Sangisathi: Reimagining a sustainable future for handloom in India

• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Author: Devika Trehan,Priyank Sinha
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2415

PRACTITIONER PAPER

Sangisathi: Reimagining a sustainable future for handloom

in India

Devika Trehan

1

|Priyank Sinha

2

1

Department of Communications, Jaipuria

Institute of Management, Indore, India

2

Department of Operations, Indian Institute of

Management Rohtak, Rohtak, India

Correspondence

Devika Trehan, Department of

Communications, Jaipuria Institute of

Management, Indore, MP, India.

Email: devika.trehan@jaipuria.ac.in

This paper describes the journey of the small family owned enterprise called

“Sangisathi,”which aims to build a sustainable business model in handloom sector.

Founders started their operations with the conflicting objectives of empowering small

marginalized weavers and maximizing the profits at the same time. They soon realized

that engaging with small weavers has significant downsides in terms of profitability.

Supplier/weaver selection is very crucial for the survival of Sangisathi in a competitive

environment. It intends to maximize the profit while at the same time, attempts to

engage with small marginalized weavers. This paper shows how various models on sup-

plier selection in literature can be utilized by Sangisathi to optimally trade-off their con-

flicting objectives (profit maximization and engaging with small weavers). Further,

literature on sustainability is referred to evaluate the long-term sustainability of the busi-

ness model.Our discussion on various challengesfaced by Sangisathi andtheir prospec-

tive solutions will be helpful for various other similar handloom aggregator firms.

1|INTRODUCTION

Sangisathi was registered in the year 2015, as a family owned enter-

prise under directorship of Sanjiv Kumar, and Shikha Agarwal. At the

time of its conception, handloom sector in India was characterized by

the abject poverty of handloom weavers, exorbitantly priced hand-

loom products, and unavailability of affordable products of various

ethnic styles in domestic market. According to the founders of

Sangisathi, these characteristics rendered tremendous opportunities

for a handloom aggregator organization. They envisioned an organiza-

tion to promote dying handloom art forms, thereby economically

uplifting the weavers associated with it and to provide customers with

quality products at the competitive price. They further decided to ded-

icate majority of their profits to social, and environment causes like

tree plantation, organic farming, student scholarship, etc. Empowering

the marginalized handloom weavers was no easy feat and the foun-

ders would soon realize it after embarking on this journey.

2|INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

To understand the nuances of the Indian Handloom Industry,

Sangisathi team began its research in year 2015. The team soon

realized that artistry of weavers in this industry profoundly illustrates

the diversity and richness of Indian culture. Each major region of the

country is characterized by its unique handloom artform. However

due to the unorganized and disaggregated nature of the market (sup-

ply and demand), weavers were unable to access it adequately, and

customers were also not offered products at judicious price.

Handloom sector is the second largest employment provider for

the rural population in India after agriculture with over 4.3 million

people directly and indirectly involved in the production. The industry

comprises of about 2.4 million looms scattered throughout the coun-

try. Indian handloom products are well known globally for their unique

designs and finesse. Moreover, India is the second largest exporter of

handloom products after China.

Nearly 15% of cloth production in India is from Handloom sec-

tor.

1

In 2015–2016, the Indian textile market was valued at $137 bil-

lion, with the value of textile and garment exports standing at $40

billion, accounting for 15% of total exports from the country. During

the same period, the handloom sector exported goods valued at

$235.92 million and accounted for 10% of all fabrics exported.

2

How-

ever, state of the domestic market presented a contradictory picture,

as in the year 2013–2014 and 2014–2015, the domestic sale

observed a steady decline. The ministry's latest annual report talked

about the dwindling sales figure of the government-run All India

Received: 6 August 2020Accepted: 19 August 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2415

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2415.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd1of6

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2415