A rare sultry winter day in the Delhi NCR, and we travel to Faridabad’s renown Surajkund Mela. Exquisite shoppers of all ages or just dwellers, they are spread around this unique trade fair. We move to the stall of some alluring cricket bats, and being Indians, we could not resist touching and getting a feel. And then she arrives, this exceedingly good natured lady – Ms. Ritu Lakhotia who is responsible for the Wow Cricket Bats stall at the fair. She is involved in all the major businesses run by her family and comes across as a person who is astute in her knowledge, jovial, and very welcoming. She sounds very excited and upbeat about Wow Bats, and her confidence to take it to the next level, is worth admiring. Ms. Lakhotia seems to have perfected the art of blending motherhood with career progression and she is an integral part of the success story of Wow International & Rajshee Steering.
Ms. Lakhotia starts by saying, “My son was born around the same time as I graduated from IIPM and so I could not start my professional career”. She played the role of a perfect mother till her son was 2.5 years old, and then went to the USA for studying business in an effort to update herself and get a recap of management science. “Marketing was my chosen field”, she adds. Ms. Lakhotia then joined her family business which is in to a foray of markets. Rajshee Steering is also one such unit which manufactures automobile parts like steering, bearings etc with some superb clients like New Holland and Mitsibishi. They have been in the export business for the past 30 years. “In 1998, we started our Aluminium plant that manufactures HPAC (Heating, Piping & Air Conditioning) products”, she informs us. Coming on to Wow, Ms. Lakhotia adds that the Wow cricket bat is their latest venture and the leading process began in 2010. Wow cricket Bats have been acclaimed across many circles for its USP which is the use of Aluminium instead of woods to manufacture the bats which in turn results in saving a lot of trees. The growth according to her has been slow but now they are all set to step on the accelerator. “As we speak, Wow Bats are being launched across 300-400 different outlets across India, and they have caught the fancy of kids especially”, she adds with an air of excitement. And the number of people visiting their stall at the Surajkund Mela is testimony to the fact that this product could well be a breakthrough in the market of sports products. Wow hopes to penetrate this market heavily in times to come, and Ms. Lakhotia is currently working closely towards the promotional activities around Wow Bats.
The concept of Wow Bats is the brain child of Ms. Lakhotia’s husband – Mr. Vivek Lakhotia who is an engineering graduate from Roorkee (now an IIT). “He is very creative and always comes up with new things and the amount of energy that has gone into the creation of Wow Bats, is absolutely phenomenal!” she affirms with pride. Indeed all those manhours that have gone into Wow Bats have been fruitful. Ms. Lakhotia thinks that Wow Bats is just a beginning for Wow for creating a ‘brand image’ baseline. She tells us that there are plans in store to launch more products like sport kits, caps etc. “Currently, the idea is to spread awareness about the brand – Wow”, adds Ms. Lakhotia. Talking about the positioning of Wow Bats, she opines that this product is a recreational product for kids who play cricket using tennis balls. “We are offering the kids an eco-friendly product which makes them more responsible towards the environment”, she explains. With the whole world contemplating the reduction in Carbon Footprints, the aluminium bats will at least give everybody a chance to contribute to the environment. Thus in a way, Wow as a brand is playing an important role in society by conserving large amount of trees and help decreasing deforestation to a great extent.
According to Ms. Lakhotia, Wow Bats need not worry about any competition because there is none. She adds, “For the Aluminium bats, we have got an international patent”. This means that there will not be any other aluminium bats manufacturer. She hopes that from 300-400 dealer networks, Wow bats will reach a mark of at least 3000 dealers in next four months. This will result in a strong brand building for Wow. Rajshee Steering has been exporting auto parts for quite a while now. Their major buyers are OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) organizations and in the B2B context, ‘Rajshee’ as a brand, she thinks is well established.
As a leader, Ms. Lakhotia loves to work closely with her team and aims at keeping them motivated at all levels. She says, “You should always come up with something new and such new elements always help in management – That is your identity”. She feels that it is crucial to make your employees feel responsible and ensure that they are always delivering the right results. Ms. Lakhotia fondly remembers her days at IIPM and remarks that her liking for Marketing is a result of the well grounded concepts that she learned at IIPM. She adds, “I was an English literature student and management at that time was a challenge for me”. She is still in touch with Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri and Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri, and was also present during the launch of ‘Thorns to Competition’. Prof. Vinesh Chhabra has been her favourite teacher. “The learning from IIPM helped me a lot in coming out with flying colours when I did my business studies in USA”, she recalls.
“LOOK WHERE YOU CAN MAKE A PLACE FOR YOUR PRODUCT IN THE MARKET AND THEN PENETRATE”
To the young brigade, her message is, “Be sincere in what you do and work towards delivering results consistently”. She also recommends that one needs to have confidence in their product and their team in order to succeed as a marketer.
For the budding entrepreneurs, she stresses the need for differentiating the product in some aspect or the other. She adds, “Look where you can make a place for your product in the market and then try and penetrate that space”. And according to her merely glorifying a ‘quality’ differentiation is not enough because these days quality is a ‘given’ in most of the products by premier brands in every industry. Thus other than quality, there is something more that needs to be identified and the differentiation of products should revolve around that.
Ms. Lakhotia has been a career woman but at times her responsibilities as a mother have taken priority. “For the last few years, I have been a tennis mom”. She has been travelling with her son Raghav who is a fantastic tennis player currently pursuing his studies in the USA.
Ms. Lakhotia has used all the travelling as an opportunity to promote Wow Jewellery by meeting many people and also understanding markets.
Ms. Lakhotia has been at the helm of Wow Jewellery and has been exporting to various markets across Europe. She then adds with a smile, “Wow Bats are my prime focus now”. So far, the reactions to Wow Bats have been raving. Even girls have shown interest in the product because of which they will be bringing ‘pink’ bats for them soon. Her son Raghav is currently the mascot for Wow Bats, and he and his friends served as an important focus group for them in developing these Aluminium bats.
Ms. Lakhotia recently updated her AR Rehman collection after liking his music in the movie Rockstar. She likes to cook when she gets time and is fond of Indian cuisine. She has been to the USA many times and it is her favourite holiday spot as well. In closing, she reminds us once more, “At the end of the day, in business and in life, it is all about delivering the right results.”
Ms. Lakhotia then leaves us after providing us with a detailed tour of her stall at the Mela. She joyfully strikes a few poses with the Wow Bats and our team also used the opportunity to bowl some deliveries and feel the strokes.
Cult wishes Ms. Lakhotia all the success with Wow as a brand and conveys the deepest respect for caring for the forests. For the next generations, such efforts will help them live on a healthy planet and they would also be aware of the need to care for their planet and we are proud that an ‘IIPMite’ is contributing to this nobel cause towards the ecosystem.
