India has several entrepreneurs who have dared to enter uncharted territories and successfully chart their course to stardom. One such individual, Rajen Shah, Managing Director of Arihant Industrial Corporation Limited, in a freewheeling interaction with The Dollar Business, reveals what it takes to make waves in international waters, literally.

Sachin Manawaria | @TheDollarBiz

TDB: What made you foray into this unique segment of water slides?

RS: After graduation, I wanted to start something on my own and was not very interested in a job. This led to the birth of Arihant as a partnership firm between me, my elder brother Viren Shah, who used to work for L&T, and his very close friend Atul Safari, who worked for HTC. Arihant had a very modest beginning – with an initial investment of Rs.5,000 each by Viren Shah and Atul Safari. We were initially operating with only four machines out of a small 500 square feet premise at Goregaon in Mumbai. However, the response from the market was good. In fact, after 2-3 years, both Viren and Atul left their jobs and joined the firm full time. Much later, during one of my visits to US, I noticed that water park slides over there were made of fiber glass. We, anyway, were already into playground equipment and were among the pioneers in making fiberglass slides for children. Given our expertise, manufacturing larger slides of fiber glass for water parks made perfect sense. We are one of the firsts in India to manufacture large water park slides indigenously and are now the market leader.

TDB: How and when did you start looking at global markets?

RS: Initially, when we started manufacturing water slides we confined ourselves to the domestic market. However, later, with an objective to get a foothold in the international markets, we started participating in global conferences and exhibitions of water and amusements parks conducted by international trade bodies like IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) across the globe. This helped us generate leads and we started expanding our business globally. As a start, we got a few breakthroughs in smaller countries like Tanzania and Sri Lanka.

TDB: What were the biggest hurdles that Arihant encountered while exporting for the first time?

RS: One of the main hurdles we faced initially was the image associated with India. We were generally equated with our Chinese counterparts, who typically had low quality product lines, which was not the case with us. This was the main reason why many international companies were not ready to consider us. Changing the perception took time and a lot of effort. However, I can proudly state that at present, seven-to-eight members of the global board of IAAPA – most of who own high-end water parks all over the world – are our clients.

TDB: How did you get your first export order and from where?

RS: In the beginning, it was almost impossible to compete at a global level because big international players were just not willing to consider an Indian company for their water parks’ slides. This notion prevailed despite Arihant stringently adhering to European and US quality standards. Later, we were fortunate to get a breakthrough in Sweden. Bidding price differential between us and the other major slide manufacturers was so big that the Swedish client thought of experimenting with us, perhaps assuming that we would not be able to meet quality standards. However, when the equipment was installed, they were pleasantly surprised to see the quality of our products were at par, if not better than global standards. Once they were fully satisfied, they started speaking highly about our products. This gave us a lot of word-of-mouth publicity and helped us expand, particularly in Europe. Today, we have five-to-six clients each in Denmark, Norway, Greece, Spain and Finland. We have also installed slides in about five water parks in UK and France and about ten-to-twelve in US.

TDB: What strategies have you adopted to consolidate and expand?

RS: In terms of competition, there are a few very large players in this business, like the Canadian firm White Water Park. We have already started giving them a tough time. In fact, they do have a few clients in Mumbai and Delhi and I think are watching us closely since we have started expanding across the globe with a footprint across nearly 44 countries. There are a couple of smaller companies in Turkey and Netherlands. China does have a presence in this segment but operates only at the domestic level and not on a global scale like us. Hence, there is no question of any competition arising from Chinese manufacturers. Going forward, we also have plans of opening our offices in the Middle East, USA and Hong Kong to cater to the local demand.

TDB: So what makes Arihant unique?

RS: We handle water parks right from the conceptualisation of themes to planning and manufacturing slides. We also take care of after sales services. On an average, each such project requires around five acres of land and approximately 30-120 days to complete. Arihant today has a strong reputation for developing water parks at par with global standards. This is the reason why we are not only the market leader in India, but also have our footprint in about 44 countries across the globe.

TDB: What is your vision for Arihant?

RS: We are currently a Rs.100-crore turnover company with around 30% of revenues coming from exports. However, given our higher thrust on exports, coupled with global recognition of Arihant as a brand in water slides, this export ratio is surely poised to grow further during the next few years. We intend to at least double our turnover in the next three years. Further, we would like Arihant to be among the leading players in water slides business worldwide, if not among the top three.