For my second engagement, I conducted an interview with Mr. Syed Asad Ali, a factory owner and director in two apparel manufacturing companies. Whereas my first engagement was with a representative of a buyer within the industry, Mr. Ali acts as a manufacturer, the other key component within the supply chain.

Unlike my previous interview, for which I had extensive information to go over and with which to prepare regarding the company my interviewee represents, I didn’t have much here. As such, I prepared myself by going over the notes I took from the previous engagement, and preparing a list of guiding questions, like I had done before. Yet again, I found these guiding questions to be useful conversation-starters, with me then coming up with more detailed question on-the-fly as the conversation progressed.

Yet again, I found that the interview flowed very well, perhaps even better than the first one. It too went on for longer than anticipated, and there was never a point at which I found myself running out of things to ask or say. Whereas my first interview often was about larger initiatives and the state of the industry as a whole, this interview tended to focus more on the nitty-gritty and specific details regarding practices within the supply chain. I suspect that this balance will be beneficial for me when writing the final report, as it evens both perspectives out and provides me with a multitude of angles from which to approach the issue.

One point that Mr. Ali repeatedly emphasized was that Bangladesh is often grossly underestimated and not given as much credit as it deserves as a strong manufacturing hub. He says that certain incidents such as the 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse have stained Bangladesh’s reputation on the world stage, and many people wrongfully dismiss it as an impoverished country incapable of being a dependable source of manufacturing. I also briefly touched on this in my first engagement, and this is something I suspect will run throughout my final report: the idea that Bangladesh is a very dependable textile manufacturing hub and has tremendous potential for the future.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I gathered from this engagement was that I noticed slight contradictions and disagreements between Mr. Ali’s perspective and the perspective of the interviewee from my first engagement. Though they agreed on most things, there were moments when I could tell that they had certain underlying attitudes that were very different from each other. This is something that I’ll talk about in more depth in my report, and should serve as an interesting and rich talking point- the different perspectives of different figures within the industry.