The most underfelt emotional bond has to be between a father and son, one can easily express their love to their mom, sisters but we wait for a lifetime just to hug our father. A child’s father is indeed his superhero, as we learn a lot from him. We get ready for this world under the shield of his powers. ARM packing solutions was founded by such a father-son duo back in 2007. Providing safety packaging materials ARM packing solutions is one of the leading brands in its sector with an MSME award for best quality control.

Mayank Rohatgi, co-founder of the company hails from a business family in Delhi. ARM packing solutions was co-founded by Mayank with his inspiration, his father late Mr. Azad Singh Rohatgi in 2007. Before opening the company, he used to handle packaging at his father’s pencil manufacturing unit since 1998. There’s a Chinese proverb, ‘Giving your son a skill is better than giving him thousand gold bricks’, which proved useful for Mayank as working for his father gave him lots of inspiration and polished his skills to excel for his new venture.

A graduate of Delhi University, Mayank joined his father’s business when he just passed out from 12th standard. With an experience of almost a decade in stationery, ARM launched its first product ‘Bubble Pouches.’ But the product had lots of issues, as they needed to understand the packaging industry. After two years of struggle in 2009, they understood the product, client needs, and marketing strategies. Back then it wasn’t competitive as there were very few manufacturers in India.

A specialty of ARM products is that they are of virgin quality that can be fully recycled. Even the wastage consumption of the company is in-house and they recycle it all. Today ARM makes every product used in safety packaging, which includes 40 interlinked products. The plants they use are Made in India, while some plants like bubble roll are imported from Korea.

Talking about the growth in the packaging industry, Mayank says that as every coin has two sides this industry also has a negative and positive impact on growth. The negative side is that one can only sell the product in a limited zone as if you take the product for more than 500 km the transportation cost would be the same as the product and it would be unaffordable. On the positive side, as this is industrial packaging, there’s no decline in this industry. One will always need industries and the product has to be shipped with safety, so you’ll need the safety packaging. Plus, India is a growing hub for manufacturers, which would create more jobs.

Today ARM just spends about one or two percent of its budget on marketing says Mayank. They researched the market well and understood the rate. By using modern technology in their plant's ARM was able to cut the cost of the product. With such a level-down expenditure on marketing, their liabilities are none. ARM’s clientele consists of almost every electronic manufacturing company in India and even those who repack here. Then they have leading brands of automobile, gift and packaging sector, corporates, exports houses, ceramic industries, and many logistics companies too. Overall, every product which needs protection while being shipped from one place to another their products are used.

Pandemic press paused in our lives for a while, but even then, ARM was learning and helping others. Mayank spent his first lockdown learning about how to manage the plant, how to transport, how much staff to keep as there were many restrictions and everything was shut down. Recalling those days, he says, ‘We had to take an E-Pass before each delivery, it was quite complicated. But as we also served the food and medical industry, we were relaxed a bit on the restrictions and we were able to continue the production.’ ARM also produced face shields and face masks during times of crisis. Many industrialists serving the medical industry saw this as an opportunity and sold face shields at more than 80 rupees. But as we Indians say ‘Seva Parmo Dharm’, ARM launched its shields just at 25 rupees.

Currently, ARM dominates the market of Northern India, but their products as such tapes, bubble wraps are supplied all over India. Mayank envisions expanding the manufacturing unit in the next three to four years. Mostly in the eastern and southern parts of India to provide low-cost good quality products to the customers. Due to the pandemic expansion wasn’t possible, as most of their projects ended and it was just a long wait for everything to be normal so the business could be accelerated.

Stepping out of the pandemic and running everything smoothly wasn’t easy for the government. They are doing good for the business industry, says Mayank. It’s good for the new units, but the running units are in a fix. They provide loans, subsidies on machinery but the ground reality is different. The government tells the entrepreneur that they don’t need any collateral, land, or experience, just a good project is sufficient whilst the bank is totally in contrast to that. If the government is supportive then the banks should do it too.

Mayank’s experience in the manufacturing industry is the same as his age, he says that there’s competition with China’s manufacturing industry. Most people in India are interested in trading rather than manufacturing. India doesn’t have compelling labor laws compared to China. They have wide zones for manufacturing, while we took so long to develop the Bhawana industrial zone which isn’t even safe. How will one set up the industry there? India has scattered horizontal industrial areas, because of which the cost of raw material and transportation increases. It's not that the government isn’t working on it, but it will take about 10-15 years for India to be a manufacturing hub, miracles don’t happen overnight.

Indian business community needs to focus on R&D and manufacturing, instead, they are involved in trading. What they don’t understand is that we are exporting raw material and importing finished goods from the same material. This process affects our GDP and Forex. But due to the Make in India movement, there’s a shift in this behavioral pattern, adds Mayank.

One of the many things young entrepreneurs should learn from ARM’s is that they never sell their products, they just suggest. They suggest to the customers that what should they use, how they should use it and what are their exact needs, then it's up to the customer whether to buy it from them or not. Being such a standardized company with certification for quality control, the customer is unable to deny their service.

So, work your product, invest in R&D, maintain a standard and most importantly never give up, eventually, success will be yours!