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| Sunday, 21 September 2003 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Sabre Tech sews up Indian deals Sabre Technologies, the local software product development and technology company promoted by the apparel giant, MAS Group, has successfully concluded transactions with two leading Indian apparel manufacturers for its flagship product, SabreSuite, the real time production floor management system designed for the apparel industry. The two Indian companies are LT Karle and Co from Bangalore and Ambattur Clothing Company (ACC) from Chennai. Karle, established in 1975, operates four manufacturing units with a combined capacity of just under 2000 sewing-machines and a workforce of around 3500. It produces for well-known brands such as Nike, Liz Claiborne, Tommy Hilfiger and Callaway, primarily for the North American and European markets. ACC, a $100 million company established in 1981, consists of 13 facilities including one in Bahrain, with a combined capacity of 2500 machines and 7000 employees. Specialising in shirts, trousers and outerwear and catering primarily to the US market, ACC counts among its buyers GAP, Banana Republic, Levis, Old Navy and Abercrombie and Fitch. Teams from both companies visited Colombo to observe the system at local installations. The benefits the system offered to local buyers was a key factor in convincing them to sign up. Peter Sun, CEO of Sabre said that Sabre can tap into the vast domain knowledge available within the group, enabling the company to develop a product that is vast in features yet simple to implement. "Also, because we own the designs for both the software and the micro-electronic data capturing devices, we can offer much better value for money," he said. Sabre was established in mid-2001 and was in product development (both software and micro-electronics) up to April this year. The promoters have invested over Rs 100 million in the project for product development and marketing. "We are confident of achieving profits in 2004, which will be our first full year of commercial operations," Sun said. The system developed by Sabre tracks the progress of operations from the cutting room to the finished goods store, on an up-to-the-minute basis at each operating station. This includes software as well as the proprietary data capture devices developed by Sabre. The recently appointed sole authorised representative for Sabre in India, India Industrial Garment Machines (IIGM), facilitated the Indian transactions. IIGM supplies a range of products and services to the industry, and employs over 70 service and application specialists to provide installation, consulting, training and after sales services to its clientele. It has offices in 11 Indian cities and a fully automated spare parts and service centre in Bangalore. The IIGM-Sabre relationship was cemented at the IMB Apparel Fair in Germany, where Sabre exhibited its products. Sabre COO David Lupton, an apparel industry veteran, identified India, South and East Africa and the ASEAN region as the primary marketing focus. "The next three instalments will most probably be in Mauritius, India and Thailand," he said. Chandima Cooray, CTO Sabre, said the current focus was to make the software multilingual and to make data capture devices wireless. "Once we have multilingual software, we will launch in Chinese-speaking markets which have a significant apparel industry." |
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