 STRATEGY |
| INTERVIEW OF MR FRANCOIS
WOO, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF COMPAGNIE MAURICIENNE DE TEXTILE LTEE, |
12TH NOVEMBER 1998.
Q. There is no doubt that your company is a real leader in this sector, could
give to our readers a brief historical background of the company as well as your own
professional experience?
A. The Company started its operation 12 years ago with very modest means as a garment
factory employing 30 employees. My partner and myself we are not from a textile
background, he is chartered accountant while I am a human resources specialist, and we
have been working for twelve years professionally in our domain. Ever since we started our
operations, within the first five years we have made an intensive ‘plough back’
of whatever we have earned as profit in order to bring in more capitals. Today, CMT
employs 3,000 people and we are a leader in the manufacturing of light knitwear products.
CMT is a modern, vertically integrated set up and using the latest technology.
Q.Since 1986, you had a growth of more than 26% in terms of turnover, what were
your financial results for last year and what are your forecasts for this year?
A.Despite we have been growing very fast, we have been trying to keep the pace, even
last year we had a growth of 20% though competition is very stiff, if we could have
followed the curve of turnover and the curve of profit in the same way, it would have been
marvellous. But so far, the results have been very good if we compare ourselves to other
companies on the market. Mauritius is a limited market, we have to import all our raw
materials, bringing in additional costs, and we are therefore not ideally placed to be a
textile manufacturer being far from our market. Still with all these disadvantages, we
have that will power which keeps us going we have a dynamic workforce that can adapt and
adjust itself to different situations. We have been making a lot of money over the years
but we have been investing a lot as well, we strongly believe in investment – we have
not only invested in technology or machines, we have invested in our people as well. Last
year we took an important decision of doubling our production capacity, we were producing
1.2 million garments per month and at present we have increased our capacity to 1.8
million. Our goal is to achieve a production of 2.3 to 2.5 million per month. As a matter
of fact we had to invest some 35 million USD in our existing field of activities. The pace
of growth is now sustained with the new unit of production that we launched in La Tour
Koenig.
Q. We can say that creativity, flexibility, quality and profit responses are
the golden rules of the company, could you tell us what are the main guidelines of your
strategy?
A.In view of the enormous difficulties that we shall encounter, we tend to prepare our
people mentally and morally within the workshops that we organise in order to prepare them
to deal in difficult situations. We want to be among one of the best companies in the
world, this is what we want to inculcate to our people that they can strive to be better
everyday. But certainly quality is not something that you offer as premium to anyone, we
want to give to our customers the best quality and the best delivery at all times. Design
and information technology are the cornerstones of this new approach aimed at anticipating
the clients needs.
|
Q. What kind of products do you export to the American market?
A. Unfortunately, we are among the last ones to have entered the textile market in
Mauritius which is a twenty five year old industry, while we have been in operation for
twelve years only, so much so that we do not have any quota on the American market yet.
Presently our whole market is Europe mainly.
Q.When the Africa Bill will be voted, is Mauritius going to play an important
role among the African countries through this opening to the United States?
A.Again we believe that this bill would give a big opportunity to African countries to
develop. We are at present doing very well in the whole African countries; we have
developed well and very quickly. We could play a leading role in other countries of the
region and we are at present in some countries already, like Madagascar. This is a natural
integration, given the geographic location of Madagascar, I see any African countries as
an opportunity to invest- namely Mozambique where Mauritius has established good contact
with the Government there.
Q. Our readers are always interested in new investment opportunities, in which
areas of your activities are you interested to attract some partners or some investors?
A. We have concentrated all our resources even though we know that it is not good to
put all our eggs in one basket- textile is a pretty good way of making some good money if
we look at the past namely in Asia, we believe in long term investment as opposed to the
Asian countries. We have our own way of dealing with our people, we want to be rational
and create a proper working environment.
Q.As a more personal issue what has been your biggest achievement since you
have been the managing director of Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile?
A. The acheivement to me is more the team spirit that we have created, the biggest
asset of the company is our people – without their close collaboration, nothing could
have been achieved.
Q. As a final issue, what would be your final message to our readers?
A. We believe as an entrepreneur of a company, we need to strike the right balance as
we have the capacity to make things happen and also bearing in mind that to succeed we
have to make sacrifices along the way. |
