Lifestyle

An Apparel & Accessory industry professional with 22 years of extensive experience in Product Development, Sourcing, Strategy, Material Management & People development. In my tenures with previous organisations I have worked in Global & Country leadership roles & successfully managed teams with diverse cultural backgrounds.,I am passionate about products, analytics and developing people and have great interpersonal skills. , 

The role involves working with the Regional Quality structure in Asia, and driving process improvement across 250+ factories in Footwear, Apparel & Equipment with a Quality team of 100+ people.
Implementation of a harmonized VF quality standard across all factories & regions, setup mechanism to track relevant KPI, analyze performance and communicate with Sourcing & other related functions enabling prudent Sourcing decisions.
A key initiative has been the rollout plan for VF Vendor Certification Program across Asia manufacturing base, with the objective of training factories Certified Auditors on self inspections, while VF quality team focuses on more upstream functions in product development, testing & preventive checks in line production processes to ensure quality end of line.
Development of teams in Regions have been a focus area, driving ownership & faster decision making process on quality issues on the ground & related corrective action follow up.

DIRECTOR PROCESS IMPROVEMENT & ANALYTICS

A multi-dimensional role including Product Development, Sourcing Strategy, Material Management, Production and Management of regional offices. This role encompasses 40% of the Global Sourcing volume for the brand across multiple locations, with an extremely agile team of 70 people Globally.
Product Development- Development & commercialization of Global SMU range through Regional Creation Centers located in Hong Kong, Boston and Germany. The Development teams under me in these locations, catered to the market needs in USA, Europe & Asia with specific product lines geared towards Key accounts, own Retail and ECom.
Apart from Global SMU, development teams at Regional offices in India, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey & Mexico, cater to the local needs of individual sales subsidiaries to support business growth of these markets.
The Development process across all locations involves very close collaboration with Sales, Retail, Merchandising & design, to develop and deliver products according to the requirements of the end customer of the Countries, in very short lead times.
Material Management- Raw material played a key component in the development of the product. This involved identifying mills in different regions, working with design teams to select the right fabrics & trims for the product, Organizing Mill meetings with design & product teams, cost negotiations with mills, ensuring the right quality of the material was delivered & tracking performance of suppliers to ensure on-time delivery performance & future strategies.
Speed to market was essential for the regional range development, therefore fabric sourcing bases were developed in North & Latin America and Turkey to cater to the near shoring initiative for the brand, as well to avail duty benefits for US & Europe markets. As majority of the products were of shorter lead-time, I had set up mechanisms of booking greige fabrics on auto replenishment basis. Materials handled included knits, wovens and performance fabrics. Sustainability was a key focus in material sourcing strategy

Sourcing & Production-Manage Branch Offices in India, Mexico & El Salvador, Brazil, Argentina, Mauritius & Madagascar, South Africa, Turkey and Portugal. The Branch operations include end-to-end management involving Development, Order Management, Production, Quality and logistics. These locations supported Global as well as Regional business growth for the Brand by providing production closer to markets, enabling speed & flexibility.
Sourcing Strategy- A key aspect of my profile is to formulate the Sourcing Strategy for the various Puma Sales subsidiaries. This involves analyzing the needs of the different Sales regions in terms of product, cost & timelines by closely interacting with the Sales teams in understanding their yearly & seasonal targets.
These targets are then aligned to the correct Sourcing locations in terms of Product Capabilities, available Capacities, Costs, Duty benefits as well as logistics timelines to deliver the required products in the right quality, price points & lead times that would enable the Countries to achieve growth.
Key Achievements in this role-
• Consistently delivered range margins for key accounts & regional product ranges  by choosing the correct materials vis-à-vis  the product feature and target cost as well as close negotiations with factories

• Established Sourcing office in Mexico for Puma North America & Latin America in 2016 and expanded the supplier base to address the growth in USA & Latin America. The branch has achieved a 20%+ growth YOY.
• Restructured the team in Turkey to support the needs of Europe markets. This included changes in structure, process, people and order management systems to service markets with faster products, cost & response time.
• Restructured the Regional Creation Center from "Development" approach to a "Partnership" approach with Sales & Merchandising to deliver Key account specific products for different Regions. Established "Development@ Source" model for speed & agility in all Branch offices for Global business. The RCC business grew by 35% in 2018 vs 2017
• Established sourcing from Mauritius & Madagascar for Europe in 2017 in line with the Brand's growth plan for Europe.
• Restarted Global business in India to address capacity needs in Asia in 2018
• Opened Sourcing office in Portugal in 2018 to cater to the Brand's growth in Europe for Capacity & Speed.

DIRECTOR DEVELOPMENT-APPAREL

After stabilizing the Sourcing Operations in India, I was offered a profile in Hong Kong to work on the Quality parameters for the division and structure the sourcing strategy for the Brand. This involved close interaction with other stakeholders like Sales, Retail and Merchandising of different Countries to these regions, understand their needs & incorporate them as part of the Sourcing roadmap.
A major part of this profile was to run projects on efficiency of sourcing process & provide visibility in form of concise reports to the stakeholders enabling right decision making.

Key Achievements in this role-

• Ran project on Quality systems in factories & rationalized need of Puma QA per location vs business allocations
• Operationalized Material tracking visibility & Fabric mill performances, which directly impacted the On-time performance for Sourcing

• Set up the operating model for Local-4-Local (regional) business from capacity planning, order flow and logistics with the Global Order Management Team.
• Established the development process for Local-4-Local to cater to the short lead time needs of individual regions.
• Formulated the Sourcing Roadmap for the Brand to cater to regionalized sourcing locations outside Asia to address the growth in business & need for capacity for the next 3 years.
• Established reporting structure of the division's various budgets along with Finance from a Sourcing & Production perspective for better allocation decisions based on cost of location vis-a-vis volume of business.

HEAD OF QUALITY & PROJECT MANAGEMENT

As Country Sourcing Manager, the core responsibility was to stabilize the sourcing base in India as well as form the right team structure. India was a growing market for Puma and there was a need to establish a local sourcing format for Puma India, besides the existing International procurement format. The performance targets were achieved within the first 8 months, with a tighter & efficient team.
Key achievements in this role-
• Consolidated factories from 22 smaller establishments to 12 core manufacturing partners, who offered expandable capacities in response to business growth.
• Established Local-4-Local business model for India market which was later replicated to other regions. This entailed close working with Puma India Sales Subsidiary.
• Achieved KPI for the region in terms of delivery, cost & quality.
• Established a tighter team with solid 2nd line functional heads.

COUNTRY SOURCING MANAGER

I joined adidas India as Manager Merchandising in 2003. The India office was in its nascent stage at that time and I was involved in forming the Apparel sourcing team for the Brand. Since the Sourcing was primarily for the India Market, there was extensive interaction with Sales & Retail, which gave valuable exposure on the operations of a brand at a country level. In the 8+years I spent in adidas, I was regularly promoted & left the organization as Head of Sourcing- Apparel & Accessories in 2011.
My key achievement in adidas was to establish factories which were at par in infrastructure, processes & compliance with other Far East establishments, while capable of handling the flexibility & speed necessary for local sourcing. From a team perspective, the 2nd tier of managers was ready to take up my role without need for external hire.
I also set up fabric & trim nomination for the 1st time in adidas India to ensure right pricing & consistent material development process.

HEAD-APPAREL SOURCING

TCNS was one of the well-established Manufacturing houses in India. As Manager Merchandising, my responsibility was to ensure accounts were serviced from product development till ex-factory. This included costing, development & merchandising, coordination with buying offices as well as internal production, quality & logistic teams. Accounts I headed included Banana Republic, where I managed the 1st knits shipment from India, Abercrombie & Fitch, May Departmental Stores, Nike and Reebok.

MANAGER MERCHANDISING

where I joined as a junior Merchandiser. Being a mid-size organization, it gave me a substantial shop floor experience in production & quality.

JUNIOR MERCHANDISER

I joined U.R. Dimensions, a small scale buying office as a Management Trainee for 6 months, post which I worked in Manufacturing houses for the next 5 years. The hands-on experience of production & related functions gave me a good base for the next stages of my career.

MANAGEMENT TRAINEE, U.R. DIMENSIONS

Find out detailed information about Malini Narula,  in Hong Kong, HK

Malini Narula: in Hong Kong, HK

Malini Narula

DELHI UNIVERSITY

Indian Institute of Fashion Technology

Junior School

Manchester Business School

Sri Venkateshwara College, Delhi University