Blog

03/02/09 - Indian International Leather Fair

We have just seen the end of the LERIG conference and the Indian International Leather Fair.  The global leather trade is suffering very badly like every other right but the Indian business would appear much better placed than most other leather producing countries.  The Indian leather and the products made from it seem to fit better with the spending intentions, such as they are, of the worlds' consumers. .  I gave a  talk at the fair on some aspects of what is going on and the slides are available on the front page of the blog. It only covers about ten per cent of what I said and all being well I can post a fuller text version within the week. Below is a picture from  the fashion show which was a noisy and powerful event from a very self confidant industry.

Marketers will be aware of the letter written to Richard Branson on the food on one of his flights which has raced round the Internet - http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3890842/Food-on-Virgin-Mumbai---London-flight - and will know the importance of crisis management in all industries. The latest IULTCS statement on toxic sofas is in the marketring pages of this site and well worth reading

( 0 Comment(s) | Post Comment )

28/01/09 - Travelling to Chennai for LERIG and the IILF

Note that I have a leather only blog that seems aftter a couple of years to have a lot of regular readers at:

http://www2.northampton.ac.uk/portal/page/portal/aps/appliedscience/bslt/staff/mike-redwood/mr-weblog

Travelling to Chennai for LERIG and the IILF

After half a year of negative comments all round the world I have to say the couple of experiences I have had with Heathrow T5 in 2009 have been very good.  If you print out your boarding card at home, or in the machines in the departure hall, you can get very quickly from car to lounge.  I also used the pre booking car parking which gives big discounts at most airports (I used it at Stansted the other day) for the short stay park which means a quick walk from the car to departures.

 

So this is now without question a good airport terminal in terms of looks and functionality, and its construction was one of the few big British projects completed on schedule.  What a tragedy that the reputation of Heathrow, BA and the UK in general was so badly damaged by the chaos at the opening.  Bad training, bad testing and using marketing communications, not the least forgetting how much the press and public like to delight in our home grown British errors. All this is a message for making sure your CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) is involved from the start, not doing other peoples' jobs, but contributing to the process, and personally developing the messages that will be sent out. In the leather industry we used to talk about HIPI (Hype it and Pipe it) with the Pipe being all about "post introduction product engineering".  This is all about the fact that in tanneries you often take a new leather to market before bulk loads have been done and the transfer to the big drums frequently produces slightly different results leading to a second round of product development after the first volumes have been sold.  We are not used to Hype It and then.....well crash. So at least if your marketing team have been fully involved in the new product, in creating the messages, and in sending them out then they will be ready to discuss any shortcomings if things go wrong and won't need briefing. And the situation of an operations director running away from press with cameras running can be avoided.

 

But even a good T5 has huge competition in the mind of the modern world traveller. Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore are all destinations frequently used by those who source in Asia, especially in the leather industry. In Europe I have used Vienna (free WiFi which meant I could watch the Obama Inauguration on my laptop) and Eindhoven lately and they were both excellent in comparison with Bristol who seem determined to use security checks to spoil any journey.

 

It is curious then that India has not joined the family of countries with excellent airports. Arriving in Chennai at 1am this morning some improvements are noticeable over the last 20 years but really not many. You do wonder if the planners here have ever visited China. Not just the top airports already mentioned but Chengdu, Xian and Xiamen where the leather people go. Fast and efficient, clean and friendly, most with free WiFi throughout.

 

A recession is a good time to put these infrastructure right and let's hope that during this one India has the money and the will to do so.

 

( 0 Comment(s) | Post Comment )

01/01/09 - Customer Needs and the iTouch

Customer Needs and the iTouch

When marketing a new product or service it is always important to consider what the needs which are being met are. If these are well designed it is easier to define the specific market segment and to refine the product for a perfect fit. It sounds easy and actually is when this process is done thoroughly. I always recommend clients do this and help them with some techniques thinking about explicit, latent (not yet satisfied) or incipient (not yet known). Yet there are some interesting products which do not perfectly fit the mould.

As it turned out the biggest must-have product for Christmas 2008 turned out to be the iPod Touch.  Now the question is what need does it serve? A student project presented to me by my second year group at the University of Bath indicated the three uses for the iTouch - entertainment, communication and information. Apple initially appeared to have made the iTouch only to offer an enhanced iPod with direct communication via WiFi to the iTunes store and a better experience for watching videos.  It borrowed on the technology, design and positive comments of the iPhone.

Changing the way we do things

But technical products have a habit of changing the way we do things. Think of Professor Neil Postman when he said: "If you add technology to a system, you don't get the old system plus technology; you get a new system."  Apple is in the lead in this regard as they produce products which change the way we do things in particular through the way they combine with other products and services.  Remember back in the 1980s when the Apple IIe linked up with VisiCalc to change the world of computers? More recently the iPod had its real success via its linkage with iTunes.

For the iTouch the introduction of "Applications" has been the unexpected success. Many of these applications help improve the fun and experience of the core target users but they also transform the value of the iTouch for quite different types of users with different priorities in the three areas of entertainment, communication and information.  PA Consulting gives them to all their senior managers to download pod casts and videos. Students on campus (where WiFi is normally completely available - certainly in Bath) use them for email and course pod casts as well as music.

The applications are intensely useful for information, with Bloomberg, BBCreader, NY Times, Currency, News UK Lite and Stocks excellent for business people to keep in touch.  All these applications are free. This implies a huge change in the way we do such things as get our news, communicate, and watch video as well as how we work and study. Suddenly the iTouch is solving incipient needs that neither Apple nor their loyal customers dreamed of, and in doing so is changing the way we do things. To do it once with iTunes is clever but to do it again with Applications is quite amazing.

( 0 Comment(s) | Post Comment )

10/10/08 - Bologna next week

With the world economy crashing around us next week in Lineapelle and Tanning Tech in Bologna is going to be of extreme importance to gauge the feelings in the market place.  The impact on orders, on currencies, on over leveraged businesses will all start to come clear. And can we maintain any optimism for the many new things we hope to see.

The one thing we can be sure of is that the food will be as good as ever, as will the company.

23rd October 2008

( 0 Comment(s) | Post Comment )

08/10/08 - Traditional Tanneries of Marrakech

Marrakech Traditional Tanning

In 2000, when I was giving a couple of talks as part of the Meet in Africa symposiums my wife and I stayed on in Morocco and visited the traditional tanneries of Fez. Even spending quite a lot of time down in amongst the pits it was quite hard to get a full detail of what was going: but it was clear that we were observing a mimosa based tannage and dyeing which was reportedly using local natural dyes. And that it had not changed much since the twelfth century

I have just now had the chance to spend a couple of hours in the traditional sector of that other famous Moroccan town Marrakech. The tanneries here all sit in one part of the old city just inside the walls with the river nearby. Like Fez this area of pits is classed as a tourist destination where tourists are asked to delight in surviving this squalor of this famously filthy trade. The smell, the dirt and the untidiness are somehow celebrated as tourists look on with twigs of mint held under their noses. It may seem like harmless fun, but actually this is all bad for the workers and bad for the image of the leather industry.

The Industrial Revolution and Cradle to Grave

Just as in Fez it was quite hard to get full details of the process. The tannage here is a mix of mimosa and a local bark. I do not know the nature of this local material as I write this - we are still searching - but I do know that it comes from forests now much depleted (tanners getting much of the blame) and that the nearest remaining forest is near the capital on the coast Rabat. Actually I have seen papers since returning home saying that tanners were the main ones responsible for five centuries of steady forest decline in Morocco: a serious charge.

We also saw little warehouses selling the chemicals to the tanneries which included chrome from BASF, sodium sulphide and sodium hydrogen sulphide. The chrome tanning is done in little tanneries down the side streets rather than in the main area, using drums in dark satanic rooms with no ventilation and little of anything else. Back in the pits it would appear that individuals own - passed down from father to son - a small group of pits set together along with a shed nearby in which the skins are dried and staked with a moon knife. In Fez a tanner will own a set of individual pits scattered over a large area, as the pits are grouped into liming, tanning and dyeing sections.

The sulphide was lying about open and we did not see any unhairing. Delime and preparation for tanning was done with a bran drench which slowly releases organic acids into the bath to prepare the pelt. The mimosa was in powder form and the locals bark appeared to be ground up only. Tannage in the pits was supposed to be only one week, with higher grades given two weeks. We saw little dyeing, which was much more apparent in Fez.

Plan for Progress: cradle to cradle

Nine hundred years ago in Morocco life expectancy was well under forty, so the fact that a tanner died young was not significant. Now that we are living more healthy lives it is clear that what is going on here is not appropriate for the 21^st century, anywhere in the world. You cannot get away with saying it is "quaint" or "traditional" or important for tourism and employment and in doing so turn a blind eye to proper issues of health and safety. Yet the sector is economically important and cannot just be closed down and forgotten about.

So what can be done? Actually a great deal, and here are some suggestions. First start from embracing the principles of cradle to cradle manufacture, the post industrial revolution approach to product design and to manufacturing. First you would ban all chrome tanning. There is no possibility to tan safely with chromium in these conditions safely and to handle the waste water created. It is not an argument about CrIII or CrVI: chrome tanning of any sort here is wrong.

Second: tidy up. It may be that in the 12^th century people did not accepted walking around in all sorts of dangerous mess but that does not mean it is right to do so today. Odd skins and leather pieces lying in dirty corners, opened chemicals left exposed, and general trimmings and rubbish are not part of anything that can be called "traditional" - they are no more than a health and safety hazard. Odiferous and attractive to vermin.

Third use plungers rather than children to mix chemicals in the pits, and add the skins in manageable numbers in nets. It may be a "macho" thing for the children to jump about in the pits but it is not necessary.

Then let's have a real good look at the process and pick out the good parts. Make sure the local vegetable is from a sustainable source, and if not stick with the mimosa until it can be made so. Reduce all the unhairing chemicals to a minimum and handle the materials with proper care. Look through all the local chemicals used and be sure they are safe and appropriate.

Most of all look at what happens to the effluent. It was not clear from our visit but without chrome and the organic element enhanced then filtering, mixing and settling plus a reed bed might well be enough. The effluent could perhaps then go to the town treatment plant. It should not go to the river.

Having traditional tanneries as a tourist attraction is not a bad idea, but it would be a benefit for Morocco and for the tanning industry if it were not synonymous with filth, life jeopardizing activities, careless handling of dangerous chemicals, labour abuse, and leather which smells so bad that when tourists take it home they find themselves throwing it out. Follow the natural Cradle to Cradle route and both Morocco and the tanning world benefits.

15^th July 2008

( 0 Comment(s) | Post Comment )