Gokaldas Exports, one of the leading apparel exporters of India, has said that PPE manufacturing was instrumental in protecting it from the impact of pandemic.
Apart from this, the company managed to cut costs, rationalise capacity and streamline operations.
Sivaramakrishnan G, MD & CEO of the company shared this with analysts.
He said, “We seized the opportunity to design and manufacture PPE and became one of the largest producers of the product during the early pandemic. This brought in revenue to the extent of Rs. 80 crore during the year and substantial cash flows to tide over the financial deficit during the early part of the year.”
He further added that that when the first COVID-19 wave struck, the company had order cancellations and realignments, payment deferral and operations closure, resulting in a stressed first half of FY21. The third-quarter saw a constrained order flow as the customers were holding excess inventory from spring 2020.
To tide over the COVID-19 crisis, the company also consciously reduced its exposure to Indian retail customers to minimise credit risk.
“We then returned to business normalcy from Q4 onwards. With all these efforts we could contain an overall export sales drop to just about 9 per cent over the previous year,” he said.
The company also ensured high efficiency in its manufacturing process, controlled cost well, contained working capital deployed and improved connection with our customers. Thus, despite a drop in revenue the company delivered a superior EBITDA margin for the year as compared to the previous one.
It is also pertinent to mention here the company faced criticism as it closed one of its factories. Later, the workers of this unit were adjusted into other factories of the company.
Now the company is also investing in Madhya Pradesh and is coming up with a new unit.
