Piyasree Dasgupta profiles the 27-yr-old fabric merchandiser who is moving in top gear

Neha Bhatia
At 27, chirpy Neha Bhatia comes across as just another girl-next-door. It’s difficult to picture her cracking numbers, mulling over complicated financial reports, scouting through dingy markets for fabrics and haggling with hard-nosed shopkeepers.

Bhatia had been working with HSBC Bank as a financial planning manager for almost two-and-a-half years when she decided to float her own venture. And from finances to fabric merchandising, changing gears seems to have come easily to her.

“I floated Kutz N Stichez one-and-a-half years back. I specialise in fabric merchandising, i.e. in the designing and manufacturing of T-shirts and caps etc to suit one’s requirement. I usually deal with corporate clients where the company’s logo or a message is either printed or embroidered on the surface of a tailor-made product,” explains Bhatia.

An unusual choice for a designer you wonder. But then, there’s some smart business thinking that went behind the venture. “If it’s all about creative satisfaction, I would rather have my job and do odd designing stuff for entertainment. However, I wanted to float a profit-making venture,” she says.

Come to think of it, even the smallest companies provide employees with custom-made tees, caps, bags etc and there are very few people completely devoted to that sort of merchandising. “I deal with product and company promotions, sports events, school apparel, clubs and retail organisations,” says Bhatia.

It wasn’t easy to give up a cushy job for an endeavour in a field that is not known widely for its success stories. “But then, I realised if my employers could be happy with me, I was a performer for sure. So why not work for yourself than working for somebody else,” says the pass-out of Loreto House.

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