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India’s First PE Tubular Film for Dry Bulk Container Liners Realising a Dream
Q. In this journey of 40 years from being a one plant to a multiple plant and multiple location company, which are the top three milestones that you think have been most impactful so far?
The top three milestones that have been most impactful in the journey so far include:
l Commissioning of the 3-layer blown film line in 2006 to manufacture up to 5.5-metre-wide PE tubular film for dry bulk container liners, thus making Bengaluru a global hub of the container liner industry - a first in India, l Achieving four figure sales in a month, surpassing 1,000 MT in August 2009 and never slipping ever since, and
l Setting up a 5-layer fully automated barrier film line sourced from Germany in 2012.
Anil Kabra
Managing Director, Synthetic Packers Pvt. Ltd., Bengaluru
Q. How do you incorporate sustainability in your processes?
An interesting initiative undertaken by Synthetic Packers (Synpack) is its commitment towards fostering green practises in tandem with the global shift
towards more sustainable living. The company has recycling machines where 99.9% of the in-house waste generated is recycled.
The company is at par with the global approach in taking steps towards building a greener and more environmentally-friendly ecosystem. In keeping with this objective, the team at Synpack adheres to all
To know more, please subscribe to Polymers Communiqué at subscriptions@polymerscommunique.com “As regards the way forward, having been in PE films for four decades now, expansion will be pursued in the same domain with the inherent understanding and experience gained during this glorious period. It is likely to be in high barrier film lines, which enhances our product portfolio and a very niche segment with export potential,” updates Anil Kabra, in dialogue with POLYMERS Communiqué.
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Dare to Dream
It’s delightful to see a buoyant business sentiment of the plastics industry. At times, sentiments take you where merely hard work can’t! Positivity can move mountains, identify unseen opportunities and seamlessly overcome obstacles. A lot of ‘ground content’ here is to share varied approaches to business, to dreams and to growth; beyond the realms of typical business schools! Nothing better than to learn from case studies of ‘Dreaming Big’ that are especially curated for you; nothing better than to read POLYMERS Communiqué.
To close, with normalcy racing in and business racing high, well ushering in a scenario of COVID racing out!
Challenge Yourself, Raise Your Bar Further,
Do Not Emulate Someone Else’s Business
Harpal Singh
Chairman, Sangeeta Group, Mumbai
Harpal Singh did not consciously set out to dream big, but dared to dream nevertheless and challenged himself at every step of the way, going from being an apprentice to a Founder-Owner of 4 manufacturing sites in Daman producing quality plastic packaging products.
Harpal Singh, Chairman, Sangeeta Group has been active in the plastic packaging industry for nearly five decades now. He started out small and sans any strategy at all. But at each step of his professional journey, he never shied away from asking himself, “Is this enough? What more can I do? What else can I do?”
HHere is a man who did not consciously set out to dream big as they say, but dared to dream nevertheless. Until such time his habit of challenging himself became the secret sauce of his recipe for success that played out kind of slow and steady, fuelled by hard work and single-minded focus.
Harpal Singh was studying in Amritsar, Punjab, when he lost his father in 1959. Two years later, on 6th June 1961, he visited his uncle in Mumbai during his vacation after his 12th standard examination. All of 17, he was actually looking to join engineering, but he felt it wouldn’t be right to burden his uncle with financing his engineering course. There were financial constraints and family responsibilities to take care of primarily. And so, with the thought ‘learn while you earn’, he landed at the employment exchange in Mumbai and even managed to get the job of an apprentice
with Mahindra & Mahindra on 14th August 1961. For seven years, he worked as an apprentice and later on the shop floor at the Mahindra plant with a starting stipend of Rs. 75.
As he worked in shifts, his uncle suggested that he do something in his spare time and that’s how he started making plastic cane hand-woven shopping bags. His cottage industry grew and Harpal Singh, to get his finger on the market dynamics, decided to accompany his driver and tempo that he had hired. This, he felt, provided him a tremendous opportunity and learning for his decision making. Eventually in 1972, he decided to start his own manufacturing unit and successfully founded Sangeeta Industries that began manufacturing plastic cane and other packaging products.
With the factory set up, Harpal Singh never looked back. Even as Sangeeta Industries expanded to embrace multiple companies and products within its fold, he was sure of one thing: He did not want to copy anyone or any product. He relied on the fact that each person is born different and has his own blessed strengths and capabilities to convert his dreams into reality.
A lot changed after 1995 when his three sons, Pawanjit Singh, Amardeep Singh and Ramanjit Singh joined the business. They nurtured the business well and helped him realise his vision and grow multifold.
There’s more to his ideology, he always remained connected to the latest developments across the world, travelled a lot and always continued to be a student at heart. He developed a knack to identify the right technology for his products and adapted the same, well keeping in mind its impact and commercial viability. Another strategy that he imbibed was to park 20% of his profits for new ventures. This, he believed, helped him realise his dream and convert them into a meaningful reality.
Not the one to sit on his laurels, he always made it a point to meet different people and broaden his horizons and his social network, while keeping a finger firmly on the pulse of the market. No surprise then that he made some very good friends in the plastics’ industry and feels fortunate to have earned the love and support of this industry. “Whenever you meet people, be simple and genuine; create comfort and pleasure in your conversation,” he shares; but, at the same time, has never been averse to refusing someone with whom he thought he wouldn’t enjoy doing business. After all, pleasure and not money has been his motivation for doing business all along. His advice: “Never grumble, trust yourself and the energy within you to achieve your goals.”
He relied on the fact that each person is born different and has his own blessed strengths and capabilities to convert his dreams into reality. His advice: “Never grumble, trust yourself and the energy within you to achieve your goals.”
Visualise, Introspect and Then
Leap Forward
Jigish Doshi
Chairman and Managing Director, Vishakha Group, Ahmedabad
Vishakha’s meteoric rise is also owed to Jigish Doshi’s belief in certain maxims. For instance, he never compromised or cut costs when it came to buying the best machine or deploying the best technology or employing the best manpower.
Jigish Doshi, Chairman and Managing Director, Vishakha Group - today a leader in high barrier flexible packaging; material handling solutions; drip irrigation systems; water supply PVC pipes; gas pipes; agricultural, industrial, silage, pond and canal liners and films, EVA encapsulant and backsheet films for solar modules as well as solar aluminium profiles for solar panels - put up his first factory in 2001. The thought uppermost in his mind was that he did not want to venture into any business in which his close friends had a presence, for that would make them competitors. Hence, choosing the right vertical always remained one of the most challenging decisions for Jigish Doshi.
In current times, it’s important to make your presence count! Jigish Doshi, as an industrialist, always believes in this; his businesses are conceived and built with this ideology. For Jigish Doshi, if one couldn’t make it into the top 10 names within five years of starting any venture, to continue in that business one may need to rethink.
It is important for any business owner to comprehend what is the ‘think big’
approach in his context. ‘Think big’ could be a vision or a target or both. To him, this appetite depends on the individual’s risk-taking capacity, financial muscle, industry dynamics and the individual’s growth philosophy. Most importantly, the approach needs to be rational. He is a strong believer that as a business owner, it is very important to know the market in which you are getting into and the product which you are conceiving. With these approaches formulating the framework of decision-making, he is confident that the probability of this going wrong is very less, however big the decision may be.
Cut to the present when Vishakha is an agglomeration of companies, each handling one or the other of the verticals chosen back then, that too manufacturing nearly four or five times the initial capacity, Jigish Doshi takes pride in the fact that none of his decisions, however challenging they seemed at the time, misfired. This strategy has worked for the group quite successfully!
It’s been quite a journey from being an SSI in 1981 manufacturing monolayer films and trading in polymers, to today having a staff of 1,000+ and processing 81,000+ MTPA and, by end of this year, with a target to cross 1,00,000 MTPA.
His meteoric rise also owed to his belief in certain maxims. For instance, he never compromised or cut costs when it came to buying the best machine or deploying the best technology or employing the best manpower. Only the best machine and technology took his company this far and only manpower that was cleverer and more capable took it further. That Vishakha Industries has one of the country’s largest injection moulding machines with a capacity of 3,800 tonnes is proof of his conviction.
Even now that Vishakha is a conglomerate with a much diversified portfolio, he is of the view that there are still areas whose potential lies relatively untapped in India, namely agriculture.
A champion of the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative, Jigish Doshi has tied up with the Gujarat Government for ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ wherein he plans to manufacture solar glass. The group’s ideology can be well fathomed by a recent move at Vishakha Group when they decided to set up the first green field solar glass project of 600 tonnes per day capacity (which can cater 3 GW of solar panel) with an investment of over US$ 135 million. Their vision is aligned with our country’s goals; once the first unit goes into operation, they have plans to increase the capacity by a staggering 300% in the next 5 years.
Timely Decisions and Risks
Key to Our Growth
Meela Jayadev
Managing Director, Sudhakar Irrigation Systems Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad
An ambitious man, a new product, a new application, no technology know-how, no knowledge of machinery, scarce raw materials, no trained manpower - this is the beginning of the SUDHAKAR Group journey in the 1970s.
My father, Shri Meela Satyanarayana along with my uncle, Shri Ananthula Janardhan started the journey in a very humble manner. They were into traditional business and very ambitious personalities. Plastics was just a new business for the Indian market. So much so that the use of plastic pipes was almost a new concept for any application. My father went to CIPET, Madras (present Chennai) to study and get trained on the technologies and its applications. They invested their lifetime savings in this new industry and coupled with the financial assistance from Andhra Pradesh State Financial Corporation (APSFC) started ‘SUDHAKAR PVC Products’ in November, 1971. Both of them did not have a technical background; however, their ambition drove them to start the business of manufacturing PVC electrical conduit pipes, a first such initiative in Southern India. The journey was tedious, turbulent and a roller coaster ride.
Their journey was not a smooth sail and every decision was a challenging one. After a gruesome 15 years of struggle, we could expand the business in the late ’80s. Our first major expansion since inception was in 1991-92, which was a major challenging decision for us. We expanded our product range and started manufacturing larger diameter PVC pipes, which were never used in commercial markets and government projects.
Another challenging decision that we took was entering into the SWR pipes and fittings manufacturing along with PVC pressure fittings manufacturing in 1996, another first in South India, in which we again invested all that we had; in addition, we borrowed significantly. Any deviation in our My father, along with my uncle, started calculations would have led us into a financial this journey in a very humble manner. catastrophe; however, that calculated decision made Their ambition drove them to start the us a strong player in the plastic pipe segment. business of manufacturing PVC electrical conduit pipes, a first such initiative in Southern India. The journey was tedious, turbulent and a roller coaster ride. We took another bold step in implementing SAP in our organisation in 2007-08 when the Group turnover was not even Rs. 200 crores. We are one the very first few companies that implemented SAP in the plastic piping systems manufacturing industry. It was a major financial investment on systems, which was about 3% of our annual revenue in those days.
In addition to macro decisions as above, we also embarked on a slew of micro bold decisions such as having a large product range, multi-location manufacturing facilities, diversifying into manufacture of uPVC profiles along with wires and cables. We have always dared to dream and have many firsts to our credit!
We believe in the ‘slow and steady wins the race’ formula and believe in the proverb ‘Dhairye Sahase Lakshmi’. Business is a risk, and business is money. Less risk is less money, and more risk is more money.
To sum, our calculated and bold decisions have always provided us with fruitful results.
