The Next Big Indian Steel Company?

Some people inspire you every time you meet them. Nikhil Dhand is one such person.

Nikhil runs a Bright Bar (Steel) Manufacturing unit in Ludhiana by the name of Dhand Steels, and I first met him on a zoom call in 2020 when we were interviewing him for the accelerator program that I created. Nikhil shared how he had already grown his business multifold in the past few years and planned to grow at least 2x in the next year, and 10x in the next 5. He wanted to eventually create one of the biggest steel companies in Ludhiana.

Nikhil's story is unique. It taught me a lot of important lessons about business, and life.

Over the coming days, I’ll be sharing stories of many such entrepreneurs whom I worked with and learned from my time in Ludhiana. To date, these stories were my source of knowledge and inspiration, and often my friends and colleagues would get to hear them, but I believe it’s important for more people to know about these entrepreneurs and learn from them.

Entrepreneur Story #1 - Nikhil Dhand - Dhand Steel Traders

A decade back, Nikhil got his Engineering degree from Bangalore and came back to Ludhiana to take over his 3rd generation family business. In Nikhil's words, many of his cousins and relatives work at renowned institutions such as McKinsey, and Google all around the world. He too had his share of offers, but he wanted to give back to his society in Punjab. Through his business, Nikhil wants to create jobs for people in Ludhiana; and over time, by growing his company, wants to raise the standard of living of his employees and their families.

Nikhil showed me the perfect example of this in early 2021. For 2 years prior to that, Nikhil had been working on expanding the production capacity of his factory, and in parallel had outsourced his work (commonly known as job work). When Nikhil's new factory was ready, instead of transferring all the work from people doing job work, he instead decided to push to double his inflow of work - so as to not take away work and livelihood from the people to whom he was giving business. I was amazed when Nikhil told me this, this was one of those rare times I was personally working with someone who ran their business being cognizant of the needs of others around him.

When the first COVID wave struck and all the factories were shut, Nikhil used that time to upskill himself. He took online courses and learned digital marketing - equipping himself to get back to business as usual. In his words, this time was a boon to him, as he would have no distractions from the day-to-day operations in his factory. I remember, most business owners had become distraught at that time and were looking for ways to survive. On the other hand, Nikhil was working on sharpening his axe and preparing growth engines for the future. His work during the first wave paid off when the second COVID wave hit. When businesses were struggling to find orders, Nikhil was flush with leads, as he had built a strategy by then to go all guns blazing on digital marketing to generate leads. As a result, he had 100 times more leads than he had at any other time in his business. He also used that time to foray into international markets. Nikhil told me that when he first joined his business, he had a dream of entering international markets by manufacturing and supplying world-class products; and it was during this uncertain phase of the pandemic with rising raw material and international freight rates, that he managed to secure his first international orders from Latin American and European countries, including Brazil, Chile, and many others.

Nikhil has a clear vision of achieving a revenue of ?100 crores ($14 million) in 5 years, and ?1000 crores ($140 million) in 10 years, and unsurprisingly he is on the path to making it happen.

We often associate Entrepreneurs with having flashy, indulgent lifestyles; but Nikhil could not be any different! He makes sure that money goes back into the business. He cares so much for his business and his employees that even though he drives a normal old car, in his steel factory, he is building state of the art facilities for his employees, better than what I have seen in some of the biggest industries in Ludhiana. He never needed to have such attention to detail, but he realizes that it’s his team that will help him achieve his dreams, and he needs to take care of them.

Nikhil is a lifelong learner and is always coaching and mentoring other entrepreneurs around him. In my 2 years of being associated with him, I have learned how one can increase the revenue and profits of one's business while making a difference. I have also learned that one is never too late to learn something new; and how no business is too small to aim for the stars and too big to have agility at its core.

Business Lessons:

1. Often, business owners get stuck in prevailing issues such as high raw material prices, lack of movement in the market, lack of talent, etc. but one can only pave the way if he/she is ready to keep an open mind and look for solutions where no one else is looking. I remember Nikhil teaching other entrepreneurs who run a textile business that if their raw material prices were shooting up, then they should look for ways to either find a better source or reduce costs elsewhere, and if their customers weren't buying at their terms, then they should start looking for better customers. Though these things might seem obvious, my experience has taught me that most entrepreneurs running MSMEs find them hard to do.

2. It does not matter where you come from and what others are doing in your ecosystem, you can always carve out your own niche, make your own rules and play the game. Nikhil made sure he was always upskilling himself by reading, attending seminars, or interacting with experts. He never let the fact that he is based in Ludhiana be a hurdle to his growth. In fact, he used his learning in Sales and Marketing in our accelerator program (Growtherator) to sell Bright Bars (otherwise known as a commodity product) on his own terms, fetching his first international order.

3. If you inherit a family business to run, it's extremely important to know how to get the employees to work along with the new leadership. In my work with family businesses, I saw it time and again that 2nd or 3rd gen entrepreneurs would highlight that the older employees in their organization wouldn't listen to them and would make entry of new talent tougher. To combat this, Nikhil made sure that he works on the factory floor and learns everything from the workers, before figuring out how to do things better and then showing that to the workforce. Only when he had the trust and respect of his employees, could he assume the complete charge of his organization and go full throttle with his growth plans.