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| Statue of Lord Shiva |
T R Sondhi, a retired bureaucrat
of government of India, is a God fearing man and an ardent follower of Lord
Shiva! He is a dedicated family man and wanted his children to have proper
education and get good jobs to lead a simple and comfortable life. His elder
son Sanjeev was always very close to him but also gave him nightmares as he was
growing up. Sanjeev a mediocre student at school did all the mischief’s that
boys his age would indulge in and more. He would not do his home work
attracting his teacher’s wrath and would bunk school to see movies. He would
run away on the sly to not only watch Ram Leela, an Indian religious epic
that is dramatized in colonies all around the country days before Diwali, but also acted as a religious character in them. When the news reached the modest T
R Sondhi, he would lose his temper and Sanjeev was the recipient of punishments
delivered in anger. In the western world such outburst by parents would attract
legal implications but in India children have the heritage to accept it as love
and compulsion of parent’s aspirations for their children to succeed in life. A
worried father wondered what his son will become. As children grow into adolescence
followed by teen years, they start to mellow down and start getting into a
shell of their own. They are dreaming everything from fun to future. They look
at successful people around and at people who did not succeed. As Sanjeev was
finishing school he too was restless. He saw many boys not too far away from
him in age leaving colleges and taking up jobs for Rupees 2000- 3000 per month.
At that point in his life he made his first commitment and career promise to himself
that he will never take up a job like that and for that amount in his life! He
would work 18 hours a day to find success. His father, a worried mentor was
unsure what further education his son should pursue. Sanjeev’s maternal uncle
worked in Canada as an agricultural scientist and suggested to his brother in
law T R Sondhi, to make Sanjeev study B.Sc Agriculture and thereafter he would
help him get a job in Canada. Sanjeev took up the course despite the fact that
his heart was not in that. He did have a technical and innovative trait in him.
At home he would repair electric irons, pressure cooker and other appliances.
He loved to work on gadgets hands-on. He realized that agriculture was not what
he was made up for. He carried on with
his studies till either he made up his mind or the right opportunity came
along. He completed his masters in Chemistry and then MBA.
Sanjeev was undecided and
restless on what he should do to move on in life so to initiate his career he
took up a medical representative’s job with Glaxo in Kanpur. He worked hard and
as he had promised himself earlier, he worked long hours. His mother would say,
“Your Dad was committed to his job and worked long hours, I used to wait for
him every evening to come back from work and now it is the same with you
working long hours, I have to wait for you” However still they never stopped
him from pursuing his ambitions. He switched jobs for better prospects and moved
from Glaxo to Lupin labs. A hard working Sanjeev was restless once again and
wanted to move on and take up a job in foreign lands. His father and mentor T R
Sondhi was a taskmaster but decided to support him. His only reservation was
that his son should not go to Brazil because he felt the girls there would get
to his son! Sanjeev left India in 1994. He travelled in South East Asia taking
up various jobs making pharmaceutical product sales. Ten years down the line,
Sanjeev realized he was stagnating, he realized his parents were missing him
and were very possessive about him. Moreover he came to a conclusion that India
now presented opportunities that did not exist before. He decided to quit all
that he was doing at his last posting and returned to his homeland. On return
Sanjeev was faced with a strange dilemma, he could not find a job that would
compensate him with an amount similar to the one he was drawing at Singapore.
He was not wanting, to settle for less. His
former employers wanted to start a grocery business in India and asked Sanjeev
to head it. The business is something like modern day retail but delivered to
home. The business appeared to succeed but yet again Sanjeev realized grocery
and commodities was not his cup of tea. He wished to indulge in something in
which there was technology involved and he would get a chance to test his
creative skills.
After one year in 2004 Sanjeev
started the bar-coding business, selling printers and
point of sales
accessories and soon realized that equipment sales were erratic with lots of
empty spaces in between and for regularity of business he needed to also
include consumables like barcode labels in his portfolio and thus he came into
labels in an indirect manner. Initially he was out-sourcing the labels from
other label printing companies and later started to get them printed on job
work by supplying them raw material that he would buy from Avery Dennison
directly. By this time his father’s faith in Lord Shiva had completely rubbed
on to Sanjeev and he too believes that he is doing what the Lord wills for him.
His faith has become so strong that anyone meeting Sanjeev is not greeted with
a good Morning or a Namaste or a plain Hello but by “Jai Bhole Ki” (Victory to
Lord Shiva, lovingly referred to as Bhol’e).
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| Sanjeev Sondhi |
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| The Zircon Dehradun Unit |
Two years later the ambitious
streak in Sanjeev made him restless yet again, He was growing in business slowly
and steadily but the high growth that he had envisaged could not be sustained
by producing just plain labels. He had to move forward to add more value to his
offerings. He decided that he had to get into manufacture of labels himself,
not just plain labels but printed and with special features. For inspiration he
looked at profiles of other companies. He was highly impressed to note that a
company like RR Donnelly could drive-in sales of 7 billion US dollars from
printing business. He felt if they can do it, why I cannot attempt to achieve
it. Obviously there is enough space in a growing market like India. He made his
second commitment to himself that as a first step he has to reach a sale of 7
million US Dollars. With a target in mind to achieve, he started planning his
label project. He was sure he could not tread the path to success with
piecemeal approach. Unlike other entrants in labels who buy a small label
press, add slitter/rewinder later, then plan a packaging arrangement and so on,
Sanjeev planned to select the best and proven international equipments. All in
one go. Most entrants first try and approach the pharma companies to reach
their breakeven point with new investments, Zircon(as he decided to name his project) was lead on to attempt the
more difficult and demanding FMCG consumer product labels. He was aware of the
fact from day one that if he had to sell to large FMCG companies and
multinationals, he will have to get his plant audited by them. He was not going
to settle for something that would get his facility rejected. He was quite
inexperienced in printing but the yearning to learn was prevalent and he
acquired the knowledge quickly. People wondered how he will succeed when he
asked them how many colours we need to print a picture. The interaction with
industry suppliers and industry peers was helpful in the initial stages. In the
year 2006 Zircon Technologies India Limited formally entered into the field of
high-end printed product labels from their plant located at Dehradun in the
state of Uttaranchal. Their first label press was an eight colour Mark Andy
2200 along with a Rotoflex/Rewinder/inspection system. He understood that for
good printing, he needed good printing plates, so he sourced them from the best
suppliers. To prove, that he was going to be ahead of others, at a time when
the industry was using 1.7mm plates, on suggestion from DuPont he started with
1.14mm plates. The industry across the country was largely printing 133 LPI he
started to print 175 LPI. Anilox is a very important part of the flexo printing
process and to have a clean anilox is an imperative for the quality conscious
printers. There are many in the industry, who clean their aniloxes manually
using solvents but Sanjeev did not compromise and bought an Alphasonics anilox
cleaner. He was a late entrant and had to stand up to the established players
in the industry. He had to be suitably if not better equipped. Sanjeev’s
startup had no time to fail and falter and then evolve. To be able get things
right from day one he hired trained and experienced people. Understanding the
need for meeting the challenge of operating in a distant location and facing a
breakdown, even though all his equipment were new and under warranty, his
second employee was a maintenance engineer who still works for him. Zircon was in production from the word go. He
himself was an experienced sales person so sales were also not difficult to
generate. In 2007 with just one label press at that time the Zircon facility
was audited and approved by 15 companies in India. No wonder when I asked him
what was his first label and the difficulties faced in creating his first
label, he had no answer. He faced no problem and no difficulty, the first label
produced was well accepted by the customer and there has been no looking back.
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| Sanjeev & the new Omet-Varyflex at Dehradun |
Thereafter Zircon has continued
to upgrade, innovate and expand. They keep investing in new and modern
equipments to achieve enhanced capabilities. For Sanjeev it has been and still
continues to be a continuous learning process. He spends a lot of time in his
lab and with his team in creating new products and innovations. When a new
customer comes to Zircon besides offering to do their existing labels, Zircon
commits themselves and their infrastructure to the customers need for up
gradation and innovation. Sanjeev has in the last few years sharpened not only
his manufacturing skills but his capability do create pioneering security and
anti counterfeiting solutions. His technical excellence is evident; six years
ago he started by printing 175LPI and now he claims to be one of the few
companies around the world who print 230 LPI. He has applied for two global
patents and four patents in India two of these patents have been published.
Zircon has licensed four security design technologies to a company operating
globally and located in Europe under royalty agreement.
They are India’s first
Esko HD-Flexo certified Label Printing Company.
Zircon presently employs 250 people and operates with multiple label
presses out of three plants occupying a covered area of 55000 square feet which
is being expanded to 90000 square feet in the near future. Two of these plants are
in Dehradun and one in Chennai. They have seven sales offices spread across
India. They have complete prepress and plate making systems for letterpress and
flexographic printing in-house from Esko and Flint. All three plants have fully
equipped laboratories to assist them in research and development work. The
icing on the cake came this year when Zircon acquired perhaps the largest label
press in India a 430mm Omet Varyflex. It is a highly loaded press incorporating
a combination of flexo and rotogravure printing technologies. The press has
been built and configured to some proprietary web passes and attachments as per
Sanjeev’s designs. It is a fully servo driven press having automatic
registration control with facility to print back and front in a single pass.
The press can print from 12 micron film to 600 micron board. With this press in
operation Zircon has enhanced capabilities to produce not just labels but also shrink
sleeves and folding cartons.
Sanjeev is satisfied that he has
achieved both the commitments he made to himself. He never took a low paying
job and he has surpassed the first goal of reaching the 7 million dollar sales.
It is time to move ahead and he feels in five years he will be a total
packaging solution provider catering to customer needs from labels, shrink sleeves,
folding cartons, flexible packaging and micro flute monocartons. He intends to
introduce security features in all packaging supplied by him ensuring a degree
of protection to his customer’s brand as also driving value for the consumer
who will buy the packaging along with the product. New plants will be coming up
in Dehradun and west India ensuring a pan India presence and service to multi-location
customers. He hopes to reach a level of Rupees 250- 300 crores in sales in five
years time. Working at multiple locations and travelling all the time, takes a
toll on one’s personal life. His wife Poonam has supported him all along. His
mother feels first she used to wait for him now Poonam does that, however both
have no complaints seeing the level of commitment he has towards his work. His
only son Sanchay is pursuing Business management at Symbiosis Institute in
NOIDA. The young lad is being mentored to become a leader but the father firmly
believes Sanchay has to prove himself. A self made first generation
entrepreneur Sanjeev Sondhi is only 44 years old and there is no plan of
resting with his achievements. He is extremely grateful to his former
employers, Industry friends, suppliers and Zirconians, as he calls his team.
Without whose efforts neither the past was possible in a short span of six
years nor can the future be achieved. Having said that he goes into a pensive
mood he says, “My father put me on the road where God’s blessings come on their
own…Jai Bhole Ki!”
Update as of January 2024:
By the start of 2024, Zircon had increased their
shop floor area to 300,000 square feet, working with 400 employees, using a
battery of label presses and a range of converting equipment in 5 plants and a 6th
one planned to open in April 2024. Product range was expanded beyond labels to
include composite and telescopic canisters, Pharma foils, Brand security and
track and trace solutions, Shrink sleeves and Standup pouches.
Written by Harveer Sahni, Managing Director, Weldon
Celloplast Limited, New Delhi-110008 on 7th November, 2013
The article maybe reproduced by other publications giving the following caption;
The above article was first published in “Narrow Web Tech” magazine and published by G & K TechMedia GmbH, Am Stollen 6/1, 79261 Gutach-Bleibach, Deutschland e-Mail: info@flexo.de
Wish continued growth of Zircon- keep it up]
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