After touching three generations of Indian educated and intellectual community, S.Chand Group is now looking at both organic and inorganic growth
The company was founded by Padmashree Late Lala Shyam Lal Gupta in 1939 and has been involved in the education sector since. The company has gone through the different management changes and now the third generation of the company management is taking it forward. Situated in the busy market area of Paharganj, near New Delhi railway station, leading publishing company S.Chand Group has been catering to the need for high-quality books for over seven decades. "Bringing people and knowledge together" is core to their mission, which has translated into 'Empowering Minds'. Himanshu Gupta, the young and enterprising Jt. Managing Director of S. Chand & Company Ltd., reveals his future plans to chart out a glorious future for the company.
AABP : When did you join the family business and what were your intial observations?
Himanshu: Even though I started working with the company in 1996 after completing my schooling from Modern School, New Delhi but the year 2000 was the actual beginning of my career in the family business. I am a graduate from Delhi University in Mathematics and Commerce and did my Masters in Commerce from Agra University. Thereafter, I joined MBA at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai but was not able to complete the course due to personal reasons. When I joined the business, the company had already completed around 60 years but the attitude of the staff was very complacent. All the decisions were centralized and dominated by the management, which resulted in a lot of time going waste on petty things. I felt that the creativity and entrepreneurship were missing in the organization.
AABP: Tell us something about your entrepreneurship?
Himanshu:In the year 2000, I flagged off a new company called S.Chand Technologies Pvt Ltd and our first project was an in-house ERP solution for the group, which we successfully completed in 2002. The same year, I started another venture called stepsindia.com, which unfortunately had to shut down after running for over two years. In 2004, we started developing educational CDs as well and also started doing Government Projects; one being in Uttarakhand.
AABP: What changes did you make in the publishing division of S. Chand group?
Himanshu:I was not aggressively involved in the publishing division until 2005. After my joining, remarkable changes were introduced in the company systems with the consultation of management team. Professionalism can be seen in all the departments; like each department has got a separate divisional head. The responsibilities were clearly defined to each staff member. A lot of efforts were taken to give the best working environment for the staff. After the changes came in place, the revenue and sales went up tremendously. For the last four years, we are having a CAGR of 25 - 30% as against the industry growth rate of 10-15%.
AABP: Brief us something about your allied businesses?
Himanshu:S. Chand group is divided into three major areas – Education, Real estate and Printing. The Education section sub-divided into the publishing and digital, while the Real estate is sub-divided into Hospitality and Properties. Undoubtedly, the education sector is our core business.
Our printing business has an investment worth Rs. 50-60 Cr and boasts of three 4-colour high-speed KBA machines and two 2-colour KBA machines. We are planning to tap the commercial printing segment in the next 2 years, for which we plan to create a new set-up in Greater Noida.
And, we are also into Hospitality Sector in a big way. We have three hotels in New Delhi and one five Star in Chennai, which is opening shortly.A hotel is coming up in West Delhi, which is going to open in the month of March, this year.
AABP: Can you elaborate a bit more about your publishing business?
Himanshu:Our publishing business is sub-divided into four major areas – School books, Higher academics books, Technical & Professional books and Competition & Reference books. Of these,
I would say, the major chunk of the business is School books at 45%, Technical & Professional books at 25%, Competition & Reference books at 15% and the rest 15% for Higher academic books. There has been a major increase in sales for technical and professional books while that of Higher academic books has gone down as students are opting more for professional courses. The demand for school textbooks has been increasing because new schools are coming up to cater to the growing needs.
We convert almost 10,000 tonnes of paper every year and normally use 99% indigenously produced paper for our publications. S. Chand group has 27 branches all over the country with almost 400+ people in sales and 600+ people in other departments.
