Financial Times

Maintaining an international brand
Hameedia leads the way for local tailors
By Quintus Perera
Over many decades Sri Lankan tailors have been serving a clientele who preferred customized clothes in preference to ready-made garments.

But due to certain imported ready-made cheap garments entering the market and garments manufactured in the FTZs creeping into local markets including high fashion houses -- through improper channels - tailors worry they would be quietly eased out of business. With that one of the country's once homespun sectors would surely die a natural death.

To battle these threats, big-time tailors banded themselves into the Sri Lanka Master Tailors Association (SLMTA) and at its inaugural meeting, Hussain Sadique, Director, Hameedia, Men's wear Specialists and Master Tailors told the tailors that branding their expertise would be a sure way of staying in the trade. He said Hameedia's adopting this approach is now reaching the top of creating a brand globally. Thus branding products has tremendous proven advantage to the producer and the consumer.

Fouzul Hameed, Managing Director, Hameedia told The Sunday Times FT that; "Branding our products paid off heavy dividends. Our own global quality ready-made brands of clothes - LeBond, Envoy and Signature have led to many satisfied customers in Sri Lanka. Our successful business partnerships with trendy fashion leaders of the world like Raymond, Lee, Arrow and Adidas have given us the market edge."

Hameedia, driving the initiative to bring tailors together to battle cheap garments' imports, is unique in many facets. In addition to their brands gradually being popular the world over, the entire activities of the company is computerized such as inventory control, sales, product movements/management, wages and HR management, point of sales, custom tailor order taking delivery and production scheduling, general accounting and customer loyalty programme. Its 'on-line' "www.hameedia.com" with complete catalogue in tailoring is not only the first in Sri Lanka but also in the whole of South-East Asia, even beating India. Their Web provides information for anyone around the world to get the entire men's outfit stitched, which could then be "made in Sri Lanka"

Among its 700 staff employed more than 50 are differently abled persons. Hameed said, "The most cherished secret of our success, preceding the branding is our human resource asset. We treat our staff like our parents, specially the old hands. Most of our expert cutters and tailors have been with us for the last 15 to 20 years. Their expertise brings us business and that expertise is now transformed into branding," Hameed proudly remarked.

Hameedia already established a shop of their own in Chennai and hopes to open their shops in various countries and already steps are being finalized to establish them in Australia, UK and in Male. Hameed said "Give us little time and while establishing our branches the world over we are making our brand in men's wear a household name internationally."

It was in 1925 that Abdul Hameed started a confectionery business and his son A H Rafideen Marikkar converted it into tailoring in 1949. Now Mrs Marikkar is the Chairman, while her three sons - Faizal Alavi is the Vice-Chairman; Fouzul Hameed is the Managing Director and Hussain Sadique is a Director. Hameedia was a family concern until 1975. From thence it has become a limited liability company. Fouzul Hameed joining Hameedia in 1975 was the turning point where the tailoring and textile business expanded into a large factory, which would be the largest of its kind in Sri Lanka, situated in Ratmalana. Branding their products, fashion designing and consultancy began in the late 1980s.

With branding, fashion designing and consultancy in clothing helped Hameedia’s to offer a total solution in tailoring specially men's wear under one roof. Hameed said "We have a set of expert cutters who have been with us for a long time. My father started with one cutter and few tailors. Long-standing experts ensure consistent quality and items that cost 25 sterling pounds in England, Hameedia could provide it for 5 to 10 sterling pounds. Orders could be made going through catalogue provided in the Website and the items would be customized with the name of the client printed."

He said that they have regular customers from various countries, such as Canada, USA, and UK and the clientele range from prime ministers, ministers, diplomats from Sri Lanka as well as from foreign countries. Sachin Tendulkar, Toney Greg and the entire Sri Lankan national cricketers are among their clients. Hameedia was officially named the clothes supplier for the 1996 Wills World Cup.

Excellency in clothing offering a total solution is maintained consistently unparalleled to anywhere in the world as Hameedia throughout work in conjunction with the world's leading fabric suppliers such as Thomas Mason, Albany and Cerrito. He said that earlier the textile industry in Sri Lanka was handled by Pettah merchants but what was wrong with them was that they were worried about profits and not the customer.

Hameed said that marketing high quality products locally is difficult due to the poor economic conditions of the people, therefore they are increasingly looking for an international market. “Further our people are not exposed enough to fashion designing and clothing but people in some other countries understand clothing,” Hameed said.

Hameedia has 11 shops in Colombo while there are branches in Kandy, Negombo, Kurunegala and Nugegoda.

The company is a multi-billion-rupee concern. Several billions of rupees are also to be spent on expansion. Hameed said that their industry could be expanded further, but said that it was very unfortunate that the government has been failing to provide essential assistance. He said that the government is very slow in supporting the local industry.

The other hindrance has been that 90 percent of garments marketed even at reputed, high fashion stores are fakes. He said that what these stores do is to remove the original label and affix labels of popular brands and sell them at cheap prices. He said, "an original shirt with the particular popular brand would cost Rs 1,500 but these outlets sell them at as cheap as Rs 500-600, completely deceiving the customer. For the FTZ all the raw material is imported duty free, but in our case we have to pay tax."

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