According to Abhay Sidham, President, Batliboi-Textile Machinery Group, while there will be operational issues to restart production, the current crisis will also see long-term opportunities due to changed sentiments
For the past few years, VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) has been a very often used term. In more recent times, it has turned into a very precise expression to describe the ongoing situation. It is now clear that we are seeing the worst health and economic crisis, ever. Entire countries are shut, businesses cannot function, unemployment is rising dramatically, value chains have been wrecked, and negativity and uncertainly is looming all over. As far as the textile industry is concerned, even though it is one of the basic needs of humans, consumption will continue only after sentiments return to normal.
In my opinion, India’s demand in terms of domestic consumption and exports, especially in home textiles, is what will help sustain the Indian textile industry. All our customers foresee that there will be operational issues to restart production such as getting back the migrated labour force, logistics and availability of raw material but also see long-term opportunities due to changed sentiments. One of the most read articles on ‘The Guardian’ website last week was a letter by an Italian.
She ended her piece saying: “If we turn our gaze to the more distant future, the future which is unknown both to you and to us too, we can only tell you this: when all of this is over, the world won’t be the same.” No doubt the world is unlikely to remain the same. The corona virus is already rewriting our future. The Indian Government is taking all-round efforts to contain and overcome this pandemic. We at BTMG foresee opportunities beyond the crisis.