Jaipur Rugs

About the organization
Jaipur Rugs company specializes in making hand knotted carpets and is a category leader in that globally. Headquartered in Jaipur, Jaipur Rugs has over 22 branches in ten states of India along with a bonding of more than 40,000 artisans. Their products are a whole wide range of exclusive hand-made rugs that are exported worldwide. Annual turnover of the company is $14 million and they have around 250 employees. The company established the social initiative, the Jaipur Rugs Foundation, which has empowered many rural artisans across ten states of India.

Jaipur Rugs does not look upon business merely as a source of income or profit, but as a way of life. As a medium for putting talents to good use, while at the same time affording an opportunity to be of service to the community. "Let us remember that profit is not just a set of figures, but of values." Therefore "Service to the community" is their motto. The company strives towards this focused direction to make the society grow hand in hand with the company's own growth and prosperity. Jaipur Rugs is privately owned by the Chaudhary family. 

Business case
Financial management is one of the areas that require some special attention for Jaipur Rugs at the moment. "Continuously from the last few years our products have highly been appreciated across the globe, we bagged various National and International Awards, and gained momentum in exports which resulted in overall expansion of processes, and hence improvement of financial management is required in order to manage the finances efficiently".

Mr Yogesh Chaudhary, CEO of of Jaipur Rugs, asked for support for strengthening the finance department and streamlining MIS as per needs and requirement of a growing business.

The case was matched with Mr. Edo van Houten, a finance professional with 15 years experience. He filled positions from Controller to CFO in a variety of companies. As from 2008 he is an independent interim manager representing eye2finance, and more recently also Integration Lab BV (next level strategic services) as a partner.

Results

Analysis
Edo van Houten conducted a Finance Rapid Assessment, in close collaboration with CEO Yogesh Chaudhary, Mr. Nand Kishore CHaudhary, founder and Managing Director and other team members. This included a SWOT analysis, and an assessment of the financial management of the organization, regarding solvability, financial control, business control, organization structure etc. For each issue, observations and risks were indicated, as well as conclusions and recommendations.

Advice
Some of the high priority recommendations that were done, were a.o.:

• To appoint a highly qualified CFO
• Write a strategy plan and business plan
• Introduce a routine of two-weekly finance meetings and weekly MT meetings
• Introduce certain changes in structure and accountability of finance team.
• Improve balance business/charity: "without business no charity"
• Keep in mind: "cash is king" and "back2basics"

Impact on the partners 

Edo van Houten: "With respect to personal skills: I needed to act very result driven due to the time constrain. I learned I am also able to make a change and motivate people in a company in a different culture"

Yogesh Chaudhury: "The expert gave us very good exposure on how to run a company from a top level from a financial point of view."  "The biggest change after Edo's visit has been our mindset. We have realized much more to focus on finance and this will really help us when we have a CFO."

Follow up

Jaipur rugs agreed upon the recommendations done by Edo and defined an action plan. E.g. actions already implemented: Jaipur Rugs contracted a CFO. Also they started to discuss about financial issues regularly. They have hired two supply chain and logistics manager and one is working on efficiency and the other is working on cost reduction which is already showing good results.

On the longer term:

This is a start of a two-year partnership between SharePeople and Jaipur Rugs.  Both organisations will keep in touch (a.o. via the SharePeople liaison, at least every 3 months), and with the expert as well. After this Programme, an official update on the status of the organisation takes place every 12 months.