How Consultancies Can Help Handlooms Amid Lockdown

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How Consultancies can help handlooms amid
Lockdown?
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• About Indian Handlooms-
• Handlooms are fundamentally different from power
  looms. Motion of the handloom is operated by
  skilful human hands, without using any source of
  energy like electricity, water, air or sun to
  drive the motion of the loom. Fabric is woven on
  a handloom by interlacing of warp, running
  length-wise and weft or filling, running
  width-wise. Warp threads are raised and lowered
  by manual shedding motion to form shed. Through
  this shed, the shuttle is passed carrying across
  the weft thread which is beaten against the woven
  fabric by the movable comb like frame or reed.
  When the heddle is shifted, the two sets of warp
  reverse position, binding the weft into the
  fabric and opening other shed. Handloom weaving
  involves three Primary Motions i.e. Shedding,
  Picking and Beating. Shedding motion separates
  warp threads, according to pattern to allow for
  weft insertions or picking prior to beating.
  Picking is the operation wherein after the shed
  has been formed, the length of weft is inserted
  through the shed. As soon as a weft yarn is
  inserted, the reed pushes or beats up the weft to
  the fell of the cloth. All the three motions are
  carried out by the weaver manually for weaving of
  the fabric by interlacement of warp and weft.
  Loom is the basic equipment for hand weaving.
  Broadly speaking, based on their structure and
  technique of working, the handlooms are
  classified into four main groups namely primitive
  looms, pit looms, frame looms, and semi-automatic
  looms. (BBGV24720)
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• About Handlooms Market in India-
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• The handloom sector is the largest economic
  activity after agriculture, providing direct and
  indirect employment to more than 30 lakh weavers.
• This sector contributes nearly 22 percent of the
  total cloth produced in the country and also
  contributed substantially to the export income of
  the country.
• The export of handloom products from India was
  valued at US 343.69 million in FY19. In FY20
  (till November 2019), the export stood at US
  226.05 million.
• In FY19, the US was the major importer of Indian
  handloom products, with an estimated purchase of
  US 93.94 million, followed by the UK, Italy and
  Germany at US 17.77 million, US 16.47 and US
  14.65 million, respectively.
• Nearly 15 per cent of cloth production in India
  is from the handloom sector.
• Cloth production in 2019-20 (till January 2020)
  stood at 63,348 square meters.
• Production of hand-woven fabric from India
  constitute 95 per cent of the global production.

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• Challenges faced by Indian Handlooms due Covid-19
  pandemic-
• The sector has experienced sudden stalling of
  orders as retailers themselves are closed due to
  the worldwide lockdown and no signs of immediate
  recovery as the crisis unfolds.
• Cash flow has stopped, with buyers unable to make
  payments and no sales happening at all.
• Buyers are not in a position to place new orders
  - in the craft sector, orders are planned much in
  advance as usual lead time required to complete a
  production cycle is 2 to 3 months.
• Retail events through which artisans get cash
  sales may not happen for next few months.
• Market of the summer season when cotton handlooms
  sell most will be entirely lost by the time
  things get back to normal. This not only will
  create a liquidity crunch, but also severely
  impact their ability to invest in yarns for
  creating products for festive seasons (August to
  November) and winter, spring (October and to
  February) which are the other 2 major selling
  seasons for handloom textiles.
• Indian handlooms have been picking up in the
  slow fashion market internationally, but with
  this uncertainty, no overseas orders will be
  forthcoming.
• Customer priorities may change with tightened
  budgets
• Small artisans and producer groups do not have
  the financial cushioning to hold through such a
  crisis nor would they get credit supplies from
  raw material suppliers.
• Being part of an informal economy, artisans are
  also not able to access credit from banks and
  financial institutions.
• While the government may provide free ration to
  some extent, the majority of the artisans who
  earn on a daily basis working for bigger weavers
  or traders will find it extremely difficult to
  feed their families and take care of any medical
  exigencies.

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• How consultancy can help in this situation?
• The Handloom sector serves as a livelihood in
  many family metro cities and town. But due to the
  pandemic the businesses are suffering due to
  lockdown and handloom sector is one of these
  sectors. Handloom business mostly works at cities
  and towns like Mumbai. But amid the pandemic
  these places are closed which has led to decrease
  in revenue flow. So, the question is how can a
  consultancy help the handloom sector at least in
  the areas which are not placed under lockdown?
  The answer is by acting as platform provider
  where all your products will be marketed. A
  cost-effective marketing can be done through
  prospect marketing. A prospect is someone who has
  a need, desire and/or interest in what you offer.
  By prospect marketing tribal craft businesses can
  reach prospects efficiently, which in turn leads
  to increased customer base, brand awareness and
  reduced marketing cost which leads to increased
  revenue, demand, and innovation. Some of the
  online strategies/tools are used to reach
  prospects are-Email marketing, Google Ads, social
  media marketing like Facebook, LinkedIn which
  provides custom filter.
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