Introduction: Garment Industry Large-scale production of readymade garments (RMG) in organized factories is a relatively new phenomenon in Bangladesh.

Since the late 1970s, the RMG industry started developing in Bangladesh primarily as an export-oriented industry although; the domestic market for RMG has been increasing fast due to increase in personal disposable income and change in life style. The sector rapidly attained high importance in terms of employment, foreign exchange earnings and its contribution to GDP. We the student of HRM 301 are authorized by our course instructor Md.Atiqur Rahman Sarker to prepare this assignment by the analyses of main strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of a RMG company in Bangladesh with company background. We have collected information by visiting the company. During the process of preparing the assignment, we had the chance of experiencing and rediscovering our potentials. This assignment gave us an opportunity to apply our theoretical expertise, sharpen my views, ideas and communication skills, which will help us in our future professional career. Company Background: BHIS Apparels Ltd: BHIS is well equipped with 40 production lines with daily production of 40,000pcs Basic Shirts. Factory has already obtained the certification WRAP for quality assurance. Factory is occupied total 100,000sqft in a commercial building. Production Units: BHIS Apparels Limited, BHIS Fashions Limited, CN Knitwears Limited, Factory: 671, Datta Para, Hossain Market, Tongi, Gazipur, Bangladesh. Best Shirts Ltd, Factory: 35, Kunia, PO.National University, Gazipur, Dhaka. BRIGHT Apparels Limited. Factory: 25, Shahid Tajuddin Ahmed Soroni, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka 1208, Bangladesh.
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Compliance: Certified by WRAP, SEDEX Some of their customers are: 1. PVH 2. M&S, 3. Warnaco 4. Prominent Apparels Ltd. (BHS/ Burton/ Tesco/ Dunnes stores etc.) 5. Goodman / Matalan 6. Vroom & Derssman 7. Gemex Basic Information BHIS Apparels Ltd. Manufacturer, Buying Office 100 percent woven items mens,ladies and children casual,formal,school shirts,ladies high fashion blouses and fancy shirt 671, Datta Para, Hossain Market Above 1000 People 1998 Eastern Europe Western Europe Main Customers: Total Annual Sales Volume: Factory Information: No. of R&D Staff: Management Certification: Contract Manufacturing: Southern Europe M&S, PVH, Chapes, Next, Matalan Etc. US$10 Million - US$50 Million 31 - 40 People Others OEM Service Offered

Company Name: Business Type: Product/Service (They Sell): Address: Number of Employees: Year Established: Main Markets:

Bright Apparels Ltd. A concern of BHIS & 100 percent knit wear-manufacturing factory. The product range, Tshirt, Sweat shirt, polo shirt, tank top, pajama set & all knit fancy items with prints and embroidery with local and imported fabrics. Bright Apparels Ltd. Started its journey in the
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realm of garment sector in 2002. Management is fully aware of the importance of healthy and suitable working environment and provides adequate assistance to our workers for better working relation, efficient production and to achieve the desired quality our work force. Facilities: Production capacity 1,00,000 pcs of basic T-Shirt and 40,000 pcs of Polo-Shirt per month. Information: The total floor space of 45,000 sqft. Present buyers are 1. Goodman / Matalan 2. Red Oak 3. Li & Fung SWOT analysis: Despite many difficulties faced by the RMG industry over the past years, it continued to show its strong performance and competitive strength. Other factors like price competitiveness, enhanced GSP facility, market and product diversification, cheap labor, high level of investment, and government support are among the key factors that helped the country to continue the momentum in export earnings in the apparel sector. Some of these elements, weaknesses, opportunity and threats are reviewed below. Strength: Competitive price: Bangladesh is a country of relatively low labor cost. So low labor cost and higher productivity brings down the manufacturing cost and thus they can provide their product in competitive price in the price sensitive market. Garment sector is the largest employer of women in Bangladesh. Most women come from low income families. Low wage of women workers and their compliancy have enabled the industry to compete with the world market. Women are paid far less than men mainly due to their lack education. However, wages are currently being revised to bring them more in line with the escalating cost of living and expectations of workers, as a result of which labor costs will increase. But there is much more to productivity than the cost of labor.

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International standard quality: They are exporting their good especially to the European markets so they have to maintain an international standard quality product. They have their own quality control department where highly skilled professionals are employed to increase efficiency and reduce rejection. International consulting companies train the employees to provide international standard requirements.

Weakness: o Imported raw materials: Bangladesh is highly dependent on imported raw materials and accessories because we do not have enough capacity to produce export quality raw-materials and accessories So it is theirs one kind of major weakness .
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Unskilled Labor: In Bangladesh Labor productivity in RMG sector is lower than many of its competitors. Because Bangladeshi workers are not efficient and skilled compared to China, India, Srilanka and other countries. At present whatever design work is done in the country, these are mostly carried out with foreign workers and experts.

Lack of HR practice and training: As they are new in this industry, and dont practice human resource, so they are frequently facing problem in employee retention and increasing employee morale. There are some internal politics which is created in garment factory among the workers and upper level stuffs. The workers perform their own duty under the supervision of their upper level stuffs. In some cases, the stuffs make bad behaviors to the workers. At that moment, the workers mentality falls down and production also decreases. The management should convey cooperative attitude to the workers so that they can work liberally and get chance to make correct their own faults.

o Lack of technological development: In our country, most of our factories are not technologically developed. BHIS Apparels Limited is not so also technically develop. As a result local firm they
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cant manufacture their product cost-effectively and they also take more time than their competitors.
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Lack of Information and research: Sometimes their firm dont get potential buyer and also cant collect raw materials at a cheapest price because of the lack of information. The country has no dedicated research institute related to the apparel sector. RMG is highly fashion oriented and constant market research is necessary to become successful in the business.

o Lack of Capital: As the company at its infancy level, lack of capital is one of the major barriers for the garment owner. In spite of eagerness the investor cant work for the development of his firm because of inadequate money. Opportunity: o Bangladesh as an alternative to China: Bangladesh represents a clear alternative to china in some particular product and market segment as china is moving to high-end and secondary industries and their labor shortages causing wage increases. o Alternative market: Now Bangladesh is exporting their garments items to European market and we have good reputation over there. But we have a huge opportunity to export our garments item to African countries.

o Asian potential market: Japan is one of the potential markets for exports from Bangladesh. Quality and fashion conscious Japan is importing readymade garments from Bangladesh at an increasing rate even though this increase is very negligible. An extremely large program has to be taken to increase the exports.

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o Governmental incentives: Government has extended some major incentives and facilities for the local and foreign investors to help increase investment in the country for all industrial sectors including textiles and clothing. Government of Bangladesh has played an active role in designing policy support to the RMG sector that includes bonded warehouse, cash incentives, export credit guarantee scheme, tax holiday and related facilities. Threat: o Increase in Competitors: Readymade garments of China, India, Srilanka, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia and other countries is far superior. They have their textiles mills that can produce quality fabrics for the respective apparel industries.
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Lace of power supply: We know that Electricity is one of the major concerns of Bangladesh. Due to the shortage of Electricity and Gas, they firms productivity is not flourishing. So its been a great threat for our RMG sector.

o Transportation problem: In Bangladesh transportation and communication create serious restricted access. Inadequate port facilities result in frequent port congestion, which delays shipment.
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Elimination of quota and GSP: The major problems are low net exporting, low value addition, low quality and standard, low productivity, elimination of quota and GSP, intense competition, scarcity of backward linkage industries etc.

Political instability: Our politics is not stable, so sometimes, our local firms loose foreign buyers and investors. And frequent strikes of political parties also hamper our daily firms production. Each buyer gives an order and a target date to the vendor. Due to Strike, the production process, inter factory transportation and shipment process

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may hamper. Sometimes garments (End products) are exported by air to meet the buyers date. In this case the owner has to spend extra cost. To remove this problem Strike should be stopped. It contributes a huge loss for our readymade garment industry. o Financial support: For our garments industry commercial banks are providing loan at a 16% interest, on the other hand our competitors are providing loan at 3-5% interest rate. o Government rules and regulation: For establishing and developing an industry, our governments rules and regulations are not very easy to cope up which creates a barrier for the progression of our RMG industry. o Corruption: We know our country is affected by corruption. And this corruption is directly or indirectly influences our RMG sector. The weakness in governance including corruption and weak state of law order system is one of the major barriers in industry growth in long run. Recommendation:
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Can overcome its weaknesses if it formulates and implements some strategies like cost reduction strategy, product diversification strategy, market diversification strategy. Manufacturing simple shirts or T-shirts will not enable the country to remain internationally competitive in the long run. Thus, the product diversification and upgrading processes need to be accelerated. Bangladesh also needs to diversify its markets to include Japan, Australia and other important international markets.

o Quality and standard of RMG products can be improved by practicing Total Quality Management, preparing and following a quality manual for the products, training Quality Control and Quality assurance Personnel etc

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Training is always considered as an effective instrument for upgrading skills and raising efficiency of human resource, which eventually ensures increased productivity. Some initiatives have been taken by the entrepreneurs of the relevant sector but much more needs to be done. Necessary steps should be taken both by the public and the private sectors, and development partners to establish appropriate fashion and technology institutes. Improvement in working conditions and organizational environment can also result in increased productivity, which eventually renders these enterprises more competitive. Need to improve its working condition. Appropriate training to the workers focusing on awareness of safety and what is to be done during the time of emergency will be effective in improving employee morale.

o Environment has an effect on the garments production. Season class: Season changes have a very big effect on the garment production. In summer season worker feels very hot due to the high temperature. So that they can not work properly. For this purpose, need sufficient air passing in the floor space. On the other side in winter season worker feels very cold due to the low temperature. So they need warm cloths to survive. The company should take necessary steps to help them by making a fund for them. Age class : Every company needs a responsibility of child labors. When they take the worker, must follow the age role of the country. A child cannot give more production. They also cannot do any hard work. So the company should follow the labor laws to recover this problem o Government of Bangladesh, Ministry of commerce, Ministry of textile, Export Promotion Bureau, BGMEA, Institute of Fashion Technology and other concerned authorities should work strengthening the RMG industry of Bangladesh.
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In order to acquire the firms desired goal, the company should maintain Proper HR practice. There is already an abundance of semi-skilled and unskilled workers, but as the nations must move on to more complicated production methods and products, there is a growing demand for skilled labor. To address the problem, the government

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and private sector must work together to increase the options for extensive vocational training. Such training can provide the labor force with the skills necessary to produce high quality goods for export, and can boost the interest of potential investors. In addition, knowledge of the English language must be built up to ensure that more value added services like business process outsourcing, call centers and software development can flourish. BGMEA has been implementing a number of programs to ensure work place safety for workers as well as management personnel of its member units. o The rules and regulations of our Government should be more flexible and helpful to establishing a newly developing firms.
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The following diagram shows the proper way of production of the organization -

Fig: Organization of Production

o Government and commercial banks have to provide financial support with low interest rate for the sake our RMG sector. o As RMG is the biggest foreign currency earning sector in Bangladesh, the political parties should maintain a stable environment.

Conclusion:

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To remain competitive in the RMG sector, Bangladesh needs to remove all the structural impediments in the transportation facilities, telecommunication network, and power supply, management of seaport, utility services and in the law and order situation. The government and the RMG sector would have to jointly work together to maintain competitiveness in the global RMG market. Given the remarkable entrepreneurial initiatives and the dedication of its workforce, Bangladesh can look forward to advancing its share of the global RMG market. As with China and other prominent garment suppliers, Bangladesh needs to address both the qualitative and quantitative expansion of its RMG industry simultaneously in order to sustain the business in the long run. Reference: Md.Khandemul Islam (Bulbul), Director BHIS Apparels Limited, BHIS Fashions Limited, CN Knitwears Limited, Best Shirts Ltd, BRIGHT Apparels Limited.
www.wikipedia.org

Factory address: Bright Apparels Ltd. 25 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed, Shoroni Tejgaon 1/A, Dhaka 1208 Bangladesh.

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