'Innovation has kept us ahead of the curve' - Shaleen, Banswara Syntex

07 Oct '11

9 min read

When young, business was regularly discussed at the dinner table. However the scene is different at his own home and he has personally kept a distinction. He does not discuss business while having dinner with wife and children.

Banswara Syntex was incorporated in 1977 and started off as a synthetic dyed yarn producer with around 12,500 spindles. In 1987, they forward integrated in to weaving fabrics and later on into processing of fabrics. Banswara Syntex till date has struck to its core business strength of developing and innovating suiting fabrics only.

At one point of time, revenues were spilt 90:10 between yarns and fabrics. Today it is 40:60 between yarns and (fabrics and garments). This came from a vision to keep on adding value to the yarns that they manufactured.

The company has grown since the early days of 1977 and now operates around 170,000 spindles. The fabric business too has grown to 3.5 million meters per month. Among various varieties of fabrics, poly-viscose blends account for a major chunk of revenues. Banswara also produces wool, poly-wool, silk blends, linen blends etc.

The full end-to-end foray from fibre dyeing to clothing came about in 2004, when they set up a garment unit in Gujarat with just one line (60 stitching machines) to manufacture trousers. Today that figure has surged to 16 lines. Banswara supplies these trousers to well-known domestic branded companies like Madura Garments, Arvind Brands, Benetton and many more. Global retailers include M&S, Next, Tesco, Macys, Mens Warehouse, etc…

Banswara which all along has been well entrenched in the B2B segment, now plans to enter the B2C segment for the first time, with the rollout of a suiting fabric brand – 'Saintx' in November 2011.

Shaleen joined the business in 2000 and has been mentored mainly by his father, brother and senior personnel at the plant. While in school, he used to spend summer holidays at the mill in Banswara, so he had a fair idea of the layout of the mill after having spent many summers.

His first assignment was preparing a brochure for the mill. Shaleen says, “This was the best ever orientation I got. I had to do a lot of research and study the various processes to understand the nuances. The best moment for me and our team which developed the brochure came when it received international recognition at a brochure awards ceremony in New York”.

“Along the way, my father, brother, senior personnel in marketing and our current senior President – Mr S Sajjal helped to a great extent, in the mentoring process. My first major responsibility was marketing, wherein I was meeting people from other organisations, attending trade fairs, etc. In 2004, I was given the responsibility for setting up the garment unit, which has fortunately and steadily grown 25-30 percent (y-o-y) in the last few years”.

He is very modest enough not to take credit for any achievement that could be credited to him. “I credit everything to the team at Banswara Syntex”, he reveals.

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