BENGALURU: Sudhakar Pai needed to take price of the circle of relatives’s mattress industry Kurlon – which his father Ramesh Pai started in 1962 – somewhat hastily. Towards the tip of the closing century, the then chief executive had been assigned the task of decreasing duplicates sold beneath the Kurlon logo in north India. But even after several years, the issue continued. “So, in 2002, my father requested me to take price,” says Pai.
When Pai took inventory of the issue, he realised the issue was certainly one of paucity of Kurlon dealers. This had enabled others to take advantage. So Pai focused on making improvements to the broker community. “Within a few years, the share of duplicates was down to not up to 1%,” he remembers.
The duplicates had been additionally a reflection of the strength of the Kurlon logo then. And a lot of the credit for that will have to cross to Ramesh Pai. The Pais come from probably the most state’s prominent industry families. Ramesh Pai’s father had based Syndicate Bank, and Ramesh Pai had additionally helped his uncle construct the circle of relatives’s training and scientific institutions, including the Kasturba Medical College in Manipal.
The thought for a mattress industry got here to him on a consult with to Germany in 1960 as part of an trade delegation. He took place to run right into a director of the erstwhile Dresdner Bank, who recommended to him that he input the coir industry. The auto trade across Europe was booming then, and coir was had to make automobile seats. Coir had just then replaced horse and pig hair, as these had been expensive.
Ramesh Pai discovered that high-end motor automobile seats used rubberized coconut-coir fibre manufactured in Sri Lanka as base subject material. India was then probably the most greatest coconut producers on this planet, so Ramesh Pai right away smelt a excellent alternative. He discovered that coconut coir in India was being used only via the cottage trade to fabricate retted (soaked to soften) material.
Ramesh Pai brought in Austrian generation to extract fibre from the husk and curl it into ropes. This was the start of Karnataka Consumer Products Ltd, the predecessor of Kurlon. A slew of opportunities spread out with this craft. Apart from automobile seats and mattresses, he additionally advanced a range of alternative merchandise equivalent to cushions and mats.
Today, the Bengaluru-based company manufactures mattresses in 126 different configurations, has greater than 10,000 dealers, 70 branch and inventory issues, and 9 production facilities across Karnataka, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal, and Gujarat. The first manufacturing facility was in Arsikere in Hassan district.
The mattress marketplace stays most commonly unorganised in India and trade estimates peg the size of the marketplace at about Rs 6,000 crore. In the arranged section, Kurlon competes with brands equivalent to Sleepwell, Springfit, King Koil and Godrej Interio. Kurlon says it has a greater than 40% percentage of the organised industry.
Sudhakar Pai, who headed Maharashtra Apex Corp, an NBFC, before transferring to Kurlon, has set his attractions on rebranding Kurlon right into a home-comfort company. As part of that, he has ventured into making sofas. Sofas lately constitute not up to 1% of revenue, however Pai feels this can be a robust rising space. “We will have to be able to develop anyplace between 70-80% yearly in this section,” he says.
HOME COMFORT
Rs 1,000 crore revenue in 2017-18
10,000 dealers
9 production facilities
When Pai took inventory of the issue, he realised the issue was certainly one of paucity of Kurlon dealers. This had enabled others to take advantage. So Pai focused on making improvements to the broker community. “Within a few years, the share of duplicates was down to not up to 1%,” he remembers.
The duplicates had been additionally a reflection of the strength of the Kurlon logo then. And a lot of the credit for that will have to cross to Ramesh Pai. The Pais come from probably the most state’s prominent industry families. Ramesh Pai’s father had based Syndicate Bank, and Ramesh Pai had additionally helped his uncle construct the circle of relatives’s training and scientific institutions, including the Kasturba Medical College in Manipal.
The thought for a mattress industry got here to him on a consult with to Germany in 1960 as part of an trade delegation. He took place to run right into a director of the erstwhile Dresdner Bank, who recommended to him that he input the coir industry. The auto trade across Europe was booming then, and coir was had to make automobile seats. Coir had just then replaced horse and pig hair, as these had been expensive.
Ramesh Pai discovered that high-end motor automobile seats used rubberized coconut-coir fibre manufactured in Sri Lanka as base subject material. India was then probably the most greatest coconut producers on this planet, so Ramesh Pai right away smelt a excellent alternative. He discovered that coconut coir in India was being used only via the cottage trade to fabricate retted (soaked to soften) material.
Ramesh Pai brought in Austrian generation to extract fibre from the husk and curl it into ropes. This was the start of Karnataka Consumer Products Ltd, the predecessor of Kurlon. A slew of opportunities spread out with this craft. Apart from automobile seats and mattresses, he additionally advanced a range of alternative merchandise equivalent to cushions and mats.
Today, the Bengaluru-based company manufactures mattresses in 126 different configurations, has greater than 10,000 dealers, 70 branch and inventory issues, and 9 production facilities across Karnataka, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal, and Gujarat. The first manufacturing facility was in Arsikere in Hassan district.
The mattress marketplace stays most commonly unorganised in India and trade estimates peg the size of the marketplace at about Rs 6,000 crore. In the arranged section, Kurlon competes with brands equivalent to Sleepwell, Springfit, King Koil and Godrej Interio. Kurlon says it has a greater than 40% percentage of the organised industry.
Sudhakar Pai, who headed Maharashtra Apex Corp, an NBFC, before transferring to Kurlon, has set his attractions on rebranding Kurlon right into a home-comfort company. As part of that, he has ventured into making sofas. Sofas lately constitute not up to 1% of revenue, however Pai feels this can be a robust rising space. “We will have to be able to develop anyplace between 70-80% yearly in this section,” he says.
HOME COMFORT
Rs 1,000 crore revenue in 2017-18
10,000 dealers
9 production facilities
MADE IN KARNATAKA: How the Pai's turned curled coconut coir into the successful Kurlon brand
![MADE IN KARNATAKA: How the Pai's turned curled coconut coir into the successful Kurlon brand]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
July 20, 2018
Rating:
