Mr. Suvir Khullar, CMD and Founder, Gifting Ideas Pvt ltd

“Build Relations to succeed”

It is a good businessman who understands the value of a product but it takes a good entrepreneur to recognize the value of relationships. Suvir is an entrepreneur who has built his venture on the credo that human relations are the key to being consistently successful. As the CMD of Gifting Ideas Pvt ltd and its founder he has much on his plate but he graciously took the time to answer some of our questions.

Business Idea- Suvir gave up a career to pursue his dreams and though they began small, the main idea has always been the same. He says “I was in the Merchant Navy for 6 years before I decided to start something of my own. I started by selling a single product, Car Sun Shades from a PCO! Right from the beginning we valued relationships over anything else. I realized that I cannot keep going back to my clients with a single product. That’s when I started adding other products like Mouse pads, 3M post-its, Phone chargers etc to our range. Over the last 13 years we have grown from a single product company to over 10000 gifting ideas with over 95 employees across 4 locations.”

“Gifting Ideas is a Private Limited Company jointly owned by its two Directors. Its core team has been there with the company for an average of over 6 years. For practical purposes the company has been divided into 3 SBU’s, Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Online Sales. All functions have their own Heads/Managers.”

What sets them apart – Gifting Ideas not only provides the best customer service possible but they also make sure that they have a great line up of products. Suvir told us how they stand apart saying “What we do and how we do it. Our products and catalogues are the best in the business. No matter how good the relationship may be, if the products are not interesting, the clients are not going to be impressed.”

“We benchmark ourselves against international trend-setters and always try to be the first to take new products to our clients. We have a highly motivated team at Gifting Ideas, with the core team having been with us on an average of > 6 years each! We have set fairly high standards in terms of customer service internally. Many of our new customers come in through testimonials from existing clients, which is a constant affirmation that we are doing the right things.”

Future Plans- The focal point for the future is not just growth but also ensuring infallibility. Suvir says “We realize that for any organization to grow the foundation or processes need to be very strong. Hence right now our focus is on ensuring that we have the right systems and processes in place. We are also in discussion with strategic investors to help us scale up the business.”“The response has been very good. We believe in building relationships, and that’s what is evident from our client base. We have worked with over 500 clients and many of them many times over. The fact that some of our biggest clients are working with us for more than 3-5 years is testimony to the fact.”

His entrepreneurial journey – Suvir’s told us what pleases him most about his entrepreneurial journey saying “To make this an enriching experience for all those who are travelling along with me on this journey. Not only financially but to also give them a sense of great accomplishment and achievement. We must always be the most admired company in our space.”

Despite his sterling leadership he has found difficulties that he is trying to purge. 

“The major challenge is retaining front line and middle level employees. We are trying to overcome this by providing various benefits to employees and ensuring that they have fulfilling careers with Gifting Ideas.”

“The biggest challenge was to attract good talent initially. The company’s fundamentals have always been strong, but it was hard to project that to candidates through a small, cramped up office. So we needed to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and get into a bigger and more expensive office. We did that so to attract the talent that was needed to keep our company growing.”

“Finding new products to keep servicing the client relationships are a big challenge in our industry. Products get ‘old’ pretty soon. Strategic tie-ups have given us a distinct advantage of getting around 500 to 1000 new product ideas to offer our customers every year.”

His driving force towards success has been “The feedback from our clients drives us to perform better and make bigger plans for the company. The trust and confidence that they have in Gifting Ideas drives us to attain new heights. And also the commitment of the Gifting Ideas team makes you realize that nothing is impossible.”

Entrepreneurial lesson – Suvir gave us the quintessence of what an entrepreneur requires to be successful advising “Believe in yourself and dream big. See in your mind’s eye what you want your company to look like and keep working towards that. Build relationships, first with your own people, and then with customers.”

YourStory thanks Suvir for sharing his insightful knowledge of his business and wishing him more triumphs with his products and his relationships at Gifting Ideas.