Defective marketing strategy

Pakistan's garment and apparel sector misses export orders worth about $500 million every year due largely to an inefficient marketing strategy, says a Recorder Report quoting the Chairman of Pakistan Readymade Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Ijaz Khokhar.
According to him, other regional players in the garment and apparel sector, like India and Bangladesh, have devised effective and efficient marketing strategies, because of which international buyers prefer to approach Indian and Bangladeshi exporters.
However, Khokhar has acknowledged that local garment exporters too are responsible for not attaching adequate importance to fashioning effective marketing strategies, which has brought about a decline in our exports.
Pakistani exporters' participation in world garment and textile exhibitions has been almost the lowest among regional states, because Indian, Chinese and Bangladeshi exporters have emerged as formidable competitors over the last few years. Khokhar has criticised the performance of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, and proposed that the trade bodies should be authorised to select exporters for participation in exhibitions abroad, thereby indirectly holding TDAP partly responsible for lacklustre performance of the garment and apparel export sector.
He has argued that if trade bodies are empowered to select exporters, as many as 400 participants from Pakistan, as against less than one hundred as at present, will be able to visit international exhibitions every year. However, he has asked for 75 percent subsidy on garment exporters' participation in advance so that they are able to manage their expenditures properly. Another point Khokhar has raised is that most of Pakistani garment and apparel exporters do not keep abreast of world fashion trends, which has resulted in our products being sidelined in the world market.
While what Khokhar has said is entirely correct, and lack of a coherent marketing strategy has indeed adversely impacted our garment and apparel sector, the fact remains that most of our exporters have been basically engaged only in "toll" manufacturing, ie they have been doing third-party manufacturing. Foreign buyers provide specifications to them, along with the brands they want, and the manufacturers have been doing only low-end manufacturing.
As a result a majority of our exporters have failed to establish their own labels and brands. Can we acquire our rightful share in international garment and apparel market by pursuing such a laid-back approach? It should be kept in mind that product branding, creating brand awareness and marketing constitute the three-tier strategy that has to be pursued for the promotion of a product. Well-targeted awareness campaigns in electronic and print media have to be launched to capture foreign markets, which we have not done adequately so far. The decline in our export sector can thus be partly attributed to the lack of branding and high-tech awareness campaigns.
Secondly, lax product quality control in Pakistan has played a major role in stunting the growth of the export sector, which the government should rectify to ensure that products to be exported strictly conform to international standards. Unfortunately, an overriding profit motive and corruption have caused great harm to the competitiveness of our products in the international market. The factors that have particularly eroded our competitiveness include poor product quality and low value-addition.
Low return on capital, low productivity of labour and increased wastage of inputs are the other factors that have made Pakistani products more expensive than those from some of the neighbouring countries. Further, lack of adequate investment in R&D, Pakistani export houses' inability to meet bulk orders and the levy of high protective tariffs with pronounced anti-export bias are the other causes that have discouraged investment in the export-oriented industry.
Uncompetitiveness in terms of adherence to contracted quality and general indifference to delivery schedules, too, have contributed to our failure to fully develop our export potential, be it in the garment and apparel sector or any other sector of the economy.
There should thus be increased investment in industrial infrastructure and skill development of the labour force, maintenance of proper communication infrastructure to meet delivery schedules, and adherence to strict quality control to ensure Pakistani products' competitiveness in the international market.
As demanded by Ijaz Khokhar, the government should allow trade bodies to have a major say in the selection of exporters for participation in the exhibitions abroad. However, the government should also motivate the exporters not to confine their activities to "toll" manufacturing only. They should develop their own labels and brands.