion, th
equivalent of 306.2 million pieces. The market is expected to grow by 2.5 per
cent yearly to $4.27 billion in 2008( Sanne van der Wal & Bart Slob).
There are roughly three kinds of
work wear:
(1) Corporate
Work wear- Used for official representative purpose. The ordinary fabrics is
used with more emphasis on design and colours.
(2) Ordinary
Work Wear- Overalls shirts and trousers in ordinary fabrics like poly-cotton.
(3) Technical
Work Wear- Made of special fabric or specially treated common fabric to protect
workers. For example Fire Fighter wear, Forest wear.
