The Ergonomics Maestro
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With a plan to capitalise on the untapped market of ergonomic furniture, Ravi Khushwani has set out on a mission to provide ergonomic seating solutions to a country that was very wary of buying "touch and feel' products online. According to Ravi, the founder of Green Soul Ergonomics, there comes a moment in every entrepreneurial corporate employee's life when s/he realizes that their passion for starting up something is brimming with innumerable ideas.
This moment led Ravi to start a courier aggregator company and later dive into uncharted waters of the Ergonomic furniture market in the D2C segment five years ago. Even though selling "touch and feel' DIY products was not popular, the experience that Ravi had garnered in e-commerce and logistics helped him steer the company to positive results. The global business sentiment hit an alltime low in 2020 and with Indo-Chinese relationships straining, Green Soul had to mull over the planned product launches that were shadowed by tight supply chain. Ravi courageously went ahead with the plan as they had already taken pre-emptive measures which helped them survive these torrid times. The products that were set to launch during the pandemic period are now one of Green Soul's bestselling products. Ravi is of the opinion that those times were a test of his character and are easily one of the best lessons he has learned. The management of cash flow also became a huge problem for Ravi as he had to invest his time to get acclimatized to the new-age financial models in order to keep the momentum going. As the post-pandemic era arrived, the e-commerce sector witnessed massive growth. Ravi focussed on decreasing the time to market for the products as this growth in e-commerce led to an increase in consumer expectations as well. He also improved the supply chain and introduced a new product in the market which turned out to be a masterstroke in just two months, as the product is now a category bestseller on Amazon.
However, Green Soul Ergonomics and Ravi are still feeling the effects of the pandemic as 50% of their products are imported. Ravi on challenges he has faced says," I am unable to travel to China, meet the suppliers and plan a roadmap for product development and product improvement. It is a big challenge for a company like us because sourcing, logistics, product improvement and new product development are the founding pillars of Green Soul." Ravi bootstrapped the business and created a small team and the team has grown to more than 120 members as Green Soul Ergonomics has managed to reach more than 2.5L Indian consumers. The company has grown 100 times from where it started. Ravi is a firm proponent of the belief that a company's success relies a lot on the transparency between the founder and the team. The pandemic made him realize that bilateral transparency led to the efficient teamwork and coordination which helped him gain the trust of his team during those tough times.
Ravi Khushwani on his learning as a CEO shares,
"You always learn the ropes of things when you work for it but what I got to learn as a CEO was my people. I learnt how to nurture their passion and channelize into value creation for the brand. I know for a fact that my team doesn't see my delegation as working for me, they work for the brand and that moves me every time I see our team achieving new milestones."
