P.S. Exports & Consolidates Pvt. Ltd.
Website:
psagroupindia.com
Job details:
About the Group
The Prakriti Group of Companies is a diversified, multi-sector business group with operations across apparel manufacturing, textiles, food processing, hospitality, and healthcare. Founded in 1973 by Mr. Ranjit Shah and now led by Mr. Ranvir Shah, our Group has grown from its roots as a Chennai-based garment manufacturer into a diversified enterprise with presence across Apparel Manufacturing, Textiles, Food Processing, Hospitality, and Healthcare.
For more details, visit us at
https://www.theprakritigroup.com
About the Company
For over 50 years, P.S. Exports & Consolidates (previously P.S. Apparels) has been a trusted partner for brands in North America, Europe, and Japan, crafting high-quality woven garments with a focus on sustainability. Our vertically integrated supply chain ensures meticulous quality control at every stage.
Our head office in Kelambakkam is our base for corporate as well as design, library, archives and merchandising. Our NYC design studio allows us to deliver innovative designs to our clients. Our New York office (OMTC) supplements research and design activity.
Role Purpose
The AGM – Merchandising is the senior buyer-facing leader of the unit and the most senior merchandising executive in the Unit. The role carries end-to-end accountability for the order book — from enquiry and costing, through product development and sampling, fabric and trim sourcing coordination, T&A calendar discipline, pre-production signoffs, in-line liaison, and shipment hand-off — across the assigned buyer portfolio.
The incumbent is the bridge between the international buyer and the manufacturing floor. The AGM – Merchandising owns critical-path health on every order, leads the merchant team, and is personally engaged with sourcing and quality counterparts on key buyer accounts.
This is a commercially sharp, technically grounded role. The successful candidate is expected to read a costing sheet as confidently as a tech-pack, run a fit comment translation on the cutting room floor, and represent the business at a buyer’s sourcing-VP table.
Key Result Areas
Buyer Account Management
- Senior plant-side relationship owner for assigned international buyers and brands across North America, Europe, and Japan.
- Lead seasonal review meetings, capacity bookings, sourcing-strategy alignment, and roadmap discussions with buyer counterparts.
- Drive on-time-delivery (OTD), order fill rate, claim/chargeback reduction, and buyer scorecard improvement.
- Personally engage on escalations, audits, vendor-rating reviews, and strategic meetings.
- Grow share-of-wallet within existing buyer accounts and support the General Manager on new-buyer development.
Order Acceptance, Costing & Margin
- Own the costing engine — fabric, trims, CMT, overheads, finishing, freight, duty drawback, and margin loading.
- Approve costings within delegated authority; recommend prices for General Manager approval beyond authority limits.
- Negotiate with buyers on pricing, MOQ, lead-time, and commercial terms in alignment with the approved margin floor.
- Drive style-level margin discipline, bid hit-rate, and order conversion against the annual operating plan.
T&A and Critical-Path Management
- Own the T&A (time & action) calendar from order receipt to shipment for every PO across the buyer portfolio.
- Run the weekly critical-path review with merchants, sampling, sourcing, and production.
- Pre-empt slippages on fabric in-house, trim in-house, PP sample approval, size-set, and PCD (planned cut date).
- Lead exception management and recovery plans on at-risk orders; escalate early to the General Manager.
Sampling & Product Development
- Lead the sampling pipeline — proto, fit, size-set, PP, GPT, TOP — with target lead-times per buyer and per development stage.
- Partner with the design and product-development team (head office Kelambakkam, NYC design studio, OMTC) on new-season collections, fabric stories, and innovations.
- Drive fabric, finish, and silhouette innovation relevant to woven categories — shirts, trousers, dresses, blouses, jackets, outerwear, and casual wear, as applicable.
- Own sampling-cost recovery, sample yield, and sample-room productivity.
Sourcing Coordination — Fabric & Trims
- Coordinate fabric and trim sourcing strategies in alignment with the General Manager and the sourcing/finance teams.
- Manage approved-supplier lists, lead-time commitments, and back-up vendor depth for fabric mills, processors, and trim suppliers.
- Drive fabric and trim on-time in-house performance, lab-dip and shade-band approval cycles, and bulk-fabric clearance.
- Liaise with mills, processors, and trim suppliers on quality and delivery escalations.
Pre-Production & Production Liaison
- Lead pre-production meetings with QA, IE, production, and sourcing to ensure first-piece readiness.
- Own PP sample sign-off, technical-pack interpretation, BOM accuracy, and special-process briefing (washing, embroidery, printing, garment-dye).
- Hand off clean, fully approved files to the production floor; remain the single escalation point during in-line execution.
- Coordinate with the AGM – Operations on capacity bookings, line allocation, and shipment readiness.
Shipment, Documentation & Commercial
- Drive on-time shipment, ex-factory adherence, and CHA / freight-forwarder coordination.
- Oversee export documentation accuracy — invoice, packing list, COO, GSP, BL, and buyer-specific paperwork.
- Drive cash-conversion cycle in coordination with finance — receivables follow-up, claim closure, and shipment-to-billing discipline.
- Track and report buyer-wise margin, OTD, and order-book health to the General Manager.
Buyer Compliance & Audit Readiness
- Coordinate buyer technical, social, and security audits in partnership with operations and HR/compliance.
- Ensure buyer-protocol adherence on packaging, labelling, ticketing, carton specs, and barcoding.
- Maintain audit-trail documentation on approvals, sample signoffs, and deviations.
- Team Leadership & Capability Building
- Build, coach, and retain a high-performing merchant team mapped to buyer accounts and product categories.
- Develop second-line successors; rotate merchants across accounts for resilience and depth.
- Drive merchant productivity — orders per merchant, T&A discipline, costing accuracy, and buyer-communication quality.
- Set the standard for buyer communication — written, on-call, and in-person.
Candidate Profile
Education
- Graduate in any discipline — Apparel / Fashion / Textile / Engineering background preferred.
- Postgraduate qualification in Apparel Merchandising / Apparel Production / Fashion Management from NIFT, NID, Pearl Academy, ATDC, or an MBA (Marketing / Operations) from a reputed institute is preferred.
Experience
- 10–15 years of progressive experience in apparel merchandising for an export-oriented woven garments operation.
- Minimum 4–6 years as a Sr. Merchandising Manager / Merchandising Manager leading a buyer-facing merchant team.
- Track record of having owned major international buyer accounts (North America / Europe / Japan) — including independently leading seasonal price negotiations, costing-table reviews, and capacity-planning dialogues.
- Hands-on across woven categories — shirts, trousers, dresses, blouses, jackets, outerwear, casual wear — as applicable to the buyer mix.
- Familiarity with the Chennai / Tamil Nadu apparel cluster — fabric mills, processing units, trim sources, and CHA/forwarding ecosystem — is strongly preferred.
- Career path must be merchandising-led with full order-cycle ownership; pure-design, pure-sourcing, or pure-PD-only paths will not fit this role.
Functional Competencies
- Deep costing fluency — fabric consumption, CMT build-up, overhead loading, freight/duty drawback, margin levers.
- Strong T&A and critical-path discipline; comfort running multi-buyer, multi-style PO books concurrently.
- Solid technical-pack interpretation, fit-comment translation, and BOM accuracy.
- Sound understanding of woven fabric structures (poplin, twill, oxford, dobby, satin, denim, corduroy, herringbone, etc.), washing, finishing, and trims.
- Comfort with PLM, ERP, and buyer portals (e.g., GT Nexus, Tradestone, NuOrder, and buyer-specific systems).
- Working knowledge of buyer compliance frameworks — SA8000, BSCI, Sedex, WRAP, GOTS, BCI, OEKO-TEX, Higg.
- Buyer-grade English writing and conversational skills.
Leadership Competencies
- Buyer-grade communication — confident representing the business to senior buyer counterparts at sourcing-VP and quality-VP levels.
- Calm, structured, and outcome-oriented under T&A pressure.
- People leadership — proven ability to build, coach, and retain merchant teams.
- Commercial sharpness combined with shop-floor empathy — equally comfortable on a costing review and in a PP meeting on the production floor.
- Integrity and ownership — operates as the order-book owner, not as a coordinator.
Personal Attributes
- High energy and stamina across long T&A cycles and peak shipment seasons.
- Calm under pressure during fabric delays, fit re-iterations, and shipment escalations.
- Strong command of English language; working knowledge of Tamil mandatory.
- Open, listening leadership style; accessible to merchants and to the production floor.
- Willing to travel to buyer offices, mills, exhibitions, and group sites as required.
- Willing to handle calls with buyers and design studios in late evenings (US/EU time-zone overlap).
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