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By Chandani Jayatilleke

How do you drive ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results? Let's ask Dave Ranasinghe. He has transformed a team of young girls from Horana to manufacture top brand bras in the world.

Ranasinghe is in quest of excellence and the key to excellence is team work, he says." With team work ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results", he assures. Ranasinghe's 3,000 strong workforce is with him in this quest. He uses the Japanese 5S system of effective management to motivate and drive his team towards this goal.

Ranasinghe is the award winning CEO/ Jt. Managing Director of Bodyline (Pvt) Ltd, Horana, one of the largest foundation apparel manufacturers in South East Asia. Thanks to Ranasinghe's novel management and productivity development approach, Bodyline is acclaimed as a top bra manufacturer in the world, with some of the world's finest brands such as Victoria's Secret, Victoria's Secret Direct and Triumph under its belt. Bodyline is a joint venture between Mast Industries, USA, Triumph International, Germany and MAS Holdings, Sri Lanka.

Bodyline contributed 2.6 percent to the total apparel exports of Sri Lanka and 1.3 percent of the country's total exports, last year.

"In our company, we strengthen production processes by setting standards and changing the attitudes of our workforce," Ranasinghe said as he showed me round the factory in Gurugoda. One could not but marvel the way in which ordinary village girls were making the world's finest bras. No wonder then that the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Quality and Productivity (SLAAQP) honoured Ranasinghe with the title 'CEO of the Best Employee Involvement Company' and the National Chamber of Exports selected Bodyline as the Most Outstanding Exporter of the Year 2001.

An accountant by profession Ranasinghe has built a very successful career in the field of garments. In 1990, he joined MAS Holdings as a Management Accountant. In 1992, he was seconded to the just started Bodyline (Pvt) Ltd as its Financial Controller. As Bodyline made headway in the foundation garment industry as one of the best bra manufacturing companies in the world, Ranasinghe became its General Manager, Director and the Managing Director within the short span of five years.

Winning awards

"Winning awards means strengthening our abilities. It's also a national recognition. We feel good and workers feel encouraged to be part of this success. It is the 5S mentality which motivates everybody to be on the winning track," he explained.

In this interview we share with the readers some of his ideas/suggestions about the garment industry and the challenges and opportunities in the industry and moreover how he made Bodyline an award winning export giant.

Competition

"We compete fiercely with China. Or rather, China competes with us, because we have already led the market. Competition in our product line has already begun as the quota has been taken out in our product category. The phasing out of quotas has already begun in certain product categories. By 2005 quotas will be off completely. Garment industry experts have said that about 40 to 60 percent of the industry will be affected as the phase out is completed. They have given this as a warning to help the industry here to look beyond the quota free era and prepare themselves to face the challenges of the future."

Ranasinghe believes that the quota free era will be a threat as well as a challenge." The issue here is that some people are focussing only on threats. But we should not forget that we have a talented and highly trainable workforce. We have also established credentials with the world's leading brands, such as Victoria's Secret, Marks and Spencer and Gap. Therefore, when we look at threats, we should look at opportunities as well. We should do well considering the garment industry's creditable past. Our advantages include a good product price structure and quality ratio," he said.

Specialisation

" We should go in for specialisation and create a niche for our products. This is where the key to success lies. China is a huge commodity manufacturer. We don't have that critical mass production facility. They are also vertically integrated and have a large home market.

The Chinese government is giving huge subsidies to its industries. Their economic zones are prospering and attracting foreign investment. Though we don't have such facilities, we must capitalise on our established links," Ranasinghe said.

How would Bodyline face this challenge? The company has already mapped out plans to face the challenge successfully, Ranasinghe said. "The areas we have decided on are product development, design, innovation and logistics. We cannot do these all at once. We are starting with product development and moving into other areas gradually. Unless we think about such innovations and specialise, we will not be able to compete with countries such as China, Indonesia and Vietnam."

Disadvantages

One of the disadvantages a Sri Lankan manufacturer is facing at present currently is that he does not have indigenous sources of fabric and sources of accessories close to his manufacturing base. "India has a huge potential to serve this need. I welcome the FTA with India and Pakistan. We should extend it to the US. We can use the FTA as a cover for backward integration," Ranasinghe said.

The important thing is to make Sri Lanka a sought-after garment manufacturer by inviting the fabric suppliers and accessory manufacturers for single or joint ventures. "As a group we have done this and so far we have invested about US$ 600 in backward integration such as elastics and fabrics. We have also invited many others to consider Sri Lanka an attractive investment location. Our group alone has some of these strengths together with our foreign joint venture partners. China too has this advantage being closer to some of the main accessory suppliers in the Far East." To fall in line with global trends, Bodyline plans to develop its strengths in the areas of backward integration, being closer to customers and adding value in the product line in the next two to four years.

More job opportunities

Encouraged by the award winning trend, the company plans to increase the number of employees by about 600 within the next 12 months. "At present we are not making use of our full capacity," Ranasinghe said.

Anticipated demand

Although the September 11 incident accentuated a downward trend in the garment industry, Ranasinghe is confident that there will be an increase in demand in the coming months. "The actual downward trend began in the last quarter of 2000 due to falling demand, over stock, over capacity and severe competition. Now we see the demand slowly picking up. There is confidence in buyers. Over stock situation has eased. After September 11 we had to freeze our intake as demand for our products went down drastically due to increased costs, war risk charges and dampened enthusiasm of end consumers."

Turbulent times

"Most people misinterpret being big as being good and small as bad, because it is the small who suffer during a turbulent time. I interpret it differently. I do not see it as a question of being big or small. Being big doesn't necessarily mean being strong or being small may not be being weak. Success depends on being special and having a niche market. I believe that our strengths for the last 10 years have been people, partnerships and product focus. We give much value to our joint venture partners. Strategic alliances with those who have technology or access to top markets are very important. That is a window of opportunity for us. Secondly, lack of resources should not inhibit people from venturing into investment. We didn't have much resources when we began. We had humble beginnings. But, today we have grown significantly by serving our customers with the best," Ranasinghe said.

Dignity of labour

Bodyline is one of the top companies which looks after its employees' welfare the best possible way. The management believes in dignity of labour. "Our aim is to create an atmosphere which is extremely safe and comfortable to employees. We want our employees to feel and enjoy a natural sense of justice. We have provided them facilities such as gymnasium, cyber cafe where even a machine operator can surf the net at his or her convenience."

The company has already won several quality and export awards such as Victoria's Secret Standard of Excellence (1998), National Productivity Award (1999), Mast Quality Award (1999), Taiki Akimoto 5S Award (1999), Most Energy Efficient Installation Award (1999), National Quality Award (2000) and NCE Export Award (Silver Medal -2000). What is the secret of the winning team? I queried. "We only recruit people who fit into our culture - people who believe in team work, have a entrepreneurial spirit, believe in open door policy, superior quality and have a natural sense of justice. In other words we need ordinary people who can show extraordinary results," Ranasinghe said.

"Victoria's Secret, Victoria's Secret Direct and Triumph have indicated to us their business growth plans. Accordingly, we have certain strategies for our growth. Our growth will basically depend on the strengths of value addition. As far as price and quality are concerned we are at an advantage. What is needed is adding value to our product range. Every month we have customers visiting us and our executives also visit them on a regular basis to maintain business relations," Ranasinghe said.

Advice to young people

"I encourage young people to consider entering the garment industry and developing a successful career in it. They should look at the profession with a long-term view.

Young professionals will have to align themselves to fit into the profession. I guess, I've been in the industry long enough to encourage others - the younger generation. In living, I have a purpose. It's all about making a difference to people's lives, in a sewing machine operator's life, a manager's life, the community's life, in the life of the industry or the customers," he said.

Personal life

An old boy of St. Peter's College, Colombo Ranasinghe is a fellow member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK). He was exposed to executive education at the Ashridge Management College (UK), National University of Singapore and the University of Rome. An ardent fan of sports and music (in the 60s and 70s) and happily married Ranasinghe loves spending time with his 'little precious daughter' who is two-years old.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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