Dear shareholders,
I am pleased to present to you the Annual Report of Iris Clothing Limited for FY 2019-20. At the outset, I hope you and your family are safe. The year under review has been one of the most challenging the world has ever seen. The outbreak of COVID-19 and eventual lockdowns have brought a new order to the world. While it would take time for some sense of normalcy to prevail, I hope all of you are taking good care during these pandemic times.
At Iris, we swam against the tide and finished the year with a strong financial performance. Our revenue during the year has been impacted due to Covid-19 and has declined marginally by 2% as compared with last year and stood at ₹60.93 Crores. PAT stood at ₹3.94 Crores, declining by 22% over the previous year due to first time migration to Ind-AS and Covid-19 circumstances.
This year, we steadfastly focussed on solidifying our business fundamentals, scaling up innovation to cater to the evolving customer preferences. Our strategic framework leverages our key strengths i.e. manufacturing, distribution, innovation, and branding. We have been taking big strides and are confident about the next phase of growth
From having to push our products in the initial days, we are now witnessing a strong pull, and DoReMe© solidified its position as a reputed and trustedbrand. This year, we entered the winter clothing segment by developing a whole new range of fleece sweatshirts, hoodies, and polyfil foam suits for infants and childrens. These new categories will facilitate us to diversify our product portfolio. Going ahead, we intend to launch a dedicated infant wear vertical with a wide range of products. Along with this, we also plan to sharpen our existing product mix under the brand DoReMe© to meet the rising demand for our products.
Our manufacturing excellence is one of our biggest strengths. Steady investments in setting up of new plants and capacity expansion have enabled us to sharpen our edge. You would be delighted to know that we commenced production at our new state-of-theart manufacturing unit in Uluberia, Howrah (West Bengal). The unit will help double our production capacity from 4.2 million units per annum to 9 million units per annum and provide us definite synergies and economies of scale. I am also happy to confirm that most of our manufacturing units are back to pre-COVID-19 levels as we are seeing good traction for our products.
The thrust this year was also on expanding our distribution network and increasing brand visibility. We added 80+ distributors across the country. Particularly, we focused on expanding our presence in Tier II and III cities to propel our product reach. Along with this, we also commenced exports to Africa under DoReMe© brand with plans to scale up in the coming years.
At the same time, we are stepping up our digital marketing and branding initiatives to better mirror the customers’ fast-changing needs. A marked shift is being witnessed in consumer behaviour in terms of growing preference for online shopping. Against this backdrop, retailers will need to continuously innovate to fully tap the opportunities, by deploying the best available technologies, social commerce, and next-generation customer relationship management tools.
We are aggressively expanding our e-commerce sales and are in the process of developing a channel through our website. In addition, we are also undertaking activities to enhance our brand recall and customer connect on social media channels and eventually drive traffic to our exclusive online store. Plans on the anvil also include partnering with e-commerce marketplaces to drive higher sales and venturing into the fast-growing organised retail segment.
A key intervention, among others, has been the improvement in our fabric quality, which has resulted in significant reduction of fabric wastage. We have also enhanced our skilling and training process which in turn, has, resulted in better productivity of our team.
Going forward, we foresee tremendous opportunities to grow in an otherwise underpenetrated organised children’s wear market. The long-term demand driverssuch as growing disposable incomes, rapid urbanisation, evolving customer preferences, greater brand awareness, and internet retailing remain intact. As the Company transforms its approach to customer experience and product marketing, enabled by its cost excellence and talented people, I believe we are well positioned to drive high growth and deliver long-term value to our stakeholders.
Before closing, I would like to extend my gratitude to our employees for their persistent hard work and support. I would also like to thank our distributors, suppliers, partners, bankers, customers and all our shareholders for their unwavering trust and confidence in us.
Warm Regards,
Santosh Ladha
Managing Director
