His is a fascinating rags-to-riches story. He started out as a salesman at a jewellery store in Coimbatore, at a monthly salary of Rs 100 in 1984. Today, K. Srinivasan is the Managing Director of Emerald Jewel Industry India — Coimbatore’s largest jeweller, and one of the biggest in Tamil Nadu.

Today, the Emerald brand offers a staggering 1.5 lakh designs; and Srinivasan has offices in Dubai (from where he services West Asia, Africa and the UK) and Singapore (for Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and some parts of Australia).

The man who started his venture with just 100–150 gm of gold jewellery, is now handling 15 tonnes of the precious metal a year — and hopes to shore this up to 24 tonnes by the end of this year. He confirms the staggering figure I quote about his annual turnover, but requests me not to mention it. Anyway, the numbers will be out when he goes for an IPO, “once I stabilise”.

I meet the soft-spoken and rather shy Srinivasan in his ultra-hep office in the textile city. He confirms that right from childhood, his dream was to start a business in jewellery. After graduating in mathematics, he joined a jewellery showroom. “I was just 22, and wanted to learn about the industry, which was then totally unorganised — so I thought I could grow fast.”

After a 10-month learning experience in design, technique, manufacturing and sales, he decided to start his own venture. “I came from a poor family; my father used to do electroplating, and I lost him when I was only six. My mother brought me up, with an uncle helping with my education. But I had the confidence that through hard work I could make it,” he recalls.

A stroke of luck

With a small loan from his brother he began on a small scale. Luck was on his side, because one day he found a Gujarati businessman struggling to communicate in Coimbatore. “Luckily I knew Hindi and was able to help him find what he wanted. He gave me his visiting card and said I should take Coimbatore jewellery to Ahmedabad, as people there were crazy about our intricate designs.”

The long distance and the 36-hour “painful journey” on the Navjeevan Express prevented jewellers from the South taking their wares to the Gujarat capital, “where there was a craze for South Indian jewellery. Gold price then was Rs 200-300 a gram, and I boarded the train on my first journey with some 150 gm of small items such as earrings and rings.” Twice a month he travelled to Gujarat and — thanks to the high demand — increased his sales. “Many jewellers agreed to give me advance, as my contact told them, ‘He is like my son and I take the responsibility’!”

Within 3–4 years, Srinivasan was hitting the Mumbai and Delhi markets, and “Tribhuvandas Zaveri started giving me 1–2 kg of gold as it was were very happy with my designs and quality.” From the very beginning, his focus was on design and finish. “That helped me a lot as nobody was concentrating on these aspects in those days; everybody started giving orders. One fellow gave an order, and his competitor said: ‘Srinivasan, I will also give you advance,’” he smiles.

Apart from design and quality, he also concentrated on innovation. After making “a lot of innovation in hand-made jewellery, I moved into mechanisation as I knew the future would be very competitive.” To stay ahead, he attended jewellery fairs in India and abroad, gathered a lot of technology, and slowly entered manufacturing. “Whatever I created was new to the industry and so got accolades from everybody,” he says.

Wife has the last word!

Emerald sets a high score for design, and has designing studios in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Coimbatore, with Srinivasan brainstorming on new designs twice a month with his senior designers. “I give them ideas to mix and match designs, tweak them to create new designs and finally approve them.” Does he consult his wife on what will work? “Once the designs are made, in the final selection she has the last word, with my daughter (15) being involved too.”

As he had started out with hand-made jewellery, one of his units continues to make it, accounting for barely 20 per cent of his overall sales. Simpler jewellery like chains and long necklaces are handmade, he says. Most of the machines come from Italy; others are made in India.

Srinivasan employs 3,000 workers at his units and they come from Bengal, Kerala, Bihar, Rajasthan and various South Indian cities. “Each region brings its own strengths and skills, but the best workmanship comes from Kolkata,” he says. Bengalis have a lot of creativity, and “an eye for beauty that nobody can match. As they are poor, they have the urge to come up in life and work very hard to create something unique. But if you take Keralites, their requirements are comparatively less, so they don’t show that much interest.” His company has created many brands: Jewel One, Ishtaa (18-karat zircon-studded jewellery), Nishtaa, and Corona (for diamonds). His most successful brand is Jewel One, and now he’s moved into light-weight jewellery for children.

Future plans

Srinivasan says that once his son — who is now studying management in the UK — joins the business, he will think of diversification. “The jewellery business in India is still in the unorganised sector. In Coimbatore alone, there are 500 jewellers. Much more can be done in this sector, and I also want to enter the hotel industry.”

Interestingly, he owns four windmills that generate 3.5 MW of power. “Whatever electricity we need for our four factories, we produce — and have some surplus too, as I also use solar power.”

Looking back, this entrepreneur ascribes his success to both focus and hard work. “I really focused on my work because I wanted to come up in life and create something unique. And I worked very hard — without that, success is not possible. Today, youngsters prefer jobs to entrepreneurship because they don’t want to take challenges. You are bound to fail first… there are so many times I failed, but I always thought positive, worked harder and kept my goal. My energy and faith came from my knowledge that society only respects the rich!”

So, Why are Indian women so crazy about jewellery?

It’s a cultural thing, says K. Srinivasan, MD of Emerald. “It is in their blood, and also a social security which has always given good returns.”

Once upon a time Indian women preferred chunky jewellery but that is changing. “Today, the younger generation wants light-weight jewellery; it has to be very attractive, very stylish. So we need to have innovative ideas and create new designs all the time.”

But, of course, for marriages, chunky jewellery is still in demand, and Emerald makes that too, he says. Indian women generally prefer intricate designs, unlike the ones popular in Italy, France or rest of Europe. But technology-wise, as the Italians are far ahead, “I’ve taken inspiration from Italian jewellery and modified it to suit Indian taste.” The Indian jewellery industry welcomed this innovation and his business thrived. However, Srinivasan says Indian women don’t fancy white gold “that much; it’s a combination of enamel and gold and other little things.”

Given the name of his company, does he use a lot of emerald in his designs? “Not really; but I know that confusion is there thanks to the name, which I had chosen as a youngster; people name businesses after their mothers or children. Emerald was the first name that came to my head and I stayed with it!”

rasheeda.bhagat@thehindu.co.in

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