Cover Story
With a great entrepreneurial spirit, Furniture Tech was founded in 2013 by its director, Piyush Soni. Within a few years since its inception, Furniture Tech quickly gained massive success due to its high-quality bespoke furniture. With a high amount of efficiency in quality craftsmanship along with a well-honed sense of style, Furniture Tech has been able to offer high-quality products to hotels, residences, and commercial spaces. The highly skilled team of Furniture Tech brings over 25 years of experience to the table in terms of interior design, furniture manufacturing, and architecture. The skilled workforce with deeply integrated values in the firm has led Furniture Tech to gain enormous success in such a small amount of time.
Currently, Furniture Tech works with leading five-star luxury hotels, a multinational conglomerate, financial institutions, and banks, further contributing much to the success of these organizations by providing better services and customer satisfaction.
India is a nation with traditional yet stunning attributes of arts and design when it comes to craftsmanship and this expanding industry is now worth 35,000 crores. The furniture industry is growing at a rapid pace and has gardened a unique position in the global market due to the rich, exceptional, and luxurious trends coupled with the best quality furniture. The work of wood is highly appreciated all over the globe.
Furniture tech is dedicated to delivering customized designs with the finest quality by equipping a skilled and dedicated workforce. The team consists of people with years of expertise in this sector and is in charge of every service associated with their products, from interior design, furnishings to installation.
Raw material stocking is the first stage of the manufacturing process at Furniture Tech. With the assistance of credible and trusted distributors, the quality wood and other raw materials used at Furniture Tech are procured and stored in the warehouse for preserving their quality. After this, raw materials are cut, refined, and prepared for assembly. When each process takes place, adequate machinery is used which is customized to different needs. In the next stage, the pieces are then flawlessly connected to ensure the strength of the furniture without compromising on its design. After the assembly process, painting and polishing of the furniture take place in order to enhance the beauty of the furniture as well as to strengthen it further. Next comes the painting and polishing, to protect the furniture from moisture in the air, to add finishing to the wood, and to conceal the fine grains which bring out the vibrancy in the furniture. The customers are involved in this process and are allowed to choose the polishing as per their preference. After this comes the upholstery process. This is the stage where premium quality fabric is used and stuffing is added to the furniture to make it robust. Furniture Tech has several fabrics and leatherettes, offering an opportunity for the company to provide customization to the customers as per their liking. finally, the products are packed and shipped securely.
The amalgamation of hard work, dedication, knowledge, and innovative thinking can go a long way in business. Furniture Tech has been thriving and generating excellent results based on its two fundamental principles.
The first principle as defined by the company is ‘DESIGN & INNOVATION’. The company has been able to produce artistic furniture as it sees beauty in the everyday surrounding. This has fostered a unique approach when it comes to designing furniture tailored to the needs of their clientele. The organization has given rise to innovation through technological development and new manufacturing techniques and materials. Furniture’s formation and working is frequently defined through implementation of new innovations and it is duly observed in the work of Furniture Tech.
The first principle as defined by the company is ‘DESIGN & INNOVATION’. The company has been able to produce artistic furniture as it sees beauty in the everyday surrounding. This has fostered a unique approach when it comes to designing furniture tailored to the needs of their clientele. The organization has given rise to innovation through technological development and new manufacturing techniques and materials. Furniture’s formation and working is frequently defined through implementation of new innovations and it is duly observed in the work of Furniture Tech.
Piyush, also believes in patience and consistency in achieving anything in life. He believes that no matter how the outcomes may look in the initial phases of the business, with enough efforts at the right places, patience, and dedication, success does not shy away.
Furniture Tech attributes its success to its dedication and deep understanding of furniture manufacturing. At every step of the way, the company follows all the rules and regulations along with quality standards to meet the values that have been set out for it.
Furniture Tech is currently dominating the furniture industry of India, and it seems to be gaining a leading position in the market through its innovative and state-of-the-art furniture solutions.
What prompted you to establish Marg?
I believe in the incredible and massive potential of the indispensable shop next door or the stand-alone shops, which is highly underrated in the modern milieu. While India has galloped several folds in terms of digitization, we observed that there has been no force to channelize the potential of small businesses on a digital platform. Most of them were either shutting shop or struggling to keep afloat amid competition from global players and emergence of larger players from India, besides the covid pandemic adding to their woes. In India, there are roughly one crore small and medium businesses for whom Marg took the initiative to explore possibilities to ease their cumbersome daily operations such as billing, inventory management, payment, ordering, financing and other solutions so that retailers could focus on leveraging their businesses. We created a holistic digital ecosystem through our unique softwares and services for addressing their livelihood concerns. I take pride in the fact that Marg’s initiatives are also proving to be crucial in safeguarding them in the pandemic times by minimizing human involvement and making the process seamless for bringing in efficiency, speed, back-up and excellent services.
What is the key to Marg’s success in making SMEs sustainable?
Our observation has been that it is not feasible for a small business man to spend a hefty sum on technology like other big players. Even if they are interested in digitizing day-to-day operations, their choices are limited and often end up subscribing to a sub-standard product with poor service quality. Marg’s business model is therefore centered around small business owners with an aim to eliminate the technological handicap and help them to drive growth and higher profitability. Since banks do not lend to small businesses, Marg, has realized the potential and offers financing solutions through tie-ups with NBFCs. The financial solutions range from short-term working capital loans, personal loans, insurance products, and others. This has resulted in Marg, becoming India’s first initiative to bring small businesses on a pan India digital platform giving power to our mission in making small businesses sustainable. It has enabled them to retain their cultural relevance as a neighbourhood shop that offers services in a spirit of compassion and friendliness.
As of date, how would you rate the performance of Marg?
We started with MARG ERP, to digitally solve issues regarding inventory and accounting. I feel proud to say that so far, Marg has equipped over 10 lakh businesses, which annually generate 2000 crore invoices aggregating to a total value of Rs 7 lakh crores. We realized that a business owner faces three significant problems- order, delivery, and payment. Our efforts have been to alleviate the same. I feel happy to say that Marg has strengthened small business men and e order worth Rs. 21,000 crore has been generated through the e order portal. Further the popularity of Marg payment solution can be gauged by the fact that since its launch in October 2020 till date, 15,000+ Pharma & FMCG distributers have been registered and they have uploaded the outstanding of 500,000+ retailers and Marg pay has settled payment transaction worth Rs 500 crs between distributor and retailers, we have tied -up with logistics companies for providing delivery solutions to small business through digital platform. This has resulted in prompt delivery of consignments to retailers and distributors, and further solidified the relationship between the logistics company and their customer. Marg has created a win-win situation for all stakeholders.
What are the growth targets that Marg is aiming at in the near future?
Marg is a zero-debt company and its growth is self-funded because of its smart market strategies, astute handling of finances and intelligent partnerships. These fundamental fair practices make Marg, even by modest claims, a profit-making company. The ‘Marg Model’ of Paas Ki Dukaan is a foolproof and self-sustaining model, which can survive any pitfalls even when the market goes for a dip. By retaining continued and focused pace of growth and development, the company envisages to generate a revenue of Rs 750 crores in the next five years. The company has set its eyes on covering 70-75% of the Pharma and SMEs from diverse sectors across the country in the coming years.
