The most important thing is to increase business capital, focus on design, create and enhance the reputation of Vietnamese garment brands in the international market.
Second, focus on developing design work.
Although in recent times, Vietnamese garment export enterprises have tried to change the appearance of design work, this change has not brought about major changes for enterprises. The design team in garment export enterprises is still lacking and weak. This situation stems from the general weaknesses of Vietnamese fashion design. To develop design work, garment export enterprises need to pay attention to the following issues: Maybe you are interested!
Type of Organization Direct Business, Member Service and Financial Linkage
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- Have a policy to attract professional designers or talented people to work with preferential treatment.
- Continuously improve the skills of the company's designers: periodically invest in sending designers to short-term courses organized by domestic and foreign centers to improve their skills, participate in domestic and foreign fashion design competitions to learn from experience, periodically cooperate with other export garment enterprises to organize fashion events such as fashion shows, design skills competitions, periodically invite famous designers in the world to Vietnam to meet, teach design knowledge and skills to design staff...
Third, invest in technological innovation and production line layout.
In addition to continuing to develop in breadth (building new enterprises in economic sectors or textile and garment industrial centers), in-depth development must be considered the main direction in the development of Vietnam's garment industry in the future. Because, when the advantage of cheap labor is gradually fading, high technology level is the basic factor that creates attraction for foreign partners to place orders and increases competitiveness in the market.
The general orientation for technological innovation in the garment industry is: in the production preparation stage: designing schematic diagrams on computers, equipping automatic fabric spreading machines and laser cutting program machines; in the product assembly stage: investing in specialized automatic equipment for the production line; in the product finishing stage: investing in automatic button attaching machines, high-quality shaping and ironing machines... These machines and equipment need to be at a high level to be able to meet special orders with sophisticated product requirements.
To effectively implement investment in technological equipment innovation in the garment industry, it is necessary to solve key issues such as improving the quality of investment project establishment and appraisal, diversifying capital sources, improving the quality of labor training, and innovating production management organization. In innovating production organization, pay special attention to labor management. Enterprises need to pay attention to the lives of workers, create attachment of workers to the enterprise, and limit labor turnover. Use appropriate forms to improve the professional qualifications of workers, considering it as the most important basis to increase labor productivity, increase income for workers and promote labor advantages and always pay attention to improving the working environment.
In addition to technological innovation in terms of specialized machinery and equipment, garment export enterprises also need to innovate information technology to improve the efficiency of business operations and management. Computerization helps enterprises promote their activities in the world through the use and exploitation of mass media such as the Internet, conducting business online.
One tool that businesses can use to improve their business performance today is Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. An ERP software covers all business processes. Integrating seamlessly and abandoning siloed solutions results in a centralized system that
through which resources can be managed by the entire enterprise.
The functions of ERP software are:
Planning and budgeting
Sales and customer management
Manufacture
Quality control
Control of raw materials, warehouses, fixed assets
Purchasing and supplier control
Finance – Accounting
Human resource management
Research and development
In addition, due to the chain and complexity of the ERP system, ERP solution providers also support customers through consulting services, designed according to the characteristics of the business. This is a software that has been used by many businesses in the world, but in Vietnam, this is still an unfamiliar information technology solution for businesses. ERP application is an inevitable trend, an important tool for businesses to improve their competitiveness, and it also helps businesses better access international standards. If a business applies it from a small scale, it will have the advantage of easy implementation and the business will soon get into order. Any business that is slow to apply ERP will cause difficulties for itself and create advantages for its competitors.
Finally, it is the choice of hanging line solution for export garment enterprises. Most of the current export garment enterprises use the classic hanging line, which means that after cutting the products into bundles, the details are transferred to the sewing workers at each stage. The workers will open each bundle and then use the details in the bundle to join together and proceed to sew. Thus, assuming each bundle has 100 details, the sewing workers complete the assembling stage.
These 100 parts are then transferred to the next stage. The disadvantage of this method is that it wastes time checking the code of each bundle of parts, holding the bundle of parts to look at, untying the straps, taking the parts together, sewing them together, transferring them, marking the products to determine productivity, calculating the actual amount of goods in stock, not properly assessing the working capacity of each worker...
To change this situation, garment export enterprises, especially those with a large number of orders and high production line capacity, should switch from the method of arranging the production line in bundles to the method of producing each complete set of semi-automatic or automatic parts. For the semi-automatic arrangement method, instead of transferring each bundle of parts, the finished product bundles are transferred to the assembly department after cutting. In this department, the parts are attached together into a complete set of parts for a product and then attached to a single hook. Each hook will be pulled to each sewing stage. Employees only need to reach out to do their part of the work and then push it to the next stage. When reaching the final stage, the product will be completed. This production organization method has the following advantages:
- Helps the operator visually observe the entire production process;
- Reduce the assembly time of workers at each production station. Although the assembly time at the beginning of the line increases, this time is much smaller than the total assembly time in the classic line;
- Easily determine the production progress of the entire line and of each worker at each station by visual observation;
- It is easier to store unfinished products because the goods are hung up high instead of being placed in boxes or crates next to or under the manufacturer's feet;
- Encourage workers in the same line to increase cooperation and help each other because backlog of goods at one stage will affect the productivity of the whole line.
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For the automatic hanging line arrangement method, the control is done by a computer system. The technological process is set up by a computer so that when operating, the computer will rely on real data to give the average production time of each stage. The management of the name, age, and level of workers in the line and the workers' work is also done by the computer. Workers only need to enter their names into the display board at each station, the manager can count the real time and detailed work of each person, thereby making it easy to calculate wages. The product regulation system on the line is also automatic, depending on the smooth or stagnant level of goods at each point on the line. Thanks to the data collected based on real time, quality control staff can immediately identify which stage has errors to promptly adjust.
With a maximum investment of 3 billion VND/production line of about 50 workers, the cost for a semi-automatic and automatic hanging line is not high, completely suitable for the scale of small and medium enterprises in Vietnam. With advantages that the classic line system does not have, the semi-automatic and automatic hanging line system helps businesses increase labor productivity and modernize management. However, one of the difficult conditions in applying automatic hanging lines is that there must be orders from quite large to large with a quantity of about 5,000 pieces for each product color, and over 20,000 pieces to promote the effectiveness of the order. Therefore, the best solution for current export garment enterprises is to invest in a semi-automatic hanging line, and then upgrade to a higher level of automation such as coding product hangers, using infrared readers to manage productivity.
Fourth, brand development and exploitation of domestic market
Brand differentiation is the element that creates the distinct culture of businesses. The company's brand represents the image of people inside and outside the company: employees, partners, shareholders, and the community.
local, customer. In essence, branding is making customers aware of the product and business, convincing customers to use the product and be loyal to the product and business.
To do a good job of branding, garment export enterprises need to pay attention to the following points:
- Determine the foundation structure of the brand including basic brand awareness, brand benefits, brand personality, brand trust, brand characteristics. Currently, many businesses have built good brands in the domestic market, creating trust with domestic customers, but in foreign markets, Vietnamese garment export businesses only accept processing according to customers' brands, so they have not created any impression on customers other than the fact that customers can see the words "Made in Vietnam" on the product;
- Brand positioning, for example, garment businesses can position their brand as fashionable, unique and sustainable;
- Building a brand strategy: Determine the business's mission, business goals, vision, goals and specific targets;
- Build communication campaigns: advertising, participating in fairs and exhibitions, building public relations;
- Measure and calibrate branding activities.
To create a good image in the perception and evaluation of customers and the community, garment export enterprises need to strengthen their social responsibility, care for the lives of workers, and ensure that their products are ethically clean. Enterprises also need to fulfill their responsibility in protecting the environment, responding to the movement to relocate to localities far from the city center, taking advantage of cheap labor while avoiding pollution.
In addition to developing their brands, garment export enterprises also need to develop the domestic market. With a market size of approximately 87 million people, garment export enterprises need to turn the domestic market into a place to test their market-conquering ideas and at the same time become a fulcrum for garment export. Carrying out garment export activities brings benefits to developing the domestic market because on the one hand, enterprises can take advantage of designs and technical guidance from technical experts of partners, on the other hand, enterprises are very knowledgeable about raw material sources. Thus, developing the domestic garment market on the one hand helps enterprises take advantage of their existing strengths, on the other hand, creates a stable source of income for enterprises by exploiting a market that many experts consider to be relatively easy-going.
To exploit the domestic market, businesses need to pay attention to the following issues:
after:
- Strengthen market research to understand customer needs. Since customers are domestic, this is quite an easy task. Companies can use methods such as distributing questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions, and observations to do this work;
- Establish relationships with retail centers such as VINATEX fashion store system, Metro supermarket, Big C, Saigon Coopmart, Hapro... to bring goods to consumers;
- Build a system of agents and product showrooms at the above retail centers. With this method, the cost of renting a store increases but the business enjoys a larger percentage because it does not pay sales commissions to intermediaries;
- Build close relationships with customers, collect information when customers buy products and set up a regular information channel to customers such as giving gifts, giving promotional % on the occasion of customers' birthdays;
- Build regular promotional programs such as discounts on school uniforms and children's clothing on the occasion of the opening of the school year, discounts on women's shirts on the occasion of March 8... to create a sense of care for customers;
Fifth, build a distribution system.
Building a distribution system means expanding the value chain of distribution activities to consumers. In other words, Vietnamese garment export enterprises must overcome brokers to directly contact importers, and then overcome importers to sell directly to retailers. In the country, selling to supermarkets is relatively easy, but in the global supply chain, it is extremely difficult. The first reason is that retailers have had close relationships with importers and exporters for a long time, they trust to buy goods from importers and exporters more than buying directly from manufacturers, even though buying directly from manufacturers is cheaper but more risky. The second reason is that importers and exporters sell a lot of goods, retailers also need to buy a lot of goods while garment export enterprises only sell a few items.
Therefore, in order to break through the export stage to sell directly to retailers, the goods of the enterprise need to ensure uniqueness, have a brand in the market, and be diverse. Thus, the construction of the distribution system of garment export enterprises in Vietnam can be divided into two stages as follows:
Phase 1: Overcoming brokers to contact importers and exporters in the markets. Up to now, direct contact with exporters in traditional markets such as the US, EU, Japan, Canada has been limited because Vietnamese garment enterprises do not have many opportunities to participate in promotion, especially meeting at large specialized fairs held in the US or other markets. With a large cost for each contact, most enterprises cannot afford to pay for the activity.