BSCI certification: a passport to open up international markets

Grasping the pulse of "spring" in the "cold wave"

Walking into a printing and dyeing clothing factory, you will see that the production workshop is busy and orderly, the phone in the business office keeps ringing, and container trucks are waiting for shipment one after another in the factory. The general manager of the company's clothing department told reporters that the company now has too many orders for both printing and dyeing and clothing to accept, and some customers can only be declined politely; and some old customers' orders can only be postponed until next year.

Since 2010, the textile and clothing industries have been facing a difficult development due to the international and domestic situation. However, they have not been greatly affected by the "cold wave". The profit of the clothing industry has increased compared with last year. From September to the end of this year alone, the company's clothing export output value is expected to reach 8.5 million US dollars.

So, what enabled this company to feel the "pulse" of spring in 2008 when most export enterprises were hit by a "cold wave"? The general manager told us two "magic weapons" for success: "finding development space by tapping potential and implementing a differentiated strategy."

Energy saving and consumption reduction and refined management

As early as the beginning of the year and even at the end of last year, with the increase in water, electricity and raw material prices, the increase in labor costs and the appreciation of the RMB, the production cost of products has risen sharply. The company is in a state of low profit and has a premonition that this year will be a difficult year that has never been seen before. Therefore, since the beginning of the year, the company has specially established a leadership group for energy conservation and consumption reduction and refined management composed of department managers and above, starting from basic positions, production planning, and management potential tapping, and vigorously promoting refined management. For example, the company used to waste hot water after dyeing fabrics. Now, through steam condensation water and cooling water recovery systems, water is reused, which can save 400 tons of water and 20 tons of steam every day. Compared with the past, it can save nearly 5 million yuan in energy costs every year. Similarly, in the process of singeing of grey cloth, liquefied gas was generally used in the past. Later, the company made appropriate modifications to the pipe holes used for singeing, and gasoline can be used for singeing, which also saves a lot of money.

At the same time, we also start from each link, combine cost reduction with technological innovation, make large-scale improvements to traditional dyeing processes and techniques, introduce advanced equipment, and use international cold pad batch pretreatment and dyeing technology on suitable products, which can save more than 30% of water, reduce electricity and steam consumption by more than 25%, and greatly save production costs. Through process management and process analysis, we optimize traditional processes according to the actual order quantity and delivery time, which greatly improves production efficiency.

Two valid passes

Implementing differentiation strategy is another winning magic weapon for our company. In today's increasingly fierce competition in the textile industry, it is definitely not feasible to follow the original development model and follow others. According to the prescribed business philosophy, only by making our own products, services, technology, marketing, brand and other aspects clearly different from those of competitors, and relying on certain advantages of our own to provide customers with more product added value, can we gain competitive advantage, which is what we often say "I have what others don't, I am better than others, and I am special".

It is under this concept that the company has successively passed the European BSCI social responsibility certification and the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certification since this year, and obtained two valid passes to further expand the international market. At present, there are very few companies in China that can pass these two certifications, and this is the only one in our city. In particular, after the company passed the BSCI social responsibility certification, the company's information entered the database of the European Trade Organization, which is shared by all BSCI members in Europe. Therefore, some large clothing fabric manufacturers in Europe can easily find suppliers who have passed the BSCI certification in China, and the company has become a member of their supply chain. After passing the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certification in October this year, "organic hemp products were immediately developed and launched, which immediately attracted a large number of customers. The first batch received orders for 150,000 pieces of clothing from European customers. At present, customer orders for organic hemp, cotton and clothing products are growing significantly.

In view of the high added value of new products developed each year, the company often chooses the more developed Central and Northern European markets as the preferred development markets. Since these countries and regions have developed economies and people pursue distinctive environmentally friendly fabrics and clothing, the company will periodically send new products that will be launched in the future to customers, so that they will always have expectations and a sense of freshness about the company. By using old European customers as the entry point for new products, the company will gradually expand the European market and then expand to other markets.

"Difficulties exist for all enterprises, but how to turn crises into opportunities is the key to whether an enterprise will continue to survive or withdraw from the competition." said the company manager. Indeed, when talking about the factors for enterprise development this year, the word we use most frequently is "crisis". But sometimes, crisis also means opportunity. How to find opportunities in difficult situations and turn them into development opportunities is also a touchstone for testing whether an enterprise can develop in the long run.