036. Manufactured x GIZ FABRIC: Anne Patricia Sutanto on Why She Values Openness Over Sales

This is part two of our converstion with Anne Patricia Sutanto, Vice President of PT Pan Brothers Tbk. Pan Brothers is a manufacturing company based in Indonesia, and their story is pretty remarkable. When Anne started working for the company back in 1997 they had 2000 workers. Fast forward to the present and Pan Brothers employs over 35,000 workers.

In this episode, Anne gets into what’s positioned Pan Brothers to be able to pick and choose the brands it works with and why she values openness over sales. She also shares her advice to smaller manufacturers struggling to see beyond day-to-day cash pressures, her thoughts on open costing and whether brands know how much of a factory price goes towards labor costs, and her conviction that suppliers will never succeed at turning injustice into justice without optimism and positive energy.

Want to dig deeper ?

The FABRIC project is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and supports the Asian textile industry in its transformation towards fair production for people and the environment.

We also want to highlight that GIZ Fabric has a great online seminar series called “Getting Through the Crisis Together: Asian Dialogues on Sustainability in the Textile and Garment Industry.” Anne was a speaker on the ninth seminar within this series. All the seminars are free and available online, and we highly recommend checking them out.

Find out more about Pan Brothers Tbk.

Learn more about open costing, and why Kim isn’t convinced that ringfencing labor costs is the best way to ensure workers earn decent wages.

Watch this explainer video, which offers a factory perspective on how to ensure workers earn a decent living.