Management Case

Vision
18(2) 125–135
Sadakalo: Marketing of Traditional © 2014 MDI
SAGE Publications

Fashion in the Modern Fashion Industry Los Angeles, London,

New Delhi, Singapore,
Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/0972262914528600
http://vision.sagepub.com

Jashim Uddin Ahmed

Md. Humayun Kabir Chowdhury
Mohammad Jasim Uddin
Mirza M. Ferdous

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Abstract
The traditional fashion had always been just apparelling need for most of the people of Bangladesh. Over the last decade, unique
contrives of apparelling has been adapting substantially to cope with the changing needs of the society but keeping in mind an inducing

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sense of traditional fashion which people can differentiate themselves from others. Interestingly, the traditional fashion has reached to
a very competitive market in Bangladesh. As a consequence, some of the fashion houses such as, Aarong, Prabartana, Nipun, Anjans,

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Kay Kraft, Deshal, Rang, Sadakalo and Nabarupa have been successful to create a brand value. Specifically, Sadakalo is one of the lead-

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ing fashion houses with particular focus on traditional clothes. The main aim of this article is to demonstrate how a fashion house can
gain competitive advantages despite unpredictable market challenges. The article focuses on origin of Sadakalo, their products and

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retailing, markets and customers, planning, sourcing and warehousing, design and production, distribution, store operations, marketing
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and management issues and competitive challenges of Sadakalo that specially led to achieve competitive advantages. The article also
explores the dynamic ideas and capabilities of the entrepreneur of Sadakalo.
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Key words
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Sadakalo, Fashion, Retailing, Apparel, Bangladesh

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Fashion is the imitation of a given example and satisfies the (Curran, 2009; Raihan, 1999). Bangladesh fashion industry
demand for social adaptation. … The more an article becomes has been producing for the local leading brands, namely,
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subject to rapid changes of fashion, the greater the demand Aarong, Ecstasy and Cats Eye, and also for the world
for cheap products of its kind. leading brands, including, Wal-Mart, Tesco, Zara, Marks
Georg Simmel, ‘Fashion’ (1904)
and Spencer and H&M (Islam et al., 2012).
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However, the fashion industry throughout the world is

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The Fashion Industry in Bangladesh divided into a variety of market segments and consumer
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Fashion, a global phenomenon, is supported by the shifts
in the organization of garment production across the
world as well as by the vast economic significance of
garment production in world trade (Hansen, 2004). The
fashion industry is the fastest-growing industry in the
world (Rajput et al., 2012). Over the last decade, it has
been observed that the fashion design and the fashion
industry has severely undermined the traditional system of
intrinsic fashion design, in which creativity emerges from
small-scale businesses in developing country (Azuma and
Fernie, 2003).
Over more than a decade, fashion industry of  Bangladesh
has contributed substantially to strengthen local economic
growth and towards global export-friendly trade regime
groups which are based upon demographical segmenta-
tions in the context such as gender, age group, income
level, nature of fabrics, and category of garments and price
(Priest, 2005). Along with demographical segmentations,
the fashion industry in Bangladesh can be divided into two
distinct markets—one for traditional clothing and the other
for modern Western apparels. Specifically, there are two
major types of fashion wares in Bangladesh, namely, one
that coexists with the traditional fashion salwar kamiz and
the other is Western style fashion in a relationship that is
modified across the region’s changing political history in
interaction with regional, national and international styles
(Hansen, 2004). Nowadays, the Bangladeshi people both
from urban and suburban area prefer Western fashion to
126 Sadakalo:  Marketing of Traditional Fashion in the Modern Fashion Industry
traditional apparel though the demand for the latter has not
yet declined throughout the country. Almost 90 per cent of
products of the fashion industry are used to fulfil the local
demand and the remaining is exported throughout the
world especially in Europe and North America. On the
other hand, segmentation based on women’s choices
mainly consists of low-priced traditional clothes like saree
and kamiz and Western clothes, such as, tops and skirts
(Hansen, 2004).
There has been relatively little demand for imported
traditional dresses from the South Asian countries like
India and the Western clothes from the other parts of the
world. The men’s segmentation usually consists of both
low-priced and high-priced Western clothes like T-shirts,
shirts and suits. The demand for men’s traditional dresses
like punjabi and fatua is increasing due to some occasions
like Eid festivals, International Mother Language Day,
Durgapuja, Victory Day, Independence Day, Bengali
New Year (in Bengali, known as Pohela Boishakh),
birthdays and wedding anniversaries. Sadakalo closely
works with the local community to bring innovative
products especially in Pohela Boishakh (The Daily Star,
9 April 2013).
Since its inception, Sadakalo, a fashion retailer that has
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exclusively focused on traditional items has been success-
fully operating and designing its dresses as well as gift
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items in these occasions/festivals. The type of garment is
becoming an important factor to make purchase decisions
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due to the global climate change. According to Azuma and
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Fernie (2003), in fashion context, climate has been of vital
importance in forming a convenient dress style for a given
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region. Woolen and synthetic garments are less preferred
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during the winter season since winter is not as cold as in
Bangladesh.
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Inspirational Journey
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of Fashion House
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Tahsina Shahin, Chairperson and the owner of Sadakalo, is
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one of the dynamic professionals in the fashion industry
of Bangladesh. She is currently studying Executive Master
of Business Administration (EMBA) at North South
University, Bangladesh. She completed her M.A. from
Shanto-Mariam Institute of Creative Technology (SMICT),
Dhaka and B.A. (Hon’s) from Institute of Fine Arts at
University of Dhaka. She dreamt of an outlet consisting
products on the basis of only black and white with
traditional focus and it came true in the year 2002
(4 October) by the launching of a small outlet named
Sadakalo at Rifles Square, Dhanmondi, one of the hearts of
the Dhaka city. Over the time, Tahsina Shahin’s small retail
store has expanded into a multi-chain outlet with
international operations.
Vision, 18, 2 (2014): 125–135
Sadakalo’s unique business model did not just consider
making fashionable traditional clothing—instead, its
vision centred around the idea of creating clothing that
would look different from the other brands. In order to
achieve this objective, Tahsina Shahin first considered
the other outlets in the market, and made one significant
observation—traditional clothing was gaining popularity
because it was colourful and vibrant. Retailers were focus-
ing on colours that were often considered ‘effeminate’
for men, such as pink and yellow and turning them into
colours that were not only popular but also stylish. She
decided to create her own mix of colours that would high-
light her sense and understanding of style, sophistication
and beauty.
The shades black and white have for centuries
represented inimitable luxury and unparalleled glamour.
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Designers have known about the power of this impecc­-
able pairing for years (McCulloch, 2010). Sadakalo is
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one of the leading brand fashion houses in Bangladesh
with a spirit of indigenous culture through articulated
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design on clothes, almost exclusively with black and white
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colours (The Daily Sun, 1 May 2013; Financial Express,
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24 October 2010). In Bengali, sada means white and
kalo means black—so they solely rely on the two basic
colours black and white, just as its name implies. Sadakalo’s
journey started not with a commercial view but from the
thought of realizing a dream—a dream of infinite design
concepts with only two colours. The name is not given just
for a proper noun but it reflects the nature and the products
of the business (The New Age, 8 January 2013).
The idea of creating clothing that was black and white,
at a time when everyone else was focusing on vibrant
colours seemed like an idea that was doomed to fail.
However, Tahsina believed that it was not the colour itself,
but the idea of being ‘unique’ and ‘special’ that attracted
customers, and argued that a tasteful combination of black
and white would work—if her insight into the consumer
mindset was correct, it would have to.
Sadakalo’s business has not only boomed within a
short period of time, but they have managed to open a
new outlet every year at different locations within the
capital. To keep the spirit of local artisans alive, 10 of
Bangladeshi’s leading handicraft sellers, namely, Nipun,
Prabartana, Kay Kraft, Nogordola, Deshal, Anjan’s, Rang,
Banglar Mela, Bibiana, Deshal and Sadakalo, joined
together in 2009 to form Deshi Dosh (The Daily Star,
30 April 2013; The News Today, 15 September 2011). The
aim of Deshi Dosh is to popularize local textiles; needle
works and crafts, and create a platform to promote the
handloom industry, which provides livelihood for nearly
1.5 million people in rural Bangladesh (The Daily Star,
1 September 2009).
Jashim Uddin Ahmed, Md. Humayun Kabir Chowdhury, Mohammad Jasim Uddin and Mirza M. Ferdous 127
Products, Markets and Customers
Bangladeshi people preferred dresses stitched by local
tailors catering exclusively to local demands. Consumers’
attitude is changing in the present scenario, with the rise of
tailoring costs and comparatively less charges of branded
outfits; they are increasingly being attracted towards ready-
mades (Rajput et al., 2012). However, Sadakalo’s clothes
retailing insists on presenting apparel and accessories in
only these two shades, giving them a unique edge over
others in the industry. At Sadakalo, the products comprise
of 35 per cent men’s wear, 35 per cent women’s wear,
25 per cent children’s wear, 5 per cent others’ products
(fashion accessories, crafts and gift, etc.). A range of prod-
ucts offered by Sadakalo is shown in Figure 1.
In retailing, fashionable products have the feature that
after a short period of time almost everybody in the relevant
group of consumers owns the fashionable item (Pesendorfer,
1995). In the South Indian subcontinent, traditional
clothing has revolved around. In women’s wear, saree is
the most popular along with kamiz and tops. In men’s wear,
traditional punjabi (modified versions, kurta and fatua) is
commonly used.
As Azuma and Fernie (2003) observed, the fashion
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industry has given consumers easier access to clothes at
inexpensive prices with modern stylish images. As far as
the modern fashion industry is concerned, the clothing
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market is primarily segmented based upon gender—men
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and women. Bangladeshi men wear Western clothes like
shirts and pants in place of traditional clothes like lungi and
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punjabi because of cultural and socio-economic factors.
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Due to colonization, the men of Indian subcontinent have
adapted the Western outfit as their natural attire.
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Sadakalo caters to provide men traditional dresses like
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punjabi and fatua which have become more of an occa-
sional outfit to be worn on religious and cultural festivals.
So the market for men clothing stands as somewhat around
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85 per cent dominated by Western outfit and 15 per cent by
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Figure 1. Product Distribution of Sadakalo
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Source: Sadakalo (2013).
traditional. Therefore, Sadakalo’s customers are limited to
10 per cent of the total market share of fashion industry.
The market scenario for the women is totally opposite to
that of the men. Even after colonization and globalization,
most women of this subcontinent including the urban area
continue to wear traditional clothes like saree and kamiz in
contrast to jeans and tops (Hansen, 2004). Even today in
schools and colleges, girls wear kamiz and fatua and
women who are career oriented also maintain wearing
kamiz or saree at workplaces.
Due to globalization, significant changes influenced the
fashion industry and as a result some of Bangladeshi
women tend to wear shirts and tops with pants and skirts
especially in the urban areas but these Western outfits are
still not widespread. So the women fashion market
segmentation is largely dominated by traditional clothes,
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which consists of approximately 80 per cent, and the rest
20 per cent is Western. However, this 80 per cent is again
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divided into two major groups, i.e. the domestic and the
foreign (Figure 2).
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The foreign refers to the clothes from neighbouring
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countries mainly India. Still today, a large portion of
women clothing comes from India. The imported Indian
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clothes still dominate half of the market while the domestic
producers compete with the other half. The market scenario
follows the economy of the country and purchasing power
and behaviour of the consumers. Consumer income levels
define their living standards which in turn determine their
purchasing decisions. The consumers of Sadakalo fall
mainly in the middle-income group. Among these, 10 per
cent come from the lower-middle class, 70 per cent come
from middle-middle class and 20 per cent come from the
upper-middle class. According to gender, 70 per cent
consumers are women and 30 per cent are men. According
to age, the majority consumer comes from the age group of
30–49 years.
Planning, Sourcing and
Warehousing: ‘Efficiency
through Simplicity’
The planning department plays crucial role in the business.
This department is a bridge linking all the other depart-
ments. The dominant practice implies that all departments
should work independently apart from the planning depart-
ment. This department mainly communicates, coordinates
and integrates with other departments to make important
decision for the business. This department plans the
required designs of the year and the production quantity
to meet the customer demands. Therefore, the financing
and budgeting for the production chain, marketing, distri-
bution and retailing are integrated here. So, all the other
departments need to communicate only with the planning
Vision, 18, 2 (2014): 125–135
128 Sadakalo:  Marketing of Traditional Fashion in the Modern Fashion Industry
Figure 2. Segmented Fashion Market for Sadakalo
department. The designers are not aware of the production
quantity and similarly the production department is not
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aware of the designers. There are four different warehouses
required in the overall process in Sadakalo. They are raw
warehouse, approved sample warehouse, rejected sample
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warehouse and finished goods warehouse. All the ware-
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houses are monitored and controlled by the planning
department.
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The raw warehouse consists of raw fabric and other
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design accessories. There is a procurement team to deal
with the total 30 suppliers of raw fabric and design acces-
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sories. The task of the procurement team is to source
products from them, to ensure accurate quality check (QC)
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and to store the products in the raw warehouse. In this case,
the QC becomes one of the vital factors. Both the design
and the production team can source products from the raw
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warehouse by written requisitions to the planning depart-
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ment. In Sadakalo, design added in every two months.
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Only the approved samples made by the designers reach to
the approved sample warehouse. The approval is given by
the chief designer. The production team sources sample
from the store by written requisition through the planning
department. Everyday a number of creative and distinc­-
tive designs are made but only about 80 per cent of
them reached to sample warehouse for approval. The rest
20 per cent left for the rejected warehouse, the products
from this warehouse are sometimes delivered to the retail
stores as a limited product line. This is from the viewpoint
of Tahsina Shahin that the designs which are rejected by
the chief designer might be attractive to some customers.
Hence, those designs are not sent for bulk productions but
delivered to retail stores as unique products and displayed
Vision, 18, 2 (2014): 125–135
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in the stores separately. When the production team receives
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the finished goods from the suppliers, they execute
thorough QC and then send them to the finished goods
warehouse. If the bulk productions provided by the suppli-
ers do not exactly match the sample given to them, then the
production team rejects these products and returns them to
the supplier. It is the responsibility of the distribution team
to deliver products from the finished goods warehouse to
the retail outlets.
Design and Production:
‘Encouraging Creativity and
Teamwork’
Economist Robinson (1961) stated that fashion is the
change in the design of things for decorative purposes. The
concept of working only with two colours seemed not
enough so Sadakalo went on to work with even more
theme-based concepts. Sadakalo has six product lines—
men’s wear, women’s wear, children’s wear, household
products, fashion accessories, and gifts and crafts. Each
segment has a team of creative designers and the teams are
headed by a senior team form sourcing and product
development department.
Designers of Sadakalo are supposed to report to the
chief designer who is associated with the planning
department to assess and identify the number of required
designs throughout the year according to the needs in
different occasions.
Sadakalo first introduced identical dresses for parents
and children and also brought in the theme of similar
Jashim Uddin Ahmed, Md. Humayun Kabir Chowdhury, Mohammad Jasim Uddin and Mirza M. Ferdous 129
dresses for couples. The team of designers always
make reasonable attempt for constant variation of design.
By doing so, they search throughout the country and
collect new design patterns even from the remote rural
areas. Hence, designs of Sadakalo are also outsourced from
the artisans throughout the country. Some of the senior
designers also attend international garment fairs to learn
and gather new ideas from the international market. One of
the most important tasks of the designers is to visit the
retail stores to predict the demand for such designer prod-
ucts. The designers always work for a design which will be
sold two months later from the time of approval for pro-
duction. Hence, the lead time of designs is two months
with respect to sales. The pressure of the design team is not
equally distributed throughout the whole year.
The majority of the revenue which is around 45 per cent
comes during the month of August due to the event of Eid-
ul-Fitr, the biggest religious festival of the Muslims (The
Daily Sun, 15 August 2011). Though Eid-ul-Fitr changes
around 15 days year to year, the month of August is taken
as a sample month from year 2011 for better understanding.
The designers cannot produce such bulk amount of designs
in a few days. Hence, their pressure for this event is reduced
by dividing the designs required for the event in four and
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are done in the previous 4 months of the event.
It is very crucial delivering the right products in the
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right place and, most importantly, at an inexpensive price
(Fernie, 1994). In Sadakalo, the planning department
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monitors the approved sample warehouse and supplies the
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required samples to the production team. The production of
Sadakalo is 100 per cent outsourced raw materials and
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their 50 per cent production in their own. There are over
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100 suppliers who meet the production requirements of the
company.
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The suppliers follow a fixed monthly calendar and visit
the office twice a month, so on a daily basis there is a
schedule for six suppliers to visit the corporate head office.
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The task of the production team is to source the required
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raw fabric and accessories from the raw warehouse and
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collect design from the approved sample warehouse, and
provide those to the production supplier with a software
generated invoice. The suppliers must deposit security
money ($650–$3850 approximately) to the company since
they take the raw products. The security money to be
deposited varies from supplier to supplier but the value is
always equal to or greater than related to the raw products
that they take.
The planning team helps the production personnel by
giving the number of quantity each design should be
produced and the number of quantity of each size per
design. It is very obvious that low-priced products are done
in bulk production, whereas the high priced are done in a
small scale. This is due to the market demand. The major
duty of the production team appears when the suppliers
deliver the products. Then it is moved to an accurate QC.
There is an assembly line for QC, where the first workstation
checks the measurement of the products, the second one
matches each product with the given sample and the third
one checks for stains, holes, stitches, and any other kind of
issue for which the product might get rejected. There is no
compromise being done with quality. If the whole bulk
production or a few products get rejected, then the suppliers
not only get less amount of the bill but also get fewer
amounts from the security money since they have wasted
the raw products too. The accepted products are sent to the
finished good warehouse. The production period is also
divided into two to four months like the designers, but the
lead time of production is one month with respect to sales.
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Distribution: ‘Just in Time Logistics’
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Distribution is a crucial task of the supply chain cycle. If
logistics support is considered, then the company provides
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this support with the van they possess. A single vehicle
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controls the full distribution channel. Only two outlets are
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covered each day for distribution. There is a weekly
calendar followed by the team. Data entry is also very
important in this department. There are separate teams for
incoming and outgoing product entries. Mistakes in data
entry might get very harmful for the whole team during
monthly audit which is performed by the audit team from
the accounts department. In the mess of bulk quantity
products in the finished good warehouse, there might be
some products which are not at all sent to the outlets; no
other employee takes the pressure to check which products
are not sent at all. Hence, the distribution team should be
very careful about sending all designs promptly. Sending
products to the outlets is one part of the distribution team.
The other major part is to receive products from the outlets.
The team always searches for products which had not been
sold for two months. Then they ask the outlets to return
those products to them so that they can deliver those to
other outlets. These reshuffling have always worked in the
positive manner for the company. It would be noticed that
the distribution team takes product both from the rejected
sample warehouse and finished good warehouse.
Store Operations: Home and Abroad
Sadakalo launched its premiere outlet at Rifles Square,
Dhanmondi in the year 2002. Rifles Square was then first
of its kind shopping mall at the junction of Dhanmondi
Road # 2 and Satmasjid Road of capital city Dhaka.  The
people of Dhanmondi previously had little choice but to go
other places of the city. So when BDR1 (currently known as
BGB) opened Rifles Square (now called Shimanto Square)
Vision, 18, 2 (2014): 125–135
130 Sadakalo:  Marketing of Traditional Fashion in the Modern Fashion Industry
at the heart of Dhanmondi, it became very popular in
Dhanmondi as well as the surrounding residential areas
such as Lalmatia and Muhammadpur. So, an outlet in this
local has obviously has a greater demand. Though the
outlet was relatively small, it attracted immense crowd
making Sadakalo famous throughout the capital. At the
same time, Banani (prime residential area of Dhaka) area
was becoming popular for shopping and eating out and
those linked to it. One of the reasons was that it was close
to some private universities. The young people of these
universities swarmed around the shops and restaurants at
Banani. Naturally, Banani became the next location for
Sadakalo in 2003.
Another most thriving place is Bailey Road, located in
the centre of Dhaka. In 2004, celebrities Ali Zaker and Sara
Zaker promoted the opening of Sadakalo’s third outlet at
Bailey Road and it experienced an immediate success. For
the photo session of products, Sadakalo has always
preferred respected and famous celebrities of Bangladesh
who are middle-aged and above. The famous painters,
singers, actors and other celebrities of Bangladesh have
contributed in the photo session. After such back to back
success in three consecutive years, in the year 2006,
Sadakalo aspired to open a Designer’s Corner, the first of
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its kind in Dhaka, showcasing clothes of 10 eminent
designers from Bangladesh and abroad such as Bibi
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Russell, Roxana Salam and Shahrukh Amin in Gulshan
Avenue for this ambitious project. Though the designers
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were independently famous and established, Ms. Shahin
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persuaded them to supply only black and white products to
this outlet. Each designer had their own separate booths in
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the outlet. The products were very expensive and customer
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Figure 3. Timeline of Sadakalo
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Vision, 18, 2 (2014): 125–135
segment for this kind of product was low. On the other
hand, the administrative costs were very high in Gulshan,
since it was in prime location of the Dhaka city. As a result,
the company decided to close the outlet in the last quarter
of 2007. Sadakalo also opened another outlet in Gulshan at
the Pink City market in the year 2008. The customers in
this area seek imported products from India. Hence, the
Indian products in this market boomed and the local fashion
houses collapsed. Sadakalo also decided to close the outlet
by the end of 2011.
The company planned to decentralize its operation from
Dhaka in 2007 and opened its fifth outlet at Uttara, north of
Dhaka city. Generally, the people of Uttara do not prefer to
commute to the city centre of Dhaka but rather to have
everything within their local community so expanding
operation in that area was inevitable by Sadakalo. Despite
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already having an outlet in Bailey Road, in 2008 Sadakalo
opened another (sixth) outlet at the Navana Bailey Star
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Market which also outperformed Bailey Road. The success
behind this outlet was due to the position of the outlet
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possessed by Sadakalo (Figure 3).
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Bangladeshi fashions are slowly finding their way into
USA and Europe; however, not all the popular fashion
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wear are available in abroad and therefore the immigrants
have limited exposure to them. Sadakalo is the first fashion
house in Bangladesh to open a chain shop in USA. In the
year 2009, Sadakalo was offered to participate at a garments
fair in New York. After the participation, the directors of
the company were interested to open an outlet in New
York. During the last quarter of the year 2009, the dream
was successful by opening an outlet at Jackson Heights. A
known relative of Ms. Shahin who had been staying in the
Jashim Uddin Ahmed, Md. Humayun Kabir Chowdhury, Mohammad Jasim Uddin and Mirza M. Ferdous 131
USA for two decades took the responsibility to run the
outlet. In the year 2010, the elder sister of Ms. Shahin took
the responsibility to open and run an outlet in Florida. Due
to some problems, the trade licenses of these two outlets
are not registered as Sadakalo, but their businesses are
properly controlled and monitored from the company head
office. Sadakalo, in the hope of opening more outlets in
USA, came to a contract with another company named
Bangla Trading, the owner being Bengali that they would
roam around the States and participate in different garment
fairs. Bangla Trading participates in around 15 garment
fairs throughout the year and Sadakalo exports products to
Bangla Trading for the fair, besides exporting to New York
and Florida. The two directors visit the USA twice a year
since the year 2009.
Back in home, Sadakalo was also thriving with the
prospect of being one of the prestigious members of Deshi
Dosh—a flagship outlet consisting of 10 major traditional
fashion houses at Bashundhara City market, the largest
shopping mall of Bangladesh. In 2010, Deshi Dosh
decentralized from the capital city of Dhaka to the second
major city Chittagong and opened its next outlet at Afmi
Plaza. At the same year, Sadakalo also expanded in the
international market by opening its second outlet in Florida,
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USA. Finally in 2012, Sadakalo opened outlets at Aziz
Super Market in Shahbag and also at Wari in old Dhaka.
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Shahbag has one of the entrances to Dhaka University and
thus is an alluring place for the thousands of students.
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Thus, it is a natural selection for Sadakalo.
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Marketing: ‘Style, Sophistication
and Simple Value Proposition’
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Sadakalo believes that the promotional expense should be
around 3–4 per cent of the annual revenue. Hence, from the
analysis of the previous yearly trends of promotional
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expense to revenue ratio, the planning department makes
the promotional budget for the upcoming year.
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In the year 2005, when Sadakalo opened the outlet at
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Baily Road, Ms Shahin asked the two famous celebrities
of the country Mr Aly Zaker and his wife Ms Sara Zaker
to participate in the promotional photo session. These
two celebrities have never participated in any kind of
promotional activities for anyone before but they agreed
because of their personal relationship with Ms Shahin
that led to be first promotional initiative for Sadakalo.
Ms Shahin believes that their contribution led Sadakalo to
a turning point and since then the customers perceive
Sadakalo as prestigious tradition-oriented brand in the
country.
Since the year 2005, Sadakalo has been continuously
greater effort in marketing. Promotion becomes one of
the major expenditures used for branding. The major pro-
motion of Sadakalo includes advertisements, discounts
and newspaper features. Since TV commercial is very
expensive, this type of fashion house mainly focused on
aforementioned promotions. Advertisements are mainly
given to the popular lifestyle and fashion magazines
of Bangladesh on monthly basis. The next preferred
advertisement is the bill boards at different places of the
city as majority customers of Sadakalo reside here. The last
choice is the newspaper where the cost is relatively higher
considering responses. The clear difference between bill
boards and newspaper is that newspaper is circulated
throughout the country and bill boards are placed at certain
places of the city only. Hence, the company has always
received good responses with bill boards rather than news-
paper. The public relation personnel always keep good
relationship with the feature writers of all the newspaper
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and magazines in Bangladesh. As feature and press releases
are free of cost, good relationship with editors is the only
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way to get published. There is also a promotional discount
offered during June–July as summer clearance sale. This
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sale collects a good amount of revenue to be reinvested for
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the event of Eid-ul-Fitr.
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Management
Sadakalo follows a flat management which brings a good
working environment and motivating vibe. Though there
are department heads but below them, the structure is flat
and everybody works as a team. The two directors, the
chairperson and the managing director, directly communi-
cate with the head of planning department. The other
departmental heads are controlled by the head of planning
department.
The reporting system is totally by document and
software. Verbal communication is not considered as
reporting because there is no record of verbal communica-
tion. The two important departments which were not
discussed earlier are finance and accounts, and administra-
tion. There are eight employees in the finance and accounts
department, out of which four make the audit team.
Their task is to cross check and match the products of all
warehouses and all stores with the respective software
ledger.
Loss of products leads to punishment for the concerned
department. The other important persons in this department
are the accounts payable officers who face busy times with
the suppliers. The administration department contributes
significantly for managing employees in Sadakalo. There
are three IT officers—one for security and trouble shooting,
and the other one for technical procurements. IT makes the
working environment smooth and keeps the supply chain
of the company stable. There are also three human resource
officers—one for recruitment, one for training and the
Vision, 18, 2 (2014): 125–135
132 Sadakalo:  Marketing of Traditional Fashion in the Modern Fashion Industry
other one for compensation and performance. IT and HR
are soon going to become independent departments in a
few years. The total number of employees of the company
is around 220, out of which 80 are in the corporate head
office and 140 are in the outlets.
The management hierarchy for supervising the outlet
includes manager, store executive, assistant manager and
customer service officers (sales person). Two outlet coordi-
nators have been assigned to visit the outlets on regular
basis and report to the head office.
Competitors
Despite the fashion industry has been experiencing severe
competition due to dynamism of customers’ expectations,
product and service attributes and market challenges
(Islam et al., 2012), in 2009, Sadakalo became a member of
Deshi Dosh which is a flagship outlet of 10 major domestic
brands. The other nine are Rang, Anjans, Nipun, Bibiana,
Prabartana, Nogordola, Deshal, Kay Kraft and Banglar
Mela. These 10 brands sell the same kind of products
within the same price range and thus they are the main
competitors of each other. Among them, Sadakalo is on the
leading forefront with Anjans and Kay Kraft but the rest
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seven are not lagging very far behind. On the contrary,
competition is very high and one is always at the heel of
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another.
Since price and product are similar, Sadakalo more
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depends on customer loyalty to stay in business. The
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growth was very high from the beginning of the business
and stayed in the range of 15–19 per cent from the year
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2004 to 2008. The competition became stronger since
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2008 and the growth rate began to fall. In the last four years
(2008–2012), the growth rate came to a range 13 per cent.
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Possibly, this range would be continued for the next
decade if all the other factors are kept constant. Besides
nine other competitors, Aarong is also a competitor of
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Sadakalo even though at a long shot. Aarong has started
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business long before Sadakalo and all others of Deshi Dosh
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and its owner being also the owner of BRAC (formally
known as Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee,
BRAC does not represent an acronym), it is naturally way
ahead of them. BRAC is a 40-year-old establishment so
Aarong has strong base of capital, supplier and almost
every sector compared to the Deshi Dosh which have
been started by individual entrepreneurs. And yet, Aarong
is a competitor because of the product type and united
the Deshi Dosh is putting up a good fight against the
big giant.
The next important competitor of Sadakalo is the Indian
clothing style found in shops such as Shoppers World,
Vasavi and Zaara. It is the same for all Deshi Dosh and
even Aarong who use simple traditional fabric and design
Vision, 18, 2 (2014): 125–135
patterns compared to the glossy and glitzy materials of
Bollywood inspired Indian clothing. Although the product
type is same, that is, saree and kamiz for women and
punjabi for men, there is wide difference in material. A
glimpse at the Bengali traditional style and Indian style and
one would immediately notice the simplicity of the former
and the showiness of the latter. Indian clothes have always
been popular in Bangladesh both for the influence of
satellite television channels (i.e., Star Plus, Zee TV, Zee
Bangla, Sony) and their fancy fabric and designs and
anything imported has a special charm to the customers.
So, Sadakalo with its humble products must compete
against the glamorous Indian clothes against all odds and
not to forget Aarong and the rest of Deshi Dosh. It is a
tough world, indeed!
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Concluding Remarks
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The fashion clothing market for Bangladeshi is untapped
and the knowledge about the consumption pattern of
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urban customers can be beneficial to marketers. Sadakalo
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could expand across the country because the market in the
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capital city is becoming saturated. In the international
market, there are market demands for such traditional
products especially in Kolkata and London, which might
be put in during the expansion plan. According to Financial
Express (24 October 2010), Sadakalo, a leading fashion
boutique of Bangladesh, eyes overseas market and setting
up of new outlets outside the capital in a major expansion
plan to cater to the need of fashion lovers. Through the last
placement the market in Dhaka city might get saturated
and restrained from expansion. The most effective growth
opportunity is to expand outside the capital city of Dhaka.
One major problem of Sadakalo is that the production
quantity per design is less compared to the customer’s
demand. Today’s ‘fashion is accompanied by a process of
continuous innovation, in which new designs are developed
at sometimes big cost only to be replaced by other designs’
(Pesendorfer, 1995, p. 772). Since, the motto of Sadakalo is
to provide new designs time to time but in small batches
this might be a good type of branding but financially
it is not helping. As discussed earlier, the promotion of
Sadakalo is very less due to the management’s perception
that brand value would bring customers’ to the outlets.
Whereas they are unaware of the fact that customers’ needs
to be constantly reminded about a brand through thorough
promotion for them to remember.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Tahsina Shahin (Chairperson), Mr Azharul Hoque
Azad (Managing Director), and Mr Muntasir Mamun (Business
analyst) of Sadakalo (Pvt.) Limited for their insight, thoughts and
input during this case study preparation.
Jashim Uddin Ahmed, Md. Humayun Kabir Chowdhury, Mohammad Jasim Uddin and Mirza M. Ferdous 133

Annexure

Figure 1. Supply Chain of Sadakalo

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Source: Internal Documents (2013).
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Figure 2. Design Volume

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Source: Internal Documents (2013).

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134 Sadakalo:  Marketing of Traditional Fashion in the Modern Fashion Industry

Figure 3. Yearly Sales Volume Distribution (approximate)

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Source: Internal Documents (2013).

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Figure 4. Organogram
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Source: Internal Documents (2013).

Note Curran, L. (2009). The EU clothing market in 2008—opening the

1. Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) is previously known as
Bangladesh Rifles (BDR).
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Jashim Uddin Ahmed, Ph.D., (jashim@northsouth.edu,
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jashimahmed@hotmail.com) is an Associate Professor
and Chairman of the Department of Management, School
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of Business, North South University, Bangladesh. He is the
former Director of BBA Program (2012–2013), School of
Business, North South University. He received his PhD in
Management Sciences from The University of Manchester
Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), (Currently
known as The University of Manchester), UK. He has two
Master degrees, one in Management and the other one in
Marketing, from University of Northumbria at Newcastle,
UK. He teaches strategic management and marketing man-
agement courses. He has published more than 50 research
articles in reputed journals.
Md. Humayun Kabir Chowdhury, Ph.D.
(mhkchowdhury@yahoo.com) is Pro-Vice Chancellor of
Southeast University, Bangladesh. Formerly, he was
Professor at Department of Business Administra­tion, East
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West University, Bangladesh. He received his PhD in
Consumer Behaviour from Graduate School of Social
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Sciences, Yokohama National University, Japan. He has
published around 50 research articles in reputed journals
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and conference proceedings. His research focuses on
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consumer behaviour, contemporary issues in marketing.
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Mohammad Jasim Uddin (jasim.uddin@monash.edu) is
currently studying PhD at Monash University. He has
received M.Phil. Innovation, Strategy and Organization
from Judge Business School at the University of
Cambridge; and M.Sc. Human Resource Management, and
M.Sc. Finance and Economics from the University of
Manchester, UK. His research focuses on globalization,
employment practices and social networks.
Mirza M. Ferdous (mferdous@northsouth.edu,
mirzamferdous@gmail.com) is a lecturer at the School of
Business, North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He
has completed his B.Sc. in Computer Information Systems
Engineering from the George Washington University,
USA, and his MBA from Carnegie Mellon University,
USA. His research interests include finance, international
business, and management information systems.
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