Moving from retail to export

Kashi Jewellers, the 55-year-old city-based jewellers, proposes to concentrate on exports, rather than open more retail shops. For this they have moved to the Special Economic Zone in Kolkata, where a factory for exports has been established.

The business is run by the Kapoor family: Chairman Rajan Kapoor, his wife Shail, and son Shreyansh, who is the executive vice-president.

"I know of nobody who has an integrated jewellery outfit in the country," Shreyansh said.

"We do manufacturing, retailing, and exports, all from one building. There are jewellers who are much bigger than us, but they do not manufacture. We are one of the very few who have established an integrated complex, all located in one building in the jewellery market of Birhana Road in the city," he added.

A design bureau churns out newer designs. Kapoor heads the bureau and there is full-time designer and is helped by some part-timers. "Besides, we also encourage freelancers to come forward with their own designs," he said.

"From the drawing board to the final product, it takes us less than a week. Thus, we're able to serve our clients. The cycle time is one week."

Asked how many designs are floated in the market at any point of time Shreyansh said: "In the recently held India International Jewellery Show in Mumbai, where we were the only ones to go from UP, we had displayed 150 designs and they were appreciated."

"We have many factories in the city, which are looked after by the managers and now there is a 35-stage quality control, i.e. the diamond has to go through 35 checks before it is finally released for sale."

They are gearing themselves up for large role in the jewellery market. The recruitment for quality control is from NIIT and Aptech trained computer operators. Girls who have been recruited from airhostess training schools are looking after the sales.

The building has all modern facilities for the staff, including an upcoming crèche, restrooms, neat toilets and sufficient space for the workers in the factory.

Transparency is the key element. Any repair work can be done in the presence of the customer. The customer can come and grade his gold or diamond himself and take the report from the laboratory for testing quality control. The best practices are being adopted and modern methods have been implemented,

The Kolkata outfit has been named The Ray Incorporated .The labour is still from Bengal, says Shreyansh. The particular Bengalee castes are the ones who are the only source for labour and it is very difficult to retain them. Hence Kolkata is the place where the export outfit has been located.

The exports are of the order of Rs 9-9.50 crore and total retail turnover is about Rs 20 crore. The export destinations are mainly the US, the UK and East Europe

Earlier, we used to export to west Asia. But these were discontinued. But now we are planning again for Dubai.

Kashi Jewellers has laid the foundation for a major leap forward, which should come in the next few years.