Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills Ltd. (SCML) endeavours to become a global leader and a preferred partner in textile manufacturing by seizing the long-term growth opportunities and creating superior value for all stakeholders. It also wants to be one of the top global players in the fashion industry with an innovative garment technology.
Suryalakshmi recorded a turnover of Rs. 759.80 crores in 2015-16, an increase of 7.77 per cent compared to the previous year. Revenues grew at a CAGR of 4.8 per cent in the last five years, with its strategic shift towards driving value-added products. Further, the share of exports in total revenue has increased steadily.
One of the cornerstones for Suryalakshmi’s outstanding performance has been the execution of its thought-driven strategies. First, the commissioning of the Amravati plant expansion, whereby the new capacity strengthens its competitiveness towards manufacturing high quality yarns. This has helped the company enhance its competitiveness in manufacturing products for the fast fashion industry and stay with the changing times.
Second, Suryalakshmi’s focus on increasing the share of its value-added products across business verticals. The company will produce margin accretive yarns, fabric and garments, and all the three will significantly contribute to its overall business. Being in this niche segment, it will also enable the company to increase its share in exports, from the current level of 18.32 per cent of the total revenue to 22 per cent by FY19-20.
Third, Suryalakshmi has made investments strategically across its business verticals. From setting up a captive thermal power plant of 25 MW at Ramtek, Nagpur, to upgrading the existing units, it has helped us create a robust customer base of global brands and retailers.
Suryalakshmi’s ultra-modern spinning unit for cotton and synthetic yarn with current spindle capacity of 86,352, which is expected to reach 90,000 spindles by the next financial year. The company’s manufacturing facilities are located at Amanagallu of Mahabubnagar district in Telangana, at Amravati and Ramtek in Maharashtra. The Ramtek plant has an installed capacity of 40 million meters, which is among the highest in the industry. The company has garment manufacturing capacity of 5,000 units per day.
Surylakshmi’s long-term vision is built on solid culture, backed with the ability to think ahead. Innovating for the future has been one of its core competencies in recent times. The company has laid emphasis on product development and setting up its own design-cum-R&D team.
Suryalakshmi is also working in collaboration with denim fashion designers from Europe for better comprehension of the ‘fast fashion’ and latest design trends. As a result, the company is now able to develop more than 100 variants of denim fabric every season (in terms of textures, designs, washes, fibre mix, among others). The company recently introduced several unique shades of new denim well appreciated all over.
In the early 1960s, Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills was established as a manufacturer of world-class cotton yarn. Over the years the company has diversified, moving up the value chain with fabric, garments and power division. Today, with expanded capacities, operational efficiencies, value-added products, prudent product mix, financial sustainability and visionary management the company is now among the country’s leading denim manufacturers.
From yarn to denim fabric to denim garments – Suryalakshmi is vertically integrated. This helps the company produce the finest of yarns for the best of garments. Over the years, it has partnered with some of the leading Original Denim Supplier (ODM) suppliers of high-quality garments to renowned names in denim industry.
SCML functions across all the fashion wear segments, ranging from mens wear, women wear to kids wear. Today it is the preferred supplier to some of the leading domestic and international brands. In fact, it works with more than 20 global fashion brands across 27 countries.
Denim is among the very few fabrics that has undergone a big transition over the years. Suryalakshmi believes in fabric innovation as the key to adapting to ‘fast fashion’, which has helped the company grow stronger year after year.
Suryalakshmi recently commissioned a state-of-the-art Spinning unit at Amaravati which helps in manufacturing high-quality fancy yarns like stretch, slub, Elitwist and double yarn among others. This diversity strengthens the company’s input for fabric division and has almost cut down its dependency on third parties for sourcing such quality yarns, thereby adding to cost efficiencies.
With in-house quality yarns, the company’s fabric division is today among the most competent to develop a value-added portfolio. Being one of the key margin contributing segments, the division portfolio comprises lycra, dyed denims, coated denims, coloured denims, BCI cotton denims and stretch denims, among others.
Exports
Exports registered a healthy growth of 68 per cent to Rs. 139 crores up from Rs. 83 crores in the previous year. Suryalakshmi has successfully ventured into new markets like Iran, China, Hong Kong, etc., and has also managed to get business from new key customers like One Jeans, Next, Sainsbury and Matalan. Product development & innovation has been a key driver for the team and brought in experienced as well as new talented people. This product development team has been working on fabrics, finishes & concepts. Some of the new products developed are prints, recycle yarn, peach finishes, water repellent of Invista dual fx & Lycra beauty fabrics, which has been well accepted by the customers.
Future outlook
As per market reports and current trends, the denim industry is expected to grow at a very healthy pace. Understanding its core competencies, Suryalakshmi has plans to expand its capacities in denim and garment facilities in the immediate future. This will be complimented with strategic investments in R&D, enabling it to understand the latest fast fashion trends in collaboration with leading designers from Europe and Asia. This would help the company scale the value-chain, ensure a better customer experience and strengthen its market leadership. The company intends to further penetrate into niche efficiencies and upgrade the Amanagallu and Ramtek units.