Shujaul Rehman: In India, the demand for geo synthetics is consistent and encouraging
Garware Technical Fibres Ltd. is one of India’s leading players in the technical textiles sector. Established in 1976, the company today is a multi-divisional, multi-geographical technical textiles company and is known for providing world class innovative solutions in high performance aquaculture cage nets, fishing nets, sports nets, safety nets, agricultural nets, coated fabrics, polymer ropes and geosynthetics. A thrust on international business over the years has seen Garware Technical Fibres global footprint growing steadily. They have six overseas offices and customers in over 75 countries. Shujaul Rehman, CEO of Garware Technical Fibres Ltd, shares insights into the company’s operations and upcoming plans in this conversation with Divya Shetty.
Garware Technical Fibres has evolved from a products company to a solutions partner. What are your top two strategic priorities for the next 24 months, and how do you measure success against them?
We have a 5 year strategic plan in place for different businesses in both the Domestic& International markets. The strategic priorities vary from business to business. This 5 year strategic road map is converted into Annual Operating plan. We have financial metrics, and it is reviewed on a periodical basis to gauge the success of our strategic imperatives and the delivery of the annual operating plan
Across your key verticals, which product families are seeing the strongest demand momentum right now, and why?
The most promising demand is in the Aqua culture business for value added cages with differentiated benefits in the global market. The demand keeps our plant capacities fully utilised.
In the Indian market demand for Geo synthetics is consistent and encouraging.
What breakthrough materials, coatings, or design innovations are you commercialising to deliver higher strength-to-weight ratios, longer service life, or better biofouling resistance—and how do these translate into ROI for customers?
Our breakthrough innovations emerge through our regular interactions with our product users which enables us to understand their pain points based upon which our R& D & Business Development team come out with differentiated products. All our innovations go through a rigorous gate system and get into the market only if it meets or surpasses the threshold margins. We have about 29 patented products. We measure the impact through ROCE and have structure is in place to measure the outcomes.
How do you view the current health of the technical textiles ecosystem in India and globally
Technical Textile eco system is more robust in western countries and India is still to catch up. Off late the awareness and acknowledgment of the superiority of the technical textiles as compared to conventional textiles is gaining momentum and ascendancy in India.
What are the toughest headwinds you’re navigating, and where do you see the most compelling opportunities?
The Government push in the infrastructure space throws up opportunity wherein there is scope to use technical textiles. Highways, bridges, landfills and erosion control are some of the examples of geo textiles opportunities. The said opportunity comes with its own set of challenges considering the nature of tender based business. In the private sector category, the recognition of geo textiles for landfills is encouraging.
How are you embedding sustainability into product design and operations, and what certifications or data points can you share?
Sustainability is a key metrics in our business. Our major power requirement is from renewable sources. The Wind Power in our renewable energy doesn’t have any GHG emissions. Our large volume of HDPE nettings/cages to the aqua industry helps significant reduction of Co2. Reduction of copper impact in the environment through Anti Fouling Solutions in our Aqua Cages. Savings in plants water consumption. These are all some of the examples to mention.
What near-term investments are you making and what is your five-year roadmap for new markets or adjacencies for Garware Technical Fibres?
Our products and machinery facilitate modular capacity expansion and hence our investment addresses bottleneck capacities and it varies every year and is need based. As such no constraints on investment.
We have a 5-year strategic plan clearly laying out the financial metrics and the elements of Where to Play & How to Win. This 5-year strategic road map is converted into Annual Operating plans (Budget) and driven by the respective business teams to deliver the budget. This 5-year strategic road map is reviewed every year to assess the gaps and to work out the countermeasures to mitigate the gaps. The strategic road map varies from business to business and major initiatives are handled by a cross functional team.
