Passionate in Marketing caught up with Mr. Nishant Garg, MD, Maiden Forgings, an organization that exemplifies the effectiveness of dynamic leadership, dedication to sustainability, and social responsibility. The organization has had tremendous success and development under the innovative leadership of Director Mr Nishant Garg. Mr Garg has significantly improved the company’s sales over the last 12 years because of his love of marketing and vast local and international networks.
How did you get started in the steel bar and manufacturing industry, and how has the journey been to become the Managing Director of Maiden Forgings for and past 11 years?
Maiden Forgings is a business which the first generation started and the second generation expanded. My father, the late Shree Sanjay Garg, started this journey as a proprietor producing bright steel bars and wires. This was in the late 1980s when there were quotas in the steel industry and few manufacturers for these products. So with hard work and passion, he created a niche for Maiden, and when in 2011, I joined the business, and we converted entirely into a company that we started growing in 2011; the growth has been 17x with adding of new product lines every 2 years. The 12 years journey has been about innovation and technology upgradation, enabling us to position our company quite differently from our competitors because of the widest variety of inter-related products we produce, and customers get them all under a single window.
What do you consider the biggest challenge facing this industry, and how is Maiden Forgings addressing it?
The biggest challenge that the industry is facing is a slow adaptation to the latest market trends because we have to be customer-focused, and today in the age of fast communication, customer behaviour is changing rapidly, which in turn is changing the requirements of the OEM that is producing that customer product and since we serve the OEM. Thus, we need to change rapidly the way we produce. We have to stay up to date. For example, since the Auto sector forms one of our majority client bases, the most significant change happening in the Auto sector is the shift to EVs. So Maiden is constantly making proactive efforts to see the latest developments in the industry and aligning itself in advance to adapt to the new developments.
How important are sustainability and environmental responsibility to Maiden Forgings, and what steps have you taken to prioritise these initiatives?
It is not just about how important sustainability and environmental responsibility are to Maiden; they are essential for the entire human race. But Maiden does its part by ensuring that in whatever activities Maiden is involved in, and since it’s a heavy industry, we ensure that our processes keep long-term sustainability in mind. Also, we are consolidating plants, and the new project planning has been done in such a way that in environmental friendliness, it is ahead of its time to ensure that our future generations have a better world to live in.
How do you ensure you remain at the forefront of innovation?
Since childhood, I have habitually read a lot, and most of the reading I do is not just books but rather from the pool of articles on the internet. So it was a habit that once I got something new going around the world, I would just go deep into it to know what it was, and if it was related to my business, I try to execute it for the betterment of the processes we do. So I think it’s now very much inbuilt into me. I have developed that nature to innovate. Of course, such experiments often fail as well, but the ones who succeed can excel the many failures too. So you might say that, personally, innovation has become a part of my genes by now, and I can’t help but experiment occasionally.
How does Maiden Forgings ensure its products’ high quality and reliability, and what sets them apart from competitors in the industry?
See, firstly, it’s the team that matters, so we have lots of talent within our team, and when the “customer first” culture is consistently being spread by top management, the team gets accustomed to that culture. Due to this culture, our team is constantly learning from the customers. If we deliver a product that exceeds customer expectations and becomes part of the organisation’s blood, the high quality and reliability of the products are ensured. Apart from this culture, the two factors that set us apart from the competitors are the wide variety of inter-related products that we supply under a single window, which provides convenience to our customers & our fastest delivery model enables our customers to reduce their inventory costs and production losses.
Can you tell us about a recent project or achievement you are particularly proud of at Maiden Forgings under your leader?
Well, our recent listing was on 6th April 2023. I am proud of the recent listing of our company on the BSE. I am also thankful that we are amongst very few companies in India that get the opportunity to make the public a part of their company.
How does Maiden Forgings prioritise innovation and new technology?
I will answer this with the latest example; there are a few grades in Stainless steel, bright bars and a few shapes, which are still being procured by our customers from abroad, mainly from Taiwan and Germany. So once we identified this issue, we checked with the producers in those countries. So we did study the entire production process, and now we are in the process of investing in the equipment required to produce such items and serve our customers soon with the same quality products as our foreign counterparts supply. So this is just one of the many examples of how proactively we look for innovation and new technology.
What advice would you give young entrepreneurs looking to start their businesses in the manufacturing industry?
If you are willing to put in all your effort and work day in and day out with the utmost focus on what you are trying to create, you can get it. If this passion you feel could be more robust, don’t go for manufacturing, as manufacturing is a humongous task that you are taking up, so your intents and hard work need your utmost focus on the ultimate goal.
Some of the marketing initiatives that led to the company’s growth and further vision if you can share.
I think digital marketing of our products on various B2B portals and the aggressive and experienced sales force who understand customer behaviour have been the two major marketing initiatives that led to the company’s growth. The vision is to produce all the speciality products in steel that still lacks the expertise of Indian manufacturers and to be part of the Global innovation ecosystem in the steel industry.
