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Working for someone else was never going to be enough for Boobalan Pitchamuthu. The CEO and Co-Founder of Texcoms Worldwide began his career as a textile engineer and progressed through the ranks of several large textile conglomerates in India and Indonesia.
However, while his career taught him about the textile industry, its role in society and the need to conserve the environment, Pitchamuthu dreamt of being his own boss.
“My dream never went away; it just grew bigger and bigger as I gained more experience,” he says. “I also realized that if I worked for someone else, I wouldn’t really be able to make a difference.”
Driven by that urge to be the change, Pitchamuthu shared his dream with two colleagues, Thaker Nagarjun and Bambang Harijanto. Together, they launched a company of their own which has grown to become Texcoms Worldwide with a team of 400. As its name suggests, the company serves customers all over the globe with an international presence on all major continents.
“Throughout this journey, we have preserved our business model of building relationships through trust, integrity and operational excellence,” says Pitchamuthu. “We want to contribute positively to a fast-changing society through recycling of the entire value chain of textiles, from machinery to cotton to fabrics.”
Today, Texcoms’ main source of revenue comes from trading used textile machinery.
“This is our bread and butter,” Pitchamuthu says. “We inject professionalism and integrity in a business traditionally dominated by agents and brokers who work by word of mouth. It’s very disorganized and chaotic but we’ve been able to make improvements by doing things in a more organized, systematic way. Through this, we’ve earnt the the trust of the industry.”
Pitchamuthu sees great potential for Texcoms to continue to improve the professionalism of the textile industry.
“We started by giving a very good after-sales service to our customers,” he says. “So it’s not just about finding the right machines; we also help to install and run them. We stand by our commitments in this industry.
“In doing so, we have created a very good brand for Texcoms. 10–15 years back, nobody would have thought this could happen in the used textile machine business.”
The reason it seemed so unlikely is that trust is generally very low in this business; factories buying second hand are often wary of being sold something that might break down by someone who won’t take responsibility if it does.
“It’s not just about finding the right machines; we also help to install and run them. We stand by our commitments in this industry.”
“I’m very happy to say that many people in this industry don’t know who the founder is, but they do know our company,” Pitchamuthu says. “They know Texcoms is a good company, and we keep our promises. That’s the brand image we have created, and this is the unique feature of our company. There are many people doing this business, but we are one of a kind.”
Having a strong, trusted brand means Texcoms is well-positioned to increase its share of the market exponentially. Pitchamuthu estimates that the used textile machine business is worth between US$3 billion and US$4 billion. Texcoms currently enjoys about US$70 million of that, meaning there is huge potential to expand.
“Our share of the market is still very small,” Pitchamuthu says. “We can still go a long way, expanding to take a 10 percent share, for example.”
Used textile machinery is inherently global. A factory might be closing down in a remote corner of Europe and selling off its machinery at the same time as a textile entrepreneur is just starting up in another equally remote part of Asia.
Texcoms connects the dots between factory and entrepreneur.
“At the beginning, we were doing everything manually and relying on our memories to help manage sales,” Pitchamuthu explains. “As the years went by, we started using tools like Excel spreadsheets and Microsoft Access to keep track of things but the company can’t grow with that kind of setup.
“We began developing our own customized platform which could gather the requirements from thousands of buyers and sellers and help the entire chain of identifying, evaluating, purchasing and selling the machinery.”
This platform, Smart Trade, has become an integral part of the operations of the company.
Texcoms also has plans to diversify beyond its current core verticals by creating a global platform to connect different stakeholders throughout the textile industry. “We see the textile industry overall as highly fragmented, despite its importance,” Boobalan says.
“It’s the biggest industry after agriculture in terms of the jobs it provides to people around the world. Governments and industry leaders all invest in this industry because there are relatively low barriers to entry.
“Texcoms is a good company, and we keep our promises. That’s the brand image we have created, and this is the unique feature of our company. There are many people doing this business, but we are one of a kind.”
The textile industry can’t be organized like other industries as it requires input from the bottom up – grassroot farmers, small time traders, large factories, and retail chains.
“It is also very dynamic and always on the look-out for more efficient machinery, cheaper raw materials, more productive labour and more cost-effective power,” Pichamuthu explains. “It is always in relocation mode too, moving from one costly location to another lower-cost location.
“We cannot streamline the entire industry, we cannot standardize everything. That’s not our aim, and it’s not possible either,” he says. “But we are trying to play a role by creating models which are more structured and more manageable.”
One of the plans the company has is to create a network of all the textile professionals in the world by bringing them under one platform.
“Our aim is to connect employers with talent across the world, to enable expertise to be available on the go and to share knowledge,” Pitchamuthu says. “Once all stakeholders are brought under a single umbrella, we expect other things to fall into place for the overall development of this industry. There will be many players like us, but we will lead from the front.”
“Our aim is to connect employers with talent across the world, to enable expertise to be available on the go and to share knowledge.”
Developing multiple verticals and expanding the company’s global footprint is part of Texcoms’ long-running tradition of remaining agile. The company’s logo, a phoenix, was chosen specifically to relect the belief in helping used machinery to be ‘reborn’. But it also has another meaning; the core ideology that change is constant.
“With every change, Texcoms has become stronger, wiser and more agile in each stage of its existence,” says Pitchamuthu. “We move with the changing requirements of the world.”
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