Leading SMEs of India 2023

Leading SMEs of India 2023 | 23 [ EXPERT’S VIEW ] Kunal Marathe CEO and Executive Director Pratap Tex-Chem Private Limited with an aim to expand and meet our production and customer requirements, set up our own R&D and Microbiology lab - a first for any Indian metalworking fluid and lubricants manufacturing company. Our dealer network grew, so did our team and our product portfolio. Today we have more than 40 dealers spread across India, 14 sales team members present in all major manufacturing states, a strong R&D team led by our visionary founder, a wide range of more than 300 products covering 4 product verticals in a single facility with more than 600 kl/month capacity catering to multiple industries from automobile, defence and aerospace to agriculture, retail and heavy industries. We launched Lubeco (Industrial lubricants and metalworking fluids) in 2015 and gradually addedmore verticals like Supergen (Automotive lubricants), Krushagra (Biobasedagri products) and Azure (Nano technology greases and lubricants). We have started tollblending for a few Indian MNC’s and also started exporting to Africa, Asia, Russia and the US triggering expansion plans. What has been the success mantra of your company? There isonlyonesuccessmantra for any organization to grow and that is - collective effort and hard work. From the top to bottom, everyone in the company is concerned about the continuous improvement and development of the company. We have a board of directors with a collective experience of more than 120 years in different fields which includes our MD and Chairman, myself, Mr. Jeetendra Shende (Served as a Director in a Kirloskar group company) and Mr. Sunil Chaudhari (Served as Technical Sales and Marketing Manager in Lubrizol). The vision and mission of our company is like a catalyst in every department’s decisionmaking process. Our company’s foundation is research and product development, that also keeps us going. What is your company’s growth strategy for next 3-5 years? We plan to develop our existing plant by investing in new blenders, reactors, automation, increase storage capacity and set up a new plant to increase the production capacity 5 times in the next 2 years. We have plans to increase our exports to 10%of our total revenue in the next 3 years. We plan to participate in foreign exhibitions to generate export leads. We also plan to upgrade our lab. Our mission is to grow by 100% in the next 3 years. How would you describe the journey of your company since its inception? What are some of the key milestones of the company in recent years? Pratap Tex-Chem was founded by our MD and Chairman Mr. Pratap Marathe as a textile chemicals manufacturing company, which switched operations fromMumbai to Pune and became a private limited company in 1999 and started manufacturing industrial lubricants andmetalworking fluids. It was focused on catering to the requirements of automobile industry in and aroundPune, Satara and Kolhapur region. I joined the company in 2006 as a sales and marketing executive and my focus was to generate and convert leads, do online and offline promotions, build team and expand dealer network. On one hand we focused on design and development of the products, while on the other we created brand value. We got our ISO certification done during this period. We shifted to a bigger facility in Mulshi, Pune in 2011 Dun & Bradstreet