Style and Trends

10155 Words41 Pages
STYLES AND TRENDS: STRATEGIC CHOICES In December 1993, Mohammad Ali Tariq, CEO, Styles and Trends met his two partners, Shahzad Elahi and Nadira Sabahuddin to discuss strategic choices for their fledgling knitwear manufacturing company. Whereas they had operated as a small stitching unit serving very limited markets over the last four years, sanctioning of their loan from a financial institution would be the green signal for expanding into a fully integrated unit capable of manufacturing high quality knitwear for major foreign buyers. Tariq recognised that choosing attractive markets in the beginning would be the key to success as the knitwear field was becoming increasingly competitive. To date, Shahzad had managed the bulk of the company's operations with occasional help from Nadir and overall guidance from Tariq, and Tariq wondered if responsibilities and the magnitude and duration would have to change with the onset of the new unit. He wanted to ensure that all the partners understood and agreed on not only the marketing strategy, but also the management requirements the new venture would impose. Though operational pressures had never really allowed the partners to sit back and think of long-term strategies, they had the benefit of a final year MBA project conducted by a four person team from the Lahore University of Management Sciences. The project had drawn extensively on the insights and experiences of several seasoned knitwear experts including the Pakistan specialist at the Swiss firm, Gherzi, the world's leading Textile industry expert. Tariq felt that the study was worth at least a year of S & T management's time and wanted to capitalise on it. COMPANY BACKGROUND Shahzad Elahi, Nadira Sabahuddin, and Mohammad Ali Tariq (see Appendix 1 for profiles) conceived Styles and Trends as part of their Entrepreneurship course project at LUMS in 1988. After much

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