Sclavos´ history traces back to 1948 when the company was established in Athens Greece by Spyros Sclavos and Evangelos Skepariotis. The main business of the company, at the start, was parts manufacturing and repair works for textile machinery. Sclavos, in more than last six decades, has grown tremendously, offering a wide range of solutions for the textile industry. In 1990, Sclavos launched a unique dyeing system called ´Twin Soft Flow´ System with Plaiter and Excess Liquor by Pass, and in 1995, the company developed and launched a revolutionary continuous washing system under the name Aquachron.
In 2012, Sclavos launched the new and ultimate model namely Athena 3, which incorporates new features in fabric dyeing, making this machine the state-of-the-art in the dyeing industry.
In a tete-a-tete with the Editor of the Indian Textile Journal, Sclavos´ Sales Director Spyros Xarchas writes about Sclavos´ performance all these years and its plans for the Indian market.
ITJ Editor: With over 65 years in providing dyeing solutions globally, how do you rate your success and performance all these years?
Spyros Xarchas (SX): Sclavos SA is a manufacturing company from Greece, which is still known for its glorious history, excellent monuments and marvelous climate with beautiful seasides. You can imagine I suppose how difficult it was, and to some extend still is, to persuade the textile society that in such an environment there is not only a manufacturer of fabric dyeing machines but a leader and innovator. We have [however] managed to establish our name and our technology worldwide. The key factor for this success is our devotion to what we do and to our customers worldwide. Sclavos is manufacturing ´only´ fabric dyeing machines and nothing else. It is more than obvious that this specialisation drives to deep knowledge of dyeing technology, you can see the results with many satisfied customers worldwide. So we do believe that our performance all these years is a very good one, anyway the opposite of ´good´ is ´better´ so we keep going with the same devotion and excitement.
ITJ Editor: How has your company been doing in the Indian market? Which are its other strong markets globally?
SX: During the booming period of Indian textile industry, Sclavos had a very good market share, i.e., during 1995 to 2006. During global recession, Indian market has slowed down and this has reflected to our sales also. We see some activity lately, mainly in the South, and we expect to increase our sales in the country. Recently, Arvind Mills in Ahmedabad (Gujarat), after a lot of trials and research, has chosen and trusted one more time Sclavos by investing in our new model Athena 3 for their new expansion at knits section. The same story is also in Maral Overseas.
Another factor affecting our sales here is the fact that not many Indian companies are investing in high-end machinery and they prefer the low-cost Asian machines. This is not at all a winning mentality for a country which, having all the resources, could be more competitive and increase its global market share, currently being low.
Worldwide we have a very big market share in Bangladesh and Indonesia, both very important textile exporters, as well as in Egypt, Pakistan and Central America. We have been exporting in 43 countries worldwide.
ITJ Editor: Can you give us some of the benefits & advantages of some latest systems, which have been accepted widely?
SX: Sclavos is an engineering company and not a marketing one, I mean with that you will never hear from us impressive words and false promises. We know dyeing and dye houses very well and we know what they really need. This