Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Bat Shoes -know about

Bata Shoes is 112 years old
Bata Shoes is headquarted at Lausanne, Switzerland. A family-owned shoe company, it now operates in 68 countries. It serves 1 million customers per day and employs more than 40,000 people. It has production facilities across 26 countries. The company has sold 14 billion pairs of shoes so far.
Tomas Bata founded the company in 1894 in Zlin in the Czech Republic. Tomas Bata's family had been cobblers for generations so it was only natural for him to open a shoe company. Tomas had a good sense of social consciousness, was keen on employee welfare and social life. He helped modernise his hometown providing employment and housing facilities to his employees. He also became the mayor of Zlin. In 1932, Tomas Bata died in a plane crash and his step-brother Jan Antonin Bata became the company head. Under his leadership, the company grew and spread throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and North Africa
Thomas G Bata, grandson of Tomas Bata took over the company in 2002. The company then formed a new international structure to focus on the business in each region, especially in sourcing and product development. Bata opened innovation centres around the world to focus on making more comfortable shoes in new designs. In 2004, Bata forayed in China by opening the Bata procurement centre in Guanzhou and a distribution partnership for Bata retail stores.

The Bata Shoe Museum is located in Toronto, Canada. Founded by the Bata family, in 1995 it is dedicated to the history of footwear. The five-storey, 39,000 square foot building, has shoes from the private collection of Sonja Bata, wife of Thomas J Bata. Designed by Raymond Moriyama, the museum has a collection of over 10,000 shoes. From Chinese bound foot shoes and ancient Egyptian sandals, it has shoes from the 1500s. This unique museum also has on display some of the most glamorous designs.
Bata India is India's biggest manufacturer and marketer of footwear. Bata set up its first factory in Konnagar in 1931, which was later shifted to Batanagar. Incorporated as Bata Shoe Company Pvt Ltd in 1931, the company went public in 1973 and changed its name to Bata India Ltd. It has five factories in India--Batanagar, West Bengal (1936), Bataganj, Bihar (1942), Faridabad, Haryana (1951), Peenya, Karnataka (1988), Hosur, Tamil Nadu (1994). Bata is known for quality leather, rubber, canvas and PVC shoes in wide-ranging designs and styles at affordable prices. Bata India has two tanneries at Batanagar and at Mokamehghat (Bihar), second largest in Asia.

No comments: