Q7 One USP of GSI has been its push towards innovative products especially for the Indian context. These innovations have been either by way of new products themselves or innovative uses of existing products in previously un-thought-of ways. In doing so, GSI products have tackled prickly issues such as multi-usage of facilities for better ROI, issues of water retention on cricket outfields, problems of limited outdoor space, and artificial grass. Can we expect other innovations?
Yes. One innovation we are planning to introduce is temporary stands at big events. Usually, what happens is that large facilities are built for important national events, which fall into disuse once the event has concluded. Based on our experience, we have found that 80% of the cost of construction in sports like cricket and football goes into building the gallery.
In comparison, the cost of the actual playing area is less than 5% of the total cost. We have entered into a tie-up with a partner to create temporary galleries that can be put up at 20% of the cost and 20% of the time. By temporary, we mean galleries that will still have a useful life about 10 years.
Q8 GSI has received numerous awards recognising its flawless service. No legal notices past or present. How was it achieved? How important is customer satisfaction to GSI, especially in this age where there is an undue focus on closing a sale at any cost rather than trying to empathise with each customer’s unique needs?
Customer satisfaction is the DNA of the company and in many ways my own personal outlook. We are not a fly by night operation. Our goal is to be viewed as a professional company, and our outlook is towards creating long associations.
We don’t think of this approach as a choice, it’s just the right way of doing something. Don’t get me wrong, when you execute 1000+ projects, some mistakes will happen in spite of our best intentions and efforts. In such cases, we try and be as reasonable as possible in rectifying the errors.
Q9 Based on your past interviews and shared experiences, you seem to have managed to maintain a healthy work-life balance right from the early years when you had to do things hands on, to expanding your product line and client base, to getting a highly functioning team in place where I imagine your role now has become more supervisory in nature.
Many young entrepreneurs today tend to go overboard, with pressure to make their businesses succeed, and the work-life balance goes for a toss. What advice will you give young entrepreneurs on finding the balance?
When I go home I don’t open my email. I make it a point that weekends I am not disturbed. The thumb rule is that if something is moderately urgent then someone will text me, and if it is very urgent someone will call. It’s also about being efficient with my time through the course of the work week; I don’t go out for lunch during the week (which takes a lot of time) and instead pack my lunches.
Even if my work now is supervisory in nature, it does not mean I am not involved in day to day activities. If it’s a new product then my involvement starts at 95%, and later it reduces. Now 60% of my work is on new initiatives, 20% on problem-solving and 20% on operations and reviews.
Q10 In continuation with the previous question, the pressure to deliver and make the business succeed also imposes a pressure on employees in start-ups to perform, with an emphasis on closing as many sales as possible.
You have come on record in the past and said that sales are not that important for you in judging the performance of your employees. How important is it for you as MD to create a stress-free workplace? What mantra/work-philosophy do you share with your employees who look up to you for guidance?
At GSI we don’t go by weekly sales reports, yet we are unrelenting in terms of the process. I am unforgiving if we don’t respond to enquiries in time. For us, the emphasis on process is merciless, since the end result is not in our control.
In many of our government tenders, which constitute a large part of our sales, we give ourselves a good margin. So if we don’t get the contract, it is my responsibility and not my team’s. With this approach (of focusing on the process) there have been many occasions where we have actually overshot our targets.
Q11 There is a lot of media hype today about investor backed start-ups. What do you have to say about bootstrapped vs funded startup models?
My opinion may have no bearing. Some businesses have no choice (but to raise capital) as they may require years of coding to even put up an initial product. So in that sense, at GSI we had the option of going brick by brick, without having to bet the farm.
Come to think of it, we might have gone faster had we raised more funding initially. Since we are seeing an upside now, for the first time in our company’s history we are reaching out for external investment. So it all comes down to each business model and marketplace.
Q12 Despite your innovations, GSI seems to be old-school in the sense that it lets its actions speak louder than words. Rarely do we see any marketing or ad campaigns by GSI. Is this word-of-mouth approach a conscious approach or necessitated by financial practicalities associated with prohibitive costs of marketing/ad campaigns?
Not at all. We are a fairly big company now and had an INR 60 crore business in the last financial year. So spending few lakhs on ads is not a problem for us. We tend to be below the radar and never engage a PR firm.
We do occasionally send out press releases when something really newsworthy happens (eg. the Chinnaswamy stadium upgrade) or when we won 4 projects for the recent National Games. And we do advertise a bit in some trade journals. But we have not promoted ourselves from a brand building perspective. At some point, maybe we will consider advertising/marketing. We now have enough to brag about [jokingly]!
