Personality Of The Week
“I don’t believe in giving discounts. If there is quality, it will attract quality buyers. And I believe jewellery manufacturing and business could scale newer heights if it were to be properly organised and transparent”, T. Shantakumar, Managing Director, Kirtilal Kalidas Group, asserts. Heading a seven decade old jewellery empire, the 59-year-old says that he chose to enter the field only in 1979 after his graduation, interestingly in Agriculture. Now he is not only a retailer but also a manufacturer and an exporter, of not only gold but also diamond jewellery. It was he who launched a state-of-the-art pilot manufacturing unit in Coimbatore in 1988 under the name Vispark Jewellery Manufacturing Private Ltd. He also heads a company which is one of the largest in manufacturing and polishing of rough diamonds, with its major hub in Coimbatore. The group has a diamond unit in Antwerp, an infrastructure development firm and also a company offering offshore services. “Adorning generations since 1939 is the essence of confidence that Kirtilals have built up over the last 70 years”, he asserts.
In an interaction with G. Satyamurty, he outlines his vision for the industry. “I have confidence that anyone can manufacture jewellery provided they have well trained employees”, he asserts. This confidence he got after his successful effort in training girls, mostly matriculates, from different sections of society from 1988-1992 in plain gold jewellery making. Thus was born his Vispark where he employs more than 500 women for making diamond jewellery.
For exposing them to technology and training, he brought in technicians even from the global level. For extending “setting” training, experts were brought in from Italy and for training in manufacturing, casting, laser technology, etc., from the United States. Technicians even from Bangkok were roped in. Besides, the unit has machines from Japan, the United States, Germany and Italy to manufacture “casted” jewellery .This is in addition to the handmade jewellery in his factories in Coimbatore and Mumbai to be retailed through seven stores in various places including Ludhiana. A company, which obtained ISO 9001:2000 for both its retail and production units simultaneously, it has clients in 56 countries in three continents including the U.S., Europe and the United Arab Emirates. It has a strategic tie-up with world class fashion designer Rohit Bal.
He admits that Italians contribute a chunk to the global market. “Of course, we have also become qualitatively as good as any global manufacturer”. In the U.S. and Middle East, almost everyone wears jewellery. Especially, the most selling product is “ring”. The moment you start discussing the Indian jewellery industry, he pitches in for an organised set-up According to him, it is still in the “unorganised sector” category. “I would call it a transitional stage. All it requires is to organise the existing system. If we are able to organise ourselves fast, stability will take place fast and growth will be faster”.
He hastens to add this does not mean that the individual goldsmiths will be thrown out of jobs. “We are still giving orders to our erstwhile job workers. What I mean to say is plan the gold jewellery making in an organised way”. Why is that the public have a feeling that many of them are taken for a ride, especially with regard to the purity of the metal ? “Counsel and convince the customer (regarding the quality). Greater amount of personal attention should be paid to individual client’s needs and specific orders. This is towards further building client confidence and delivering the value for the money”.
“I will consider it the responsibility of the retailer to infuse confidence in them. Now there is only a wafer thin margin and hence underselling does not make sense. If you were to focus on quality, be transparent, and have a proper pricing structure, customers would automatically flock .Convincing the customer through counselling instead of shying away from doing so alone would help. Consumer won’t mind paying if he is convinced of the genuineness of the quality”. He is extremely happy to admit that the relaxation in the Regulatory Authority Order has helped the business grow. Gold smuggling has totally ceased. As against a tax of 16 per cent for diamonds and eight per cent for gold, now the Value Added Tax is only one per cent. “ In such a situation it is very easy to become more organised”, he asserts.
