Once again, it was time for one of the most important business planning activities at Interloop Limited; Business Planning Workshop 2019, organized from 1 – 3 Oct, 2018 at Faisalabad Serena Hotel. Top & Middle Management and Global Teams got together for three days of intense preparation including business review, analysis of issues, appraisal of goals and presentation of plans and projects to achieve those goals.
The first day began with recitation from the Holy Quran by Tariq Rashid, Executive Director Sourcing. Faryal Sadiq, Executive Director People & Organization Development welcomed the delegates representing various functions and businesses including Hosiery, Spinning and Global Affiliates. Senior leadership of Interloop’s new business ventures; Denim and IL Apparel (Pvt.) Ltd. were also present. Faryal briefed the audience about the upcoming organizational changes. She endorsed company’s strong business planning process, highlighted some modifications to make it more robust and shared BPW’s three days’ work plan.
Navid Fazil, COO Interloop Limited made a detailed presentation on financial highlights, operational performance and sales results for 2018. He highlighted Interloop’s Mission and the importance of practicing ethical values. He also talked about maintaining outstanding product quality, business growth opportunities, threats and emphasized upon increasing market capitalization through working on five focus areas identified by the management. Navid also touched upon the progress made on Interloop’s sustainability targets for People, Planet & Prosperity.
Shelly Rider, President Interloop North America made a wonderful presentation about ILNA’s sales trends and growth, new customer acquisition and future plans. She also announced the launch of Interloop’s own Seamless Active wear brand; Xterity 3.0, on Amazon, in November 2018. Naseer ud Din, Sr. Manager ILB, presented operational and sales achievements for 2018 and future business prospects regarding IL Bangla. This was followed by presentation on Texlan Center’s performance and achievements for the current year and plans for 2019 by Silmy Farooq, Director Finance Texlan Center.
After a short tea break, it was time for Focus Group’s presentations by Champion Directors. Faryal Sadiq led focus area SALES and presented the sales trends, customer wise business share, targets and plans & initiatives to achieve these targets as per Vision 2020 and beyond. It was trailed by presentation on focus area COST by Zain Sadiq, Executive Director and his team, elaborating initiatives to reduce operational costs in order to make the business more sustainable. Focus area presentations continued after lunch and prayer break. Azhar Sadiq, Executive Director Operations presented on focus area QUALITY, analysing the existing processes and suggesting measures to further improve and maintain product quality at a level unmatched in the hosiery industry.
Leading focus area SPEED, Tariq Rasheed, Executive Director Sourcing presented a detailed review of sample lead time as well as time frame involved from order to shipment. He shared the strategies and improvement plan for 2019 and beyond for providing faster service to customers. Last but not the least, Executive Director, Brig. Ahmad Riza Siddiqui (Retd) SI (M) presented on the key focus area, CULTURE. To refresh the audience, he invited Latif Zeb, GM Interloop Way – Lean to lead the delegates for some stretch exercises. Motivated by this move, Carl Hagen, Executive Director Europe enthralled everyone with his multiple push ups in one go, nobody could resist clapping. Ahmad Riza Siddiqui highlighted salient features of Interloop’s culture and proposed Key Goal Indicators and respective Key Performance indicators to improve in opportunity areas. During all presentations, the delegates provided strategic inputs based on their experience and expertise.
In the evening, everybody enjoyed a delicious dinner at Portobello, a famous continental cuisine restaurant of Faisalabad. The second day began with recitation from Holy Quran by Shafqat Hasan Khawaja, GM P&S. The focus groups reviewed their respective strategies and plans in light of previous day’s feedback. They worked towards taking by-in of all stakeholders and revised their plans with prioritized initiatives. In the evening everybody enjoyed a sumptuous dinner with wide variety of continental and traditional Pakistani dishes, in the outdoors at Serena Hotel, with live songs sung by a local artist.
After recitation from Holy Quran by Saeed Ahmad, Head of Quality, the third day of the workshop began with the focus groups presenting revised action plans with agreed initiatives and timelines and required investments (if any). The Executive Board analyzed them fastidiously and affirmed the suitable ones along with their valuable feedback.
One of the most awaited presentation was made by Feroze Ahmed, Vice President New Business Development, on Interloop’s new business venture into Denim Apparel Segment. He apprised the gathering about the under construction production plant at Lahore which will be LEED Platinum Certified and the most technologically advanced and sustainable denim apparel production facility in this part of the world. The plant is expected to go into production in Q3, 2019 and has been conceived with a planned output exceeding one million garments per month
The other anticipated presentation was made by Tayab Masood, MD and Naeem Javaid, Plant Head, IL Apparel (Pvt.) Ltd., a subsidiary of Interloop Limited which will handle the Knitwear and Active-wear Business of the Company. The upcoming Knitwear production plant at Faisalabad will be a vertically integrated sustainable manufacturing facility based on Lean Principles. The pilot project in phase 1 will have production capacity of 25,000 garments per day which will be enhanced to 160,000 garments per day in phase 2.
In his closing remarks towards the end, the CEO appreciated everyone’s participation in this vital annual planning exercise, especially the colleagues who travelled from other countries. He commended the endeavors put in by Corporate Communication for organizing this superb workshop. The 3 days’ conference concluded on presentation of souvenirs to the participants.
