Making pipe dreams come true

Sminu Jindal

Sminu Jindal's renamed company now aims at providing complete pipe solutions.

What's in a name? Quite a lot, according to the Rs 1,100 crore company Jindal Saw Ltd, earlier known as Saw Pipes Ltd.

An integral part of the Rs 15,000 crore steel giant Jindal Group, this company was striving to make a transition from a single product company to a total pipes solutions company.

Last month when the final orders came through, Saw Pipes was rechristened. According to the company, this also marked the beginning of a new era for when it can be truly termed as a total pipes solutions company.

From making submerged arc welded (SAW) pipes using U-O-E and J-C-O technology (the letters suggest the shape in which these pipes are moulded) for transportation of gas and oil, Jindal Saw has graduated to the production of pipes for potable water, sewage and industrial effluents.

And with steel and iron as raw materials, the company has started using cast and ductile iron pipes (CIDI) to transport these varied products.

And the iron lady behind these developments is Sminu Jindal, managing director of the company. Daughter of P R Jindal, the eldest son of patriarch O P Jindal, Sminu joined her uncle to run various Jindal Group companies in 1997.

"To reflect the fact that we have diversified our portfolio, we thought that we should change the company name as well. And we felt that the name Jindal, which is an integral part of other Jindal Group companies, should be incorporated," she says.

Though the company was seriously contemplating diversifying its product basket and attempting to get into seamless pipes a couple of years back, it ran into problems, which Jindal claims was largely due to external factors like labour unrest.

Today it is in its second year of revamping its production facilities at Nashik and Jindal is hopeful of breaking even in the next fiscal.

The reason behind this diversification was the fact that Jindal Saw wanted to reduce its dependence on tender-based orders, which mostly came from large public sector monoliths like Gail, IOC and ONGC.

"The uncertainties in the bidding market used to disrupt our bottomlines and justifying the dip was a constant cause for worry so we decided to get into products which will have firm and continued orders," says Jindal.

Jindal Saw is looking into a range of customers for its products that will include state governments to the Jal Board, to large and small industries.

Another reason why Jindal Saw thought of diversifying is because competition was hotting up in the Saw pipes business with players like Welspun and Mann also getting into the fray.

Sminu Jindal is also aggressively looking at getting more orders from overseas markets. In a couple of years she is aiming for getting 50 per cent business from exports, with more orders from the US and Europe.

The company is currently supplying pipes to the Middle East, Asia, US and Europe. Exports are also being looked at as a derisking strategy.

For instance, in the financial year 2003-04, it was the US operation which helped the company keep its head above water as the increase in raw material prices (essentially steel) led to a 26 per cent fall in net profit.

And in order to professionalise and streamline operations out of different units, Jindal has introduced the concept of strategic business units (SBUs), with a senior professional to take care of each of them.

It took the group 21 years to move from a single product to a multi-product business. Jindal herself has been associated with it since 1997.

An MBA, she started her career at the age of 19 as a management trainee. She was part of the team which turned around Swastik Foils, a Jindal Group company, which was also her first job.

For the coming years, she has big plans for the company. Firstly, she is aiming at doubling the company's sales by the end of FY 2006-07, and secondly, she is looking at penetrating the US markets through Jindal Saw's US affiliate, Saw Pipes USA, which services distributors and pipeline owners in North America. She also plans to get into other markets in the Americas.

A lover of art, she promotes amateur artists through different platforms and also organised an art festival at one of the plants.

"That was the beginning of a unique tradition "" a fusion of art and technology," says Jindal. With her new projects, travelling between the company's Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Texas-based plants and mothering her two-year-old son, Jindal clearly has her hands full for the moment.