SriLanka Footwear Summit 2010 Colombo

Expectations Of Footwear Retailers In

Sri Lanka
 Customer Expectations

1. Trend of eating-out and shopping – Move towards

casual wear
2. More health-conscious consumers
Herbal Socks and Shoes
3. Convenience – one-stop shops
4. Increase in working women – Upsurge in ladies
slippers market (highly competitive and fashion
conscious)
5. Move towards Leather footwear
6. Showroom ambience is a pre-requisite
7. Finishing of the shoe and Design frequency
is critical
8. Increasing the trend for Fashion Rubber Slippers
 Constraints for Future Development

• Lack of application of standard techniques for maintenance, quality

control, process planning amongst many small and medium scale
manufacturers

• Lack of product development and low design frequency

• The SME sector is unable to do so due to financial constraints

• Large scale players are reluctant to increase design frequency due to the high
cost of moulds – they prefer to go for higher volumes per mould. On the
contrary if volumes are cut down retail prices would go up, and there is not
many who can afford these prices

• There are no proper manufacturer of soles in Sri Lanka and these

need to be imported. This has resulted in an increase in input
costs.
• There is no recognized design school for footwear designers and
vocational training centre for the footwear industry

• There are no proper leather tanneries and the inability of producing

soft leather

• Lack of a proper local source of raw materials, thereby hindering

design flexibility

• Lack of proper ornaments to facilitate design creation

• Lack of a proper footwear manufacturing machine industry

• Unavailability of latest footwear manufacturing technology due to the

immense cost involved
 Industry Key Success Factors

Skilled labour

Ethical manufacturing practices 5 Supportive industries

3
Technical Knowledge Finishing of items
2

1
Italy
Sri
0 Lanka
China
Footwear Design schools Quality

Vocational Training Facilities Vertical integration

Product Development
Standard Techniques Usage
 Threats

• Imported footwear – huge influx of imported shoes both by official and

unofficial channels have crowded the market

• Environmental regulation – manufacturers need to be constantly aware of

the environmental impact of their production

• Religious views – being a Buddhist country the reluctance in developing a

proper tannery industry

• Laws and regulations – even though the CESS was imposed to encourage
domestic producers; the fact that majority of the raw materials are imported
has acted as a burden on producers

• Reliance on imported accessories and raw materials – variability in lead

times due to lack of consistency in foreign suppliers
 Retailer’s expectations

• Faster design frequency as we operate in a dynamic environment –

comfortable and fashionable designs all the time

• Higher quality and better finishing of the shoes

• High quality leather shoes

• Flexibility in design development – raw materials, ornaments, soles to be

sourced locally

• Shoes targeted at ageing population and diabetes patients – high comfort

• Vertical integration amongst players to ensure better economies within the

industry as a whole
• Improve the efficiency of suppliers in order to cut down end prices
– Sri Lankan footwear industry is highly labor intensive

• Integrated supply chain management

• Tracking technology such as RFID can help inventory

management and use of integrated MRP systems (retailers
should be able to track the stage of completion of
orders/items real time)

• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to ensure that retailers can

track the location of a batch of items real time.

•Requirement of a separate institute for Research and

development in footwear industry