E-Commerce and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will drastically change the way consumers make purchases in a decade or so, Founder Chairman of Cavinkare C.K. Ranganathan said here on Monday.

Presenting the Techno Facts Awards at the CEO Conference SIMA Texpin 2019, organised by Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA), he said millennials were purchasing more things online and the way commerce played out would change as they grew up. He urged the CEOs and entrepreneurs to invest in themselves, change the approach to and ways of doing business, and be in control of the change they want to bring about in their industries.

“We expect situations to change with government intervention. We can, instead, take decisions and choose our path,” he said.

Globally, companies and countries were looking inward. However, Indian textile mills were largely dependent on export and neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam were becoming competitive. In order to overcome these challenges, textile units should focus on four factors: strategy, structure, people, and process.

The more a manufacturing unit was further away from the customers in the value chain, the more pressure would it face to remain efficient and competitive. So, companies should grab opportunities to move closer to customers. The products should also have an edge over others in quality. In the case of HR, “it should be a tight ship,” he said. Digital transformation was changing businesses and technologies were taking up several roles globally, he pointed out.

At the annual meeting of the Association on Monday evening, Ashwin Chandran, Chairman and Managing Director of Precot Meridien, was elected chairman of SIMA for 2019-2020. Ravi Sam, Managing Director of Adwaith Textiles, was elected Deputy Chairman, and S.K. Sundararaman, Managing Director of Shiva Texyarn, the Vice Chairman.

The outgoing chairman of SIMA P. Nataraj said at the annual meeting that the textiles and clothing industry had faced numerous challenges in the past. Its inherent strengths have helped it mitigate the challenges and achieve a sustained growth for several decades. The recent issues that the industry faced was also because of global recession. “Reasonable and timely support from Government coupled with change in the market scenario, both national and international, will help us tide over the current crisis,” he said.