Stronger & Closer Relationship With Brands & Retailers

Asian Textile Business, 2008

Interview

DyStar is working increasingly closer with textile retailers and brands, and is endeavoring to build a stronger relationship.

According to Alan Cunningham, Vice President Textile Solutions, DyStar is an attractive parner for leading retailers and brands because of DyStar's high reputation for quality, innovation and ecological compliance, and not least because of the company's truly global presence.

The company's global headquarters in Frankfurt in the center of Europe, for example, is an ideal location for servicing European brands In addition to finance, marketing and administration, the Frankfurt site functions as a technical competency center with application laboratories and Research & Development activities for the global business as well as customer service for the European market.

The operation base in Charlotte, North Carolina (U.S.) covers sales and customer service for the American textile market, but increasingly the focus is on service to US retailers than for the textile industry. DyStar's subsidiary Color Solutions International especially does a lot of work producing certified color standards for major U.S. retailers such as Walmart and Liz Claiborne, and this is becoming an increasingly important part of its business.

DyStar's commitment to providing a global service for retailers and brands is demonstrated by the recent investments in its Asian operations, particularly the new textile testing business of Texanlab in India, acquired last year, and through a new textile and leather competency center in Shanghai, also inaugurated in 2007.

Business with retailers and brands has grown to become a core part of its operations. DyStar is not only increasingly looking at traditional products to textile mills, but also at services and competency on ecology, environmental matters and solving technical problems in textiles. This is a core competency that DyStar can use with retailers and brands. Although retailers and brands are benefiting from globalization of sourcing markets, they are encountering problems, such as in lead time, communication, technical problems, environmental issues, pressure from NGOs in regard to environmental awareness, etc. Retailers and brands are increasingly realizing that it is good to have a partner like DyStar who has a global set-up and network.

DyStar is the only truly global chemical company whose core business is textiles. Its objective is to accompany its partners along the length of the supply chain, starting with colors and definition of standards, designation of specifications, finding recipes to obtain the right color, ecology requirements, technical consultancy in the mills to apply best available technology, etc.

In the past, DyStar concentrated on ecology and environmental issues. With its tradition as a major German chemical company, this was necessary in accordance with the law. However, DyStar is starting to realize that it can actually provide this know-how and technology when it holds talks with retailers, brands and textile producers and so has launched its "econfidence" program for the highest standards of ecological compliance. Retailers and brands want DyStar as a partner because they want security and the integrity of their brands protected. They see that DyStar can help by offering products and services to avoid such problems so as to maintain their brand image and integrity.