With the government making it compulsory for both the rider and pillion rider to wear a helmet, the sale of the helmet has gone high in India. Seeing the safety factor, most people have started opting for branded helmet only. Growing awareness and demand calls for a lot of brands to come ahead and manufacture good quality products. Steelbird Helmets is one of the oldest and largest helmets producing company contributing to the world of safety with its innovative and futuristic design.
In an interview with insights success, Rajeev Kapur, Managing Director of Steelbird Helmets have given some insightful answers highlighting the influences made by his company to take safety programs at the new level.
- Kindly tell us about Steelbird helmet.
Steelbird Helmets is one of the oldest and the largest helmet producing company in the country. The company holds lineage since 1964, the year this company came into existence. The company has over 3000 employees, 7 plants in India and its R&D happens in Italy. The current installed capacity is of producing 22000 helmets a day. We also supply to OEM’S like HONDA, YAMAHA, HERO, VESPA, ROYAL ENFIELD, etc. We are known for quality products which are innovative and set new trends in the market.
- What kind of services and solutions does your company provide that makes you stand out from the competitors?
What make us stand out from the competition is innovation and the fact that our range is so extensive that it caters to the needs of each segment of the society. We have brands such as Steelbird catering to the masses, Steelbird AIR and Steelbird HI-GN catering to the mid segment and then we have premium brands like IGNYTE, KUKKA, PROJECT FOR SAFETY, which cater to the elite customers of the society. And all these brands carry a unique proposition about their products, be it innovation in Air technology, or Anti-Bacteria coating which are industry firsts and give us an innovation edge over the competition.
- Kindly brief us about the innovative industry trends.
Like I mentioned earlier, each of our products and brands carry a unique proposition to them be it innovation in Air technology, or Anti-Bacteria coating or creating new graphics with new finish like Glow in the dark, reflective graphics, chrome graphics, Glitter graphics etc. Also we launch one helmet graphic each week which sets up apart in innovation in industry trends.
- Briefly, tell us about the CEO/Founder of the company.
I joined business pretty early when I was 17 years old. Business has always been my passion and it gives me tremendous amount of pleasure to setup new plants and Industries. I am an avid biker myself, have travelled the globe and I am car enthusiast. Have participated in all leading competitions of the country from rallies to races etc. I am a certified scuba diver and I am a pure adventure Junkey.
- Kindly brief us about the unique strategies that you use in your company.
There are quite a few unique strategies that we use, firstly innovation in products that we develop, positioning our brands in the correct and right manner, then we have started a customer loyalty program named Steelbird Connect which works through an app and is an industry first strategy to bind the customers together and bring them on a single platform. Then we have these foreign trips where we incentivize the dealers on completion of certain targets and take them to trips abroad. We are taking about 1200 retailers to Thailand this year in November for our Annual Steelbird Awards.
- Kindly brief us about the most satisfactory experience with a client. What kind of game- hanging services have you provided them.
Every client that we work with is a satisfactory experience for us as most these clients are huge OEM’S. The game changing services that provide to them are so many, the variety of products that we offer are huge, different varieties of colors, different varieties of interiors, huge range of sizes available that we offer them etc. Also the biggest thing is that we don’t create competition amongst the retailers as there is such a huge range to sell each retailer has their own favorite brands from our kitty hence no competition amongst each other giving those higher sales margins and in turn higher profits
- How do you work on your long-term relationship with your clients?
How we work on long-term relationships with our clients is by giving them the customizable options for products. We ask them about their requirements and then make products as per their requirements. We also make sure of the after sales support in terms of any problem or defect in the product. We maintain a minimum turnaround time for any issue that they might have so that their experience with us never spoilt even if it sometimes means taking that cost upon us.
- What are the values and factors that you attribute your success to? Also, suggest the one quote which adorns your company very well.
One of the values that are instilled in us is that we treat all our employees as family. This has been one of the biggest factors to our success. We create an environment where nobody wants to leave us and go. In fact treating them like family makes them motivated to consider the business their own and keep working hard to grow the business. The one quote will be, “No one should die wearing our helmet.” This is the line that we live by and make sure that our products deliver this quality.
- What are the future advancements of your company and how well equipped are you?
We are expanding every day, we have bought an Italian brand by the name of Project for safety, new products are being launched every week, we are launching the smallest helmet of the world, apart from this we have our venture by the name of Motoziel which is a rider’s heaven. Most of the riding gears brand from across the world is in that on stop shop for riders. Our plants are expanding and getting bigger as the requirements of the market are increasing.
