If you are a kid of the 1980’s or 1990’s, you would surely remember the then-breakthrough “Sony Walkman” which created a huge wave not only in India but across the world. In fact, during those days you would see every other person carrying a walkman. Sony Walkman was successful since it was the very first product in a new category – Personal Stereo. It enjoyed a dream run selling more than 40 million units in the first ten years. It also enjoyed the “First Mover Advantage” till the time; rapid technological innovations changed the entire consumer electronics industry!!
Being the first mover is just the initial step since it becomes essential that the X-factor is communicated well to the customers in order to take the advantage of the first-mover status. Consider the case of Tata Nano, the tag of “World’s Cheapest Car” completely backfired and its sales hit a Plateau. Customers do not want “Cheap” products, rather they want “Affordable” Products and this is where Tata Nano suffered a setback since it marketed Nano as Cheap and not an Affordable Car!!
First Mover is not only limited to Tech companies but the same also applies to real-estate Companies that innovate on their Offerings, Product Placement, Pricing Model etc. One such company is Sobha Ltd that has taken a leap forward in the residential real-estate sector with its new project Sobha Dream Acres. So, you may ask what is so special about Sobha Dream Acres? Well, Sobha Dream Acres is the first residential that is built using the Precast Technology. The primary advantages of using Precast are Quality, Speed of construction and value-for-money product.
We had an interaction with Mr. Raj Pillai, Executive director of Sobha Ltd in his office and the discussion was centered around Core values of Sobha, Exemplary focus on customer service, his journey with Sobha, Precast Technology, Pros & Cons of being the first mover in Business, Housing for all and much more…
These are the edited excerpts from of the Q&A with Mr. Raj Pillai
Note: ‘I’ in the interview refers to Mr. Pillai and ‘We’ refers to Sobha Ltd. Before we start the Q&A, let me share a quick pic of myself with Mr. Pillai (L)
Can you please share some details about key pillars of Sobha Ltd
Sobha has mainly three businesses:Real Estate, Contracts, and Manufacturing. Real Estate contributes to ~80% of our business and when you talk about Real Estate, we have two models : Luxury (Prices > 1 crore) and Ultra-Luxury (> 3 crores).
We have built upon this model for more than 20 years and we have improvised the model YOY. We always ensured that there is Backward Integration. We need to understand the core values of Sobha since that is where the seeds of the startup were sown by Founder Chairman of Sobha who has more than 40 years of experience in the Middle East which has some of the best constructions in the world.
The very first project from Sobha Ltd was in the outskirts of Bengaluru i.e. in Jakkur. Our founder had the vision that if the Quality of our construction is good and our Product is of Superior Quality, it does not matter where you are located since customers would definitely come to you!! In order to build Quality Product, Sobha has ensured that we have world-class manufacturing unit so that Quality Check & Control is in our hands. Unlike our competitors, we never encourage the Chalta Hain Attitude and aim for perfection. Our factories have world class machinery and we have invested significantly in it over a period of time. In fact, we have more than 8K skilled “certified” tradesmen (either employed with Sobha or working on contract).
There is a huge level of commitment from Sobha’s top-level management and this shows their seriousness in the business. So, these are the key qualities of Sobha and irrespective of the nature of work, all of us at Sobha abide by those qualities since that is what constitutes the Sobha Brand.
Can you shed some light on the Precast factory built by Sobha for Sobha Dream Acres?
I am sure that you would have loved the Precast factory when you visited our Sobha Dream Acres Campus. A huge amount of hard work has been put to turn our chairman Mr. Ravi Menon’s dream into Reality!! So, let’s look into the details of the Precast factory:
The factory was built in a record period of 6~8 months. We strongly believe in the 10,000-hour work-rule that is mentioned in the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
It takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.
Over the last 3 years; Sobha’s high-level management, myself and other senior managers have spent innumerable hours (~8,000) to ensure that we build a world-class Precast Factory. This is the kind of commitment you would see from all employees at Sobha Ltd. The Quality Manual of Sobha Ltd lists down on how we closely look at each & every aspect of Quality to ensure we have a Happy Customer!!!
Sobha Ltd is not only the preferred real-estate brand from consumer point-of-view but it is the most preferred employer for real-estate professionals. Below are the results from BrandX Report 2015~16
What are your views on Affordable Housing and some factors that might turn it into reality?
Affordable Housing is the new buzz-word in the Housing sector but it is the most misused word in the world. Affordable is highly relative and it is not something which is cheap.
In fact, in my opinion, Affordable is something which you are able to buy, it is technology driven and remains affordable for the entire life-cycle of the building i.e. no leakage etc. which means the minimum amount is spent on the repairs of the house.
In fact, we learnt a lot from our trip to Finland (where 6 months of the year it is snowing and hence, they have half the time to get things right) & Singapore (where you would see awesome buildings) trips and we took the positive learnings out of it.
We brought international experts onboard to set up the Precast Factory so that we are able to deliver Affordable Houses (with exceptional quality and no compromise on safety) for our customers. According to us, Sobha Dream Acres is an ideal example of affordable homes since the repeat-costs for the customers would be very low!!
What are the kind of challenges you faced to convince higher management from Sobha Ltd to use Precast Technology (for Dream Acres)?
Initially, it was very difficult to get a buy-in from the entire management team since it was a big & risky Leap forward for Sobha Ltd. There were a lot of doubts mainly w.r.t Technology & its feasibility (as well as Durability) and since we had international experts onboard, we were able to clear all the doubts lingering in the minds of our higher management.
They believed in our vision as well as conviction. In my opinion, if we have to improve the quality of the construction in our country, we need to get rid of Plastering since Precast is much more affordable and at the same time durable. You would be surprised that we use 300 million tons of cement in our country out of which 10% of it goes into Plastering. They believed in our vision and we at Sobha Ltd believe that Precast would change the entire construction (specifically residential) industry.
Can you share some details about factors that are very critical in Precast?
First, all of us need to understand that “The Quality of concrete is very important in construction and it is much more important in Precast”. I am aware of projects where other companies have put up a good plant and equipment but they compromised a lot on something termed as “Batching Plant” (this is where the concrete is batched).
In the case of Sobha Dream Acres, we got the best Batching Plant so that the construction is of very high quality. Also, since Sobha Dream Acres customers also have similar doubts about Precast; to address them we have set up one of the biggest Marketing Offices at Sobha Dream Acres. Interested customers are first given a tour of the Precast Factory to remove any doubts left about the technology.
For more information on Precast Technology, you can refer to Understand Precast Technology Series (Part-1, Part-2). To summarize, Precast is about achieving the best construction Quality in a shorter duration of time (due to an overall reduction in Slab Cycle Time) thus minimizing the overall Delivery Time. Sobha Dream Acres is definitely Ahead of Time.
What are the approximate savings you would get if Precast is used?
In terms of plain numbers, you would easily get 20~25% savings keeping in mind all the tangible & intangible benefits. But it is very important to note that the savings are not for us, but it is for the customer.
Customer gets the following savings : 1) On-Time Delivery & Sobha has been very particular about it for all the projects 2) Sobha Dream Acres is not an Affordable Home but a Tech-Home and the Life Cycle Cost on this home would be minimum.
The strength of the concrete is so high w.r.t life of the building that customer’s cost on the building is minimized (keeping leakage, seepage etc. into account).
Buying a flat in Sobha Dream Acres is like buying a high-end luxury car at the most affordable price.
How has Sobha Ltd been able to communicate the actual USP of Sobha Dream Acres to its customers?
To answer your question, I would first tell you about our other project Sobha Indraprastha and the technology used in Indraprastha. The entire construction in Indraprashta is done using ‘Self Dynamic Concrete’ and there is no external plastering in that building.
We had communicated to our customers of Indraprashta about advantages of Self Dynamic Concrete and every customer highlighted that point. So, communication is the key when newer technologies are adopted by any company.
Coming back to Sobha Dream Acres, we want our customers to know about Precast Technology since that will answer most of their queries around pricing, durability etc.
Every customer who visits Sobha Dream Acres campus is first taken for a virtual tour of our Precast Factory so that they understand the inherent benefits of Precast and customers have taken it very positively.
The entire sales team involved with Sobha Dream Acres have received training about Precast Technology so that they are able to solve Customer Queries in the shortest amount of time.
Educating the customer about Precast Technology has become primarily important for us & our team is doing really great to communicate this message!!
How important is Post-Sales Support important and what are Sobha’s methodologies to provide best Buying Experience to Sobha Dream Acres’ customers?
We have a unique model. We have a huge CRM team that does the hand-holding and ensure that the customer is excited about their dream home.
Sobha Ltd has a very interesting program called Sobha Connect where we are reaching out to all our old customers (even those you purchased a Sobha Home 15 years back) to get the prospective reference(s). Out of more than 25K Sobha customers, many of them are repeat customers and that goes to show that we are fanatic about Customer Delight
It takes a lot of courage to go back to older customers and Sobha Connect is that Bold Step taken by Sobha Ltd (since we have complete confidence in our construction.)
Most of the real-estate companies have Celebrity Brand Ambassador, why isn’t that Sobha Ltd does not have a brand ambassador?
You need to have a celebrity Brand Ambassador when you are not able to sell the core value proposition. As mentioned in the earlier point, existing Sobha Ltd customers are our brand ambassadors.
Our endeavor has always been to get our product right and our entire Sobha team is paranoid about Perfection
Though brand ambassadors help in the marketing push but in today’s time (where information spreads like fire on Social Media), if you do not have a good product even a Celebrity Brand Ambassador cannot save its fate!
Your thoughts on the Real Estate Regulatory Act Bill?
With the Real Estate Regulatory Act [RERA] Bill, adherence to standards would no longer be a choice for the builders (irrespective of whether a builder is Grade A/B/C etc.) but adherence would be a Compulsion. RERA would be an important milestone in the construction business!
Can you comment on the PM’s mission of Housing for All?
The biggest problem in India is ‘Timely Execution’. However, a technology like Precast is the way forward in order to achieve this mission. I am part of the ‘National Building Code 2016’ committee and due to PM Modi’s charisma, government officials are working on par with other officials of the world.
National Building Code would definitely be a game-changer since it would be the best document to refer if anyone needs to know about the construction industry.
In my opinion, Precast is definitely the way forward if homes have to be of Supreme quality, exceptional Durability and need to be delivered with strict deadlines.
I thank Sobha Ltd for inviting me over for the interview & Mr. Pillai for patiently answering all our questions! If you are an existing Sobha Customer or aspiring to buy a home in Sobha Dream Acres, please leave a comment in the article or share your queries to himanshu.sheth@gmail.com