Indian Must Upskill Leadership, Managers, and Shopfloor to Stay Globally Competitive

Your projects span diverse hubs such as Kanpur, Nagpur, and Noida. Do you see regional variations in skill availability and quality? If so, how can localised training models address these differences without compromising on global competitiveness?
Abhishek Yugal: When we look at India’s apparel hubs, skill levels vary less by geography and more by the maturity of the cluster. Noida, for example, has been servicing global buyers for decades, which means operators and supervisors there are exposed to international compliance and efficiency standards. Kanpur, in contrast, has a strong legacy in leather and uniforms, but its apparel workforce is still catching up with lean practices and modern efficiency metrics. And in emerging hubs like Nagpur or similar Tier-2 clusters, enthusiasm and availability of manpower are high, but the skill base is very raw and requires structured induction right from day one.

That is why a one-size-fits-all skilling approach does not work. The maturity of the cluster has to dictate the design of training. In established hubs, the need is to upskill mid-management in digital tools, MES dashboards, and compliance-led operations. In legacy hubs, the focus should be on shifting operators from traditional piece-rate mindsets to productivity-linked, quality-driven approaches. And in newer hubs, the priority is to instill foundational discipline, basic sewing proficiency, and multiskill training that builds adaptability into the workforce from the beginning.

What is critical is that while the delivery of training is localised, the outcomes must be global. Every factory, whether in Noida, Kanpur, or Nagpur, should be measured against the same KPIs — efficiency, right-first-time quality, and on-time delivery. This ensures localisation does not compromise competitiveness, but rather strengthens it. In fact, the mantra I hold to is simple: hyperlocal in content, global in outcome.

Groyyo’s projects often integrate technology solutions. How do you assess the current readiness of India’s apparel sector workforce to adopt and leverage such technologies effectively?
Abhishek Yugal: India’s apparel sector is at an important transition point. On one hand, we see a growing appetite for technology — from MES dashboards and IoT sensors to AI-enabled quality checks and digital production boards. On the other hand, the readiness of the workforce to fully adopt and leverage these solutions is still catching up. The challenge is not in the availability of technology, but in the capacity of people to use it effectively.

At the leadership level, many investments in technology are made because buyers demand compliance or visibility. But unless senior management understands and believes in the business value of tech — as a driver of efficiency, cost control, and faster decision-making — adoption tends to remain superficial. Mid-management is equally critical. Planners, industrial engineers, and quality managers are the translators between software providers and shopfloor teams. Yet, many of them lack the training to interpret data, run root-cause analysis, or coach their operators to use these systems. Without this middle layer, technology ends up being underutilised.

At the operator level, readiness is less about resistance and more about communication. When technology simplifies their work — for instance, skill matrices or line-display boards that show real-time targets — operators embrace it quickly. But if systems are overly complex, poorly explained, or not localised in language, adoption naturally suffers. I’ve seen this first-hand: unless people are coached on data discipline, even the best dashboards produce poor insights.

Bridging this gap requires a layered approach. Leaders must be trained on the business case for tech adoption, managers on how to interpret and apply data in daily decisions, and operators on practical usage. In one of my projects, creating small cohorts of “digital champions” inside factories proved invaluable — they bridged the gap between software vendors and the shopfloor, ensuring adoption. Ultimately, India’s factories are buying technology faster than they are building the skills to use it. True readiness will come only when leaders, managers, and operators are trained together — so that technology is not just installed, but embedded into the very rhythm of daily decision-making.

With global buyers demanding stringent compliance and quality standards, what steps should Indian apparel manufacturers take to embed quality assurance skills—not as a separate department’s function, but as an organisation-wide mindset?
Abhishek Yugal: With global buyers today, compliance and quality are no longer differentiators — they are entry tickets. One lapse in quality or a compliance violation can jeopardise not just an order but an entire business relationship. And yet, in many Indian factories, quality assurance is still seen as the responsibility of a separate QA department, rather than as an organisation-wide mindset. That approach may have worked when buyers were more forgiving, but in today’s market, it is simply not sustainable.

The mindset shift that needs to happen is this: quality must be built-in, not inspected-in. Every operator, supervisor, and manager has to see quality as part of their job description, not someone else’s checklist. When QA remains reactive, factories spend time firefighting rework and claims; when it becomes proactive, factories gain speed, consistency, and trust.

There are very practical steps manufacturers can take. It starts at the top, with leadership linking quality directly to profitability — fewer reworks, faster approvals, fewer returns. At the operator level, training people to perform self-checks and giving them the confidence to stop the line if defects are recurring creates accountability from day one. For supervisors and mid-management, the emphasis must be on root-cause analysis, mistake-proofing, and layered process audits, so defects are prevented rather than detected late. Most importantly, quality metrics should be integrated into every department’s KPIs — production, planning, even maintenance — not just the QA team.

I have seen how effective this shift can be. In one factory, when we introduced right-first-time dashboards at the line level and made teams directly accountable for their RFT scores, rework dropped sharply. More importantly, people took pride in producing “zero-defect” batches — quality became a habit, not a formality. To me, the formula is simple: quality is not a department; it is a habit. When factories shift from checking quality at the end to building quality at every step, compliance stops being a burden and instead becomes a competitive advantage.

Many skill development programmes in India focus on machine operators and shop-floor workers. In your experience, how equally important is upskilling mid-level management—such as production planners and quality controllers—in driving long-term competitiveness for apparel manufacturers?
Abhishek Yugal: In India, most skilling programmes tend to focus heavily on machine operators and shop-floor workers. That is important, of course, but in my experience, the real missing middle lies at the level of production planners, industrial engineers, and quality controllers. This layer of mid-level management is the true bridge between strategy and execution. They are the ones who translate buyer requirements into production realities, who interpret data, and who drive the daily decisions that ultimately determine whether a factory delivers on time and at the right quality.

If we neglect their upskilling, we end up with factories that have strong hands but weak minds. Operators may be trained to run machines, but without skilled planners and supervisors, efficiency gains are short-lived. For example, a well-trained operator can stitch quickly, but if planning is poor or quality control remains reactive, you still end up with overtime, delays, and rework. Mid-management is also the layer that enables adoption of lean, SMED, and digital solutions — without their capability, even the best investments in technology fail to deliver ROI.

The long-term competitiveness of Indian manufacturers will be decided not just by how fast operators can sew, but by how smartly mid-management can plan, problem-solve, and lead. This means we need structured, role-specific training frameworks for this group — production planners trained in data analysis and constraints management, quality teams trained in root-cause analysis and mistake-proofing, and IEs trained in lean tools and digital dashboards. Crucially, this training has to be applied on the shopfloor through real problem-solving projects, not just classroom sessions.

I have witnessed how impactful this can be. Whenever planners and supervisors were equipped with the right skills, the entire system became more stable — efficiency was sustained, quality became preventive, and scaling up no longer eroded margins. In my view, operators may run the machines, but mid-level managers run the factory. If we want India’s apparel industry to remain globally competitive, their upskilling cannot be optional — it has to be central.