Ambition, Karma, and Success!

Stallion UAE Headquarters

Rajeev Nair’s meteoric rise from just a fresh engineering graduate, starting his career as a technical sales, and marketing person to now heading the Stallion Group, is not only incredible but also inspirational for young startups. The author always remembered him as a salesperson and employee of industry stalwart P C Jain of Great Eastern, from the time he met him as a youngster in the 1990s. It was amazing to meet him recently in June 2023, when he came to pick up the author from his hotel in Dubai in his Bentley for a meeting to narrate his fabulous journey from being a sales employee to setting up his startup enterprise and growing it internationally, aspiring to rise even higher. Rajeev Nair is a businessman to watch.

At Stallion reception Rajeev with author

Rajeev is the youngest amongst five siblings, four brothers and one sister. His father was in the business of grocery retail in the old Super Mart format of retail that existed those days. In their childhood the children used to go to their father’s shop to help him, more so during the rush of shoppers during evenings and festivals. By the time the children grew up, their father had wound up that business. Rajeev was born in Trivandrum, now named Thiruvananthapuram, and later in life settled down in Kochi. After completing his schooling, he went to Chandigarh, for further studies specializing in Industrial electronics from CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organization (CSIO). He says it was a turning point in his life coming from Kerala and into the Punjabi heartland. Encountering the Punjabi culture was an experience and widened his outlook in life. After passing out he immediately joined Great Eastern Impex Pvt. Ltd. (GEIPL) in 1988 who were looking for an electronics engineer. They were about to initiate their barcode business and fax machines business. GEIPL being the first one to introduce barcoding & fax machines in India, were very well supported by their principals Monarch Marking Systems with whom they had a very strong business partnership. Monarch Marking Systems, was acquired by Pitney Bowes Inc. in 1968. Rajeev was extensively trained by Monarch & Pitney Bowes to become the first trained person in barcode technology and fax machines. Leading bar code industry peers like A S Shekhawat, Anil K jain and many others were his colleagues at that time.

Ambition:

In 1992 Rajeev got married to Asha, also a Malayali but born and brought up in Delhi. The language spoken in Kerala is Malayalam and the local people are referred to as Malayali. After their first baby was born, Rajeev decided to move back to Kerala and to nature in God’s own country. He had difficulty in convincing Asha, who being a Delhi girl resisted, yet Rajeev’s mind was made. Firm ambition to start his own business took precedent over everything else.

In 1996 he left GEIPL and started his own company Stallion Onebyte Pvt. Ltd. in KOCHI, his brother who was a director in HCL helped him in the start-up. To start with, Rajeev followed the trusted principal, “for a rapid rise in business, copy the success already achieved!”  He began by trading and selling barcode technology products as he was doing in GEIPL, because in his stint there as an employee he had introduced barcodes in the country, he understood the business and was known to prospective customers all over. At GEIPL he was a part of the team that had set up the marketing, sales, and branch network so experience was all there.

Karma:

Stallion India headquarter at Kochi

After simply trading for two years, selling barcode printers alone, one eventually finds the pressing need to also sell consumables like labels. He initially outsourced labels but eventually set up his first small factory to make labels in Kochi with two second hand Japanese label presses. From day one of starting manufacturing, he was clear that he had to buy the best raw material. 

He bought his label stock only from Avery Dennison, despite knowing that many in the industry were using cheaper stock lots to make better profits, his vision was farsighted. Stallion invested their time and effort in developing relations with Avery and have grown with them as major supplier-partners, till date. They initially started labels by offering plain labels only, but when customers demanded printed labels, they acquired a Weigang Chinese tower type 330 mm 5 color label press. There has been no looking back by the company thereafter. Stallion kept on registering steady growth, increasing their presence all over India by establishing branches in major cities. In hardware they represent Honeywell for barcode printers and scanners and Datalogic Italy, Sunmi and Seuic as platinum partners. They also have partnered with Avery Dennison for their RFID products; in fact, they now offer total Solutions in the hardware along with consumables like labels, thermal ribbons etc. In the recent past moving forward, they have been working on project management basis for example for track and trace they supply end to end solutions like printers, mobile scanners, labels, ribbons, and implementation of the complete systems. “We have grown to be amongst the top few players in the barcoding industry” says Rajeev.

Around 2003, Rajeev decided and set up operations in UAE as well. Yet again copying his mode of success achieved from operations in Kochi where he started his business, he started in the same way in SAIF Zone, Sharjah which was an office area and they had initiated trading there. Once set up in UAE, Rajeev saw an opportunity that there was no one in GCC countries slitting and supplying thermal transfer ribbons for barcode printers. He decided to start the slitting operations immediately and Stallion became the first one to start slitting and supplying thermal transfer ribbon for barcode printing in GCC. Until then, all players were importing from China, India, and other places. 

Stallion kept on expanding and the shopfloor area increased to 6000 square feet. Last year in 2022, they set up their own corporate headquarter for middle east. They bought a plot and built 35000 square feet bringing manufacturing and office in one place. For India, the head quarter remained at Kochi. Rajeev keeps shuffling between India and UAE. He spends more time in UAE to maintain his NRI status. The growth in Dubai was faster. 

Rajeev and author on shopfloor

They invested in a Multitec eight color label press to enter the product label segment in around 2013, even before they did so to indulge in product labels in India. They found success and in 2021 they bought yet another Multitec label press.

Later, shifting focus towards business in India, they installed a flexo label press in their Mumbai factory. They did not invest to grow much in product labels in India earlier, as the number of players is already substantial and most of the label printing companies are well settled. He attributes slower growth in India due to not getting the right kind of people to manage the show. He feels there is a dearth of talented people in the label industry in India and the staff turnover is frequent. Rajeev is a hands-off entrepreneur and operates like a proper corporate entity, letting the team fuel growth. For future he is planning to indulge in product label manufacturing in India in a bigger way. Though he feels, given the big players already in the field, the labels business in India is challenging, yet he has decided to go ahead due to the sheer market size and expected growth potential. He was looking for the right person who can handle that part of the business and take it forward successfully, making it a valuable profit center. He reiterates, “I cannot handle all myself.” The team must be in a place to run the show. He already has one consumables business head who joined him a year ago and looks after the manufacturing and trading activities of that division.

Rajeev’s extended family had diversified into different tangents. His one brother retired as director from the central government owned company Hindustan Latex Ltd, another was commissioner of Kerala House in New Delhi, and the third brother is a Management Guru who was at no. 4 position in hierarchy in HCL, Hindustan computers Ltd. His sister is married, and the late brother-in-law was settled in Saudi with business. Rajeev and Asha are blessed with two children. A son and a daughter. His son Manav is an MBA from Australia and has joined his business now. His daughter Nimisha is studying film making from NYFA, Los Angeles, USA and will be graduating this year itself.

Success:

Both manufacturing and trading are poised to achieve continued growth. With the increase in organized retail a definite growth in sales is seen as happening. The steady growth over the past years has set an inertia which is providing them with natural growth each year for the entire group. They have three companies in India, the parent one is Stallion One Byte Pvt. Ltd. which is focusing on big end users’ complete projects like track and Trace, RFID, Bar Coding, Labels, etc. For his son Manav who has joined business, to get him started and get a feel of business, Rajeev started a company named Boxpush India Pvt. Ltd. It is a purely distribution B2B company to sell the products that they are manufacturing or trading in. Manav is the CEO of that company. They have third company in India called Makimpact India Pvt. Ltd. which is into manufacturing of hardware like printers, scanners. and supplying to OEMs. All the three companies in India, that in UAE named Stallion Labels Industries LLC. and those elsewhere are a part of Stallion group. They also have an Oman based company named Stallion Systems LLC. Another group company based in Qatar is Stallion Systems WLL. When asked by the author, “six companies?!” He laughed, “that is not all, I have other passions as well!” He is also into movies production and event organization with a company called “Impresario" which was started by three other people, he bought out the share of one and is one of the directors in that company. That is the reason his daughter Nimisha is studying film making in the USA. He also has a hand in the hospitality industry. He invested in a cardamom estate in the Munnar hill station, within which he has built a resort, it is a 3 hours’ drive from Kochi. From the estate they sell cardamom and have additional revenue coming from the resort, his hospitality venture.

They now have 300 plus employees in India alone and another 75 in UAE a total of 375 plus people. Once things were steady and in place, they had started expanding from just a small factory in Kochi and later they shifted to 15000 square feet facility. From another small factory set up earlier in Bangalore, they shifted to a larger factory in Bomasandra. Expanding in Mumbai as well, they bought a plot in Bhumi Industrial estate Bhiwandi and constructed a factory for expansion. The total shop floor area under production and warehousing is more than 55000 square feet. The group is managed through five divisions Consumables, Barcoding, POS, RFID and Software. Each division has a business unit-head, responsible for making it a robust profit center and reporting to Rajeev.

According to Rajeev, Stallion Group’s total turnover at present is more than Rupees 200 Crores!

 

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi-110008 August 2023