Reach reaches for healthy share of Tirupur

Bangalore-based Reach Technologies Ltd, an integrated IT solutions provider to the soft goods industry, unveiled its Reach enterprise resource planning solution customized for Microsoft Dynamics. Reach ERP will be implemented in Tirupur over the next four months.

The announcement came from the none-too-tersely titled “Collaborative Partnerships between Retailers / Brands / Designers and Manufacturers / Subcontractors in the Soft Goods industry through strategic use of IT” show in Tirupur on August 17th. The event was jointly sponsored by RTL, Microsoft, Intel and the Tirupur Exporters Association and sought to address collaborative partnerships between retailers, brands and manufacturers/sub-contractors in the soft goods industry through the strategic use of IT, enabling cluster adoption of IT by Tirupur apparel manufacturers.

The annual turnover of Reach is reported at more than US $4 million, but company officials are projecting US $3 million in turnover via the Reach ERP solution alone in fiscal year 2007. The company boasts 450 customers in India, but plans call for expansion of this figure to 5,000 by year 2009. The company has announced plans to open a development centre of 400 in Coimbatore to join its extant centre in Bangalore.

We have a development centre in Bangalore with around 200 people and are opening another centre in Coimbatore with a 400 capacity in the next nine months. The value of the Tirupur soft goods industry has been estimated at Rs 8,000 crore (approximately US $1.7 billion) and could be worth as much as Rs 15,000 crore (approximately US $3.22 billion) by 2012, said Textile and Apparel Consultant G. Somasundaram at the meeting. Somasundaram hopes Tirupur can achieve an eight percent share in the world textile trade.

Tirupur is the second largest textile hub with a cluster of apparel manufacturers exporting more than US $2 billion dollars worth of merchandise to the European and United States markets. Tirupur accounts for 90 percent of India’s cotton knitwear exports; the textile and apparel industry represents 14 percent of the total industrial production in the country, and 56 percent of India’s total knitwear exports come from Tirupur.