KKCL (Kewal Kiran Clothing Limited) has been an inspiration for many garment manufacturers/brands in India as it travelled from being a job-worker to an established manufacturer with a series of brands. The company has also seen a significant transition from becoming a small family business to being a public limited company with a turnover of Rs. 500 crore, and with over 2,000 people working under it. Its forward thinking and appropriate strategy implementation at the right time has made it a successful name in the industry. In a candid discussion with Apparel Resources , Dinesh Jain, Director of the company, often referred to as the ‘DIESEL of India’, shared the organization’s journey, growth path and much more.
KKCL produces over 5 million pieces per year and is aiming to become a zero-deficit company. The passion to continuously do new things motivated its promoters to go for an IPO in 2006, just 7 years after its establishment. Recalling the logic behind the move, even when they were still a small company, Dinesh proudly says, “People had the perception that we were just making garments, but we wanted to convey that we are not just making garments, we are selling brands. We had, have and want to grow more and also aspire that people should know us for what we are. And the second important thing was being a transparent and compliant company, we wanted to go public about this aspect of ours. In fact, being transparent has helped us grow,” says Dinesh. In order to keep an upper hand, nearly 74 per cent of the company’s total shares are with the promoters.
At the time of going public, the company was already having 90% of certifications required to be fully compliant and only 10% had to be followed up. “Some changes came automatically like it changed our understanding of how important our people are… Earlier we had workers, but after IPO, they became our strength, our family. When you call people your strength, a positive attitude arises. It also helps to understand and cater to each and every small thing. We have to be very clear about the environment, and the need to have an advanced technology,” avers Dinesh.
To keep itself ahead in product development, KKCL is making denim fabric in association with different denim mills like Malwa, Raymond and many more. Dinesh claims that this is a better way of producing, procuring fabric compared to having own backward integration as it gives more options to the company to work with different mills that have their own individual strength. “All the good things cannot be in one mill, be it anyone. By sourcing from all these, we get 100% innovation which might not be possible with my own mill,” reasons Dinesh. To ensure control over the design process, the company is deeply involved in the R&D process at its partner mills, which make particular quality only for KKCL.
As ‘creativity’ is the foundation of the company, KKCL has 9 Turkish wash experts, and 3 foreign designers – 2 from Turkey and 1 from Italy, as part of the PD team. Having a tie-up with international experts helps in getting good feedback for developments, because of the exposure these experts have. Sustainability is the core direction of the developments. “We can wash a shirt in a glass of water. I ask my customers to wear our jeans the whole day and at the end of the day, I suggest them to put it in a plastic bag and keep in the freezer. Next day, when they take the jeans out, all the dust is left behind in the plastic bag and their jeans comes out clean. We are now also coming up with water-resistant jeans. One can go in the water/rain wearing our jeans and it will not get wet and they are very skin-friendly too,” shares Dinesh.
These strong PDs are also backed by advanced manufacturing infrastructure as the company normally changes its machines after every 3 years and keeps a machine maximum for 5 years. It brings the best quality and efficiency into the system and also creates ease for tailors by increasing their productivity whereby they are able to make more money. Even jobworkers who are working only for KKCL are happy as the company treats them like their own unit. The company has two factories in Mumbai, though the main production base is in Daman and Vapi. The effort is to keep the WIP (work in progress) to less than 35 days. All this becomes possible as price is not a barrier for the company. Even its manufacturing processes are quite cheap compared to other brands. As further confirmed by Dinesh, “If any last minute change happens, I can do the same instantly without hesitating, because our cost is not frozen. Hence, I have to sell the product directly and not give it to another retailer to sell.”
Though Dinesh handles mainly production, he has equally strong knowledge and understanding of other domains of business, right from branding, retail to product development. This upfront approach has supported growth from a humble start in the early ’80s when jeans was its only focus. Thereafter, the brand ‘Killer’ came into existence in 1989. The company kept its focus on this brand till the year 2000, subsequent to which ‘Lawman’ and ‘Integriti’ were added in 2000 and 2001. According to Dinesh,“The idea was to catch youngsters. While ‘Killer’ was conceived for a very wide audience from 17 to 35 years, ‘Lawman’ is a full fashion brand, targeted at the age group of 17-22. We don’t want to mix the individuality of ‘Killer’ and ‘Lawman’. ‘Integriti’ is the mass market offering from the company.”
To have a strong market reach, the company uses all possible channels – its own showrooms, franchise model, big distribution network and MBOs, which have proved to be the most important tools for the company as it has reached more than 3,000 MBOs.
The company believes in maintaining a stable growth of 15 per cent and doesn’t want to grow very fast in one year and then struggle the next year. In 2006, KKCL was doing a business of Rs. 75 crore, and with steady growth, today it has touched Rs. 500 crore. “We believe in being the tortoise in the race, because success is assured,” signs off Dinesh.
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