It has been an action-packed year for Aparna Piramal, the 28-year-old executive director of BP Ergo (formerly Blow Plast Ergonomics) and she expects 2005 to be even more hectic. Part of the Rs 1,000-crore Dilip Piramal Group, her office furniture systems company has just launched a new design range under the Colleague brand name.
"It's an extra slim (55mm) tile based, medium height partition system suited to the BPO market," says Piramal who was in Delhi to speak at the CII-NID Design Summit.
What's keeping her busy is the proposed launch of two other workstation brands "" Teamwork and Totem "" and as well as a new partitioning system. The products are expected to hit the market in February 2005.
Explaining the reason behind multiple launches, Piramal says that office requirements are constantly changing. "For instance, a BPO office design cannot be the same as, say, a corporate office layout," she says.
In October, the company unveiled it's new corporate logo designed by a Lintas's subsidiary. Clearly, Piramal is in a hurry to change things and grow the 12 year old furniture company she joined barely two years ago after finishing her MBA from Havard Business School. She realises that competition in the Rs 800-crore branded office furniture business is growing.
Besides Godrej and Featherlite, several regional brands are available and furniture from Malaysia and Singapore is flooding the market. Chinese brands could follow. But Piramal is happy with the 40 per cent growth her Rs 120-crore company has been clocking. "We'll be happy if we can maintian this growth rate," she says.
That may not be too difficult with projects like Microsoft's 1200-seat hi-end software services development centre in Hyderabad in hand. Ergo is also working on Ranbaxy's corporate office in Delhi and HSBC's outlet in Colombo. The company has designed and furnished all the Reliance Infocomm offices as well as it knowledge city.
So does her father and group chairman Dilip Piramal help her out in her business? "He does give strategic inputs and guides me but otherwise he gives all his CEOs a long rope to hang themselves," she grins.
