REACH Technologies successfully organized the event titled “Collaborative Partnerships between Retailers / Brands / Designers and Manufacturers / Subcontractors in the Soft Goods industry through strategic use of IT” on August 17 th at Tirupur. The event jointly sponsored by REACH Technologies, Microsoft, Intel and Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) was a part of REACH's initiative to enable cluster adoption of IT by Tirupur apparel manufacturers .

Tirupur is a large cluster of apparel manufacturers in India who act as subcontractors to Retailers / Brands in Europe / North America exporting over USD 2 billion worth of merchandise. If a group of apparel manufacturers adopt IT solutions together it reduces project management costs and implementation time frames as well as software license fees and hardware costs as vendors pass on the benefits of reduced client acquisition costs to the clients. Thus cluster adoption of IT allows large benefits to accrue and enables the costs to be significantly less.

The event was a great forum for interaction between the policy makers, apparel manufacturers/exporters, spinning and weaving enterprises and academic & research institutions.

REACH ERP on Microsoft Dynamics which is the “All-In-One Solution” for the Apparel / Fashion / Textile / Home Furnishings / Leather industries was unveiled at the event. REACH ERP offers the following benefits:

• Built on Microsoft Dynamics, the leading mid market ERP Solution globally
• Familiar Microsoft look and feel, making learning for new users easy
• Integration available with REACH suite of applications

The event was inaugurated by Mr. A. Sakthivel - President, Tirupur Exporters' Association who also addressed the various stakeholders of Tirupur apparel and textile industry. Mr. A. Sakthivel said he was confident that Microsoft and REACH Technologies together would contribute to IT becoming an enabler to Tirupur cluster. Mr. Ashish Bhatnagar said the challenge in business solutions implementation is mostly one of ensuring adoption by users. REACH ERP on MS Dynamics looks and feels like and works with familiar Microsoft applications like MS Outlook, MS Word, MS Excel etc ensuring that user adoption is easy. Mr.Somasundaram said Tirupur should set itself a target of Rs. 15,000 crores exports by 2010. Mr. Periasamy, Deputy Director, Textiles Committee said cluster adoption of IT would bring down costs and enable faster adoption.

Pertinent questions were raised during the course of discussions, on the challenges faced by the apparel industry like shifting consumer preferences, reducing the time-to-market and lack of co-ordination across the supply chain and how to address these.

Historically, Indian apparel manufacturers, including those of Tirupur, have competed on competitive prices. In the post-quota era, speed of execution is the differentiator in the ruthlessly competitive global marketplace. Agile supply chain management and integrated enterprise wide processes are critical today and deployment of Information Technology solutions is integral to achieving this. IT, thus, becomes a source of competitive advantage.