India’s leading player in accessories for the intimate apparel industry, Kotak Overseas has made a niche for itself in bra trims, manufactured both for the domestic and export market. Known for its high and consistent quality products, the company works closely with its customers to develop specific and customized products, continuously innovating based on latest international trend forecasts. In conversation with Apparel Online, Nikhil Kotak, the young and enthusiastic CEO of Kotak Overseas talks about the evolving intimate wear market with more mature and educated consumers and how the company has an edge in its field by manufacturing locally.
The market for intimate wear is booming, encouraging more people to enter into this segment to feed the growing domestic and export market. This boom is being propelled by a maturing market wherein more and more consumers are experimenting, demanding better quality and new concepts for comfort and style. “Even a very small brand that does very basic low cost products, with a pair of bras priced at around Rs. 50-100 have started experimenting with foam cups,” informs Nikhil, who represents ‘Gennext’ for the well-established company, set up by his father Raju Kotak. Supplying for both high-end and low-end consumers, Kotak today manufactures bra cups, transparent straps, sliders, plastic ring adjusters, hooks and eye, etc., providing a vast variety of intimate apparel accessories from end-to-end. The products are created and assembled in-house; for instance for transparent straps, firstly the company extrudes TPU Tapes and then cuts the tape in different sizes after which strapping takes place.
Though the company’s core business is bra accessories, Kotak has expanded its customer-base through various other products and is looking to become partners with intimate brands for all their needs. Recently, the company has forged an alliance with Jockey for exclusive bra accessories. Kotak has been supplying other products to them for the past 7 years. “They wanted to associate and consolidate all their overseas sourcing because the products are expensive, we have the added edge to customize products according to their needs,” asserts Nikhil. Being able to manufacture locally and provide better service, delivery and product customization, the company finds favour amongst its consumers.
The company’s willingness to make investments for better service has not only added customers, but also value to its operations. “Though we earlier imported cups from Sri Lanka but we later started doing everything in-house, even the lamination. Now, we have a whole gamut of products for bra manufacturing,” informs Nikhil. Also, the company is open to technically modifying products, which adds to their learning experience. Providing further technical support to the company are international customers such as Bayer, Arkema and Teijin, whose R&D team helps Kotak with technical aspects of the product. “We are exposed to a few buyers like MAS but our buyers are exposed to ‘n’ number of companies worldwide and their input is very important to us,” adds Nikhil.
With its upfront approach, Kotak claims to be the first company in India to manufacture Nylon coated accessories through an automated process, which was a monopoly of China earlier. Also, the company provides better fit in terms of sizes to its consumers as compared to China, as the bra cup sizes differ in both markets. With the market picking up, the company which started with 18 machines and added another 50 after 15 months is going to increase its machine strength to 100 by next year. “Our advantage in the domestic market is that we have started with cotton-based products, so the customer acceptability is good, and sizing which is a major factor, has been rectified by us. Also, the domestic market is growing and there is a huge scope in our product line,” adds Nikhil. Offering new products, providing better services, sharing of innovations and flexibility of manufacturing gives the company an edge over competition.
As intimate products necessitate comfort, the company uses skin-friendly material which is of the same grade as TPU used for medical application in food pipes. Consisting of anti-microbial properties, the company uses powder coating supplied by Arkema, which is OEKO-TEX certified so that it doesn’t react with the skin. “The powder is made from caster seeds, so it is eco-friendly and bio-degradable. Today, sustainable products are very important. We are enlightened about sustainable practices through manufacturers overseas and even we in our normal manufacturing process try to comply with these norms. It’s an awareness that has been created and we comply with it for all our products and markets, as we do realize it is the future,” claims Nikhil.
Kotak works with some of the best brands in the world like MAS, Triumph, Jockey, Lovable, etc. and its ratio of business for domestic in respect of export market is 90:10, 90% for the domestic market and 10% for exports. Irrespective of being proactive to stay abreast with the latest in the market, the company still faces challenge in keeping up with the latest developments in the market. “Nowadays developments are fast and continuously changing, a trend which have picked up in the last 5 years,” declares Nikhil. As the industry gets more interactive, the company has also changed its marketing approach and has become responsive and reactive. “Now it is very interesting to work with the customers as they are more involved. Earlier it was a trader relationship, but now it is more an individual one-o-one approach and being involved,” maintains Nikhil.
Going forward the company wants to be the best intimate wear accessory manufacturer in the country and aims to bring more affordable products, which all brands can use. “We cater to all kinds of customers’ needs starting from Rs. 30 to Rs. 80 for bra cups. We cannot go with a single approach. We have to take each and every customer and move ahead,” believes Nikhil. Nonetheless, with good orders and support from suppliers, Kotak is aiming for a 100 per cent growth in the coming financial year as all its new machines are operational now. “We have consolidated all our activities under one roof and we are also making machines for bra cup moulding in-house. We have around 80-90 machines operating in India so applying the idea from both ends – engineering as well as customers and market will enable us to be better manufacturers and suppliers,” concludes Nikhil.
