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The first thing you notice is that his conversation is completely
sanitised of business jargon. You don’t hear words like
operationalise or incentivise. It is easy to understand when he
says, “I visited the top cities across India to meet retailers and
convince them to give shelf space to our products,” instead of the
usual ones like, “I networked in this vertical”. It is clear that
Vijay Bansal, managing director of Cantabil Retail, is not a regular
entrepreneur wearing the badge of a B-school. With a bachelor’s
degree in commerce from Kurukshetra University, he belongs to the
pedigree that doesn’t care for the highfalutin, in its talk or
work.
Perhaps this can be attributed to his father, who is a wholesaler
of FMCG products in Haryana. His work does not have much in common
with the business model of a manufacturing unit, but it made Bansal
realise that he did not want to do a regular job. It also made him
aware that he didn’t want to go through the grind that is routine
for the non-salaried people — professionals, traders and
manufacturers.
For seven years, Bansal learnt the tricks of the trade from his
father, but he yearned to start a business of his own. “I wanted to
diversify. It was the obvious next thing,” he says. A family friend
had just opened a factory in Sahibabad that manufactured buttons and
zippers. Bansal volunteered to tackle the wholesale distribution of
its products across India. The manufacturers saw no reason to refuse
and Bansal’s first company, Kapish Products, was born.
The new business meant a new operating centre: Delhi. Within two
months, Bansal had set up an office in the busy lanes of Karol Bagh.
It cost about Rs 7 lakh, which came from Bansal’s past savings. He
built his team the traditional way: through advertisements and then
through recommendations of the people he had dealt with. By 1999, he
had employed 30 people across the country. Also, by this time, he
had scoured several cities like Lucknow, Ahmedabad and Kolkata to
find permanent customers for the products. As mentioned earlier, it
was painstaking. “I realised that other wholesalers were not keen to
buy from us. So we had to shift focus to small manufacturers of
clothes,” says Bansal. Little did he know that he was soon going to
give his new customers stiff competition.
|
Start-up tips |
| Try and work in the industry before starting the business.
It provides a reality check. |
| Sustain your brand quality. It is an indispensable factor
for a successful manufacturing business. |
| Initially, it is most important to check costs. Do not be
ashamed to cut corners in a way that does not compromise the
final product. |
| Have confidence in your product. It shows in the way you
negotiate with the retailers, convince customers, etc. It also
helps to motivate the team. |
Or perhaps he knew, because in hindsight, he claims to have been
inspired by these very garment makers. The transition from wholesale
to manufacturing would seem to be easy. There was much that Bansal
could have enjoyed readymade—a successful team, a large network of
contacts, an insider’s view of the business and the experience of
handling a large-scale operation. But it wasn’t a cakewalk.
“I had to start all over again,” says Bansal. He handed over the
wholesale business to his sister’s son and used none of its
resources, except the profits. In 2000, when he finally quit, Kapish
Products was generating an annual income of about Rs 10 lakh. How
did his family react to this decision? “I was breaking fresh ground,
but they backed me fully. I could afford to fail,” he says referring
to the business he had given up.
If Bansal had wanted to diversify further, he could have chosen
to sell other types of products. Why did he switch to manufacturing?
“The biggest limitation of a trader is that he has no quality
control. I had to sell, irrespective of how the product evolved. I
did not have any say in pricing either. Most importantly, there was
not much scope for being innovative,” he explains. Once he had
decided on manufacturing, readymade garments seemed the most viable
option, given his knowledge about the field.
The first range of Cantabil casual menswear was launched in 2000.
At this time, corporate heavyweights such as Raymond and the Aditya
Birla Group had already established brands like Park Avenue and
Allen Solly. What was to be Cantabil’s trump card? “The price. We
wanted to offer Van Heusen quality for less,” he says. In the wake
of brand consciousness that gripped India, the strategy could work,
provided Cantabil matched not only the quality of fabric but also
the style of clothes offered by the bigger brands.
Given Bansal’s contacts, the former was easy. For styling the
range, he collaborated with an Italian designer studio known to a
close friend. Even though Cantabil now has an in-house design team,
it still works with the Italian studio for colour and design
forecasts for the fashion industry.
Initially, Cantabil did not set up its own manufacturing unit as
it required too much capital. Though Bansal had taken a bank loan of
Rs 50 lakh, in addition to his personal savings, money was scarce.
Much of it was used to create a nationwide network of distributors.
In fact, Bansal had to repeat his tour of the top cities of India,
this time to meet the heads of multi-brand stores, instead of small
manufacturers. Till 2006, when Cantabil launched its women’s wear,
the clothes were made in contracted Delhi factories. “Every stage
had to be supervised to ensure that quality was not compromised,”
says Bansal. But the pain was worth all the money that the company
saved.
For an ex-wholesaler, selling his own products should have been
the easiest part. As it turned out, it was the most difficult. “We
tied up with multi-brand garment stores to showcase our brand. The
first range included about 5,000 shirts and trousers, but the
response was tepid,” he recalls. The reason: no display for the
clothes. “Out of about 15 varieties, only four to five were properly
visible,” explains Bansal.
He never doubted the quality of his garments or his estimation of
a market for less expensive branded wear. Bansal immediately changed
his business model and decided to launch exclusive showrooms to
market his brand better. It was a risky call—fixed costs like the
rent of a store and the operating expenses range from Rs 30 lakh to
Rs 75 lakh a month. But the gambit paid off.
Not only did Cantabil acquire recognition, but the showrooms
built the brand’s reputation as a chic-forless option. Today, Bansal
has 350 stores across India, 125 owned by the company and 225 on a
franchisee basis. The product line has also expanded to include
casual, formal and party wear for men, women and children. Last
year, Cantabil launched another brand of readymade clothes, La
Fanso, catering to the lower middle
class. | 
