With double-digit annual growth rate over the past decade, there is a fierce competition for talent and skilled labour to fuel this rapid economic expansion. Competition comes not only from within the apparel industry but also from other rapidly growing industries and services. For Esquel, being competitive does not mean relying on low costs and cheap labour. The company believes that having the most productive, stable and happiest workforce is the key to surviving the heated competition for labour.

Esquel’s high productivity enables it to compete against lower cost manufacturers and to reward its people fairly, although good wages are only one part of the solution. Esquel is working to challenge the misperception that the apparel industry is associated with long working hours in sweat shops, by striving to be one of the first apparel manufacturers in Vietnam to have a zero overtime policy in place.

Aiming to compete by quality, service, innovation and technology, Esquel positions itself as a forerunner in the industry by capturing the dividends of the latest technologies such as robotics, nano technology, cloud computing or even artificial intelligence and turning them into competitive advantages. This echoes the company’s strategy of not reacting to changes in the external environment, but rather to anticipate and lead changes and transformation in the industry and in the market.