V&M

                                 Plot 47, Sector 5, Industrial Model Township, Manesar

                                              Gurgaon 122050, Haryana, India 

                                                     Company Profile 

Introduction 

• V&M is a family run Company which was set up in 1995 a little over a year after Col Anil Chawla retired from the Army and as it grew all management was taken over by. Mrs Suman Chawla is very much the hands on and completely focussed proprietor of the Company
• Since then it has exported leather goods to USA, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Russia, Japan, Australia and Singapore. In the process the Company had, in the pre covid period, provided employment to over 300 employees and developed a pool of versatile manpower trained like its founders by their own experience within the Company.

Products  

• The Company manufactures a vast range of leathergoods which cover most items except garments and shoes. The approach has been to do creative rather than mass manufacture work (though that is always welcome and greatly helps) and it is with that in view that we have trained our workers to be versatile rather than specialists. This has, however, been achieved without compromising on quality with the result that we have had remarkable continuity of work with our buyers all these years.

• While leathergoods has been our main field of activity we have welcomed work in other mediums when our buyers have so demanded. In fact our product that made it to the Vogue ‘must have’ category was a textile and natural fibre bag made to meet the requirement of our German buyer who designed the item. We also do a lot of work in canvas, jute and hemp.

• The Company has two overlapping divisions, one, Leather Goods and the other Leather Covered diaries, journals and stationery. The two are complementary. Once work regains pre covid levels and beyond we expect, and plan for, the two to be more organisationally separated.

Method of Work  

• From some of our buyers we receive design spec sheets, while some come and design with us. Other buyers select from products created by our own design team. One of our strengths is that we can find sampling and production solutions to most designs sent to us. We have a strong design and sampling team that constantly produces new products.

• We are honoured to have had long term relationships with our buyers.

• All our work, except for some very highly specialized processes, is done in-house and we have endeavored to develop our machinery base accordingly. We now have a very diversified and versatile machinery base.

• Our relations with our suppliers are excellent and we have built long term relationships with them. Due to this our suppliers are willing to experiment along with us and in fact enjoy doing the different kinds of leather we require particularly making our occasional small quantities. We select vendors who have similar values.

• We have ensured that we provide all social security benefits to our workers and constantly try to improve working conditions. Just as an example of our concern for our workers we are proud that among other steps wefirst took special and expensive steps to provide passive cooling for our roof and special insulation in some parts of the roof so that our hot summers are made better bearable. Now we have gone beyond that by covering our entire roof with solar which, besides producing solar energy also further keeps the roof cool.

• It is a practice at V&M to plough back most of the profits into making ours a stronger Company so that there is all round stability and our workers get more secure employment. As a result of regular ploughing back of profits we have a 23000 sq ft facility at the Industrial Model Township at Manesar. We have purchased and also constructed an approximtely25000 sq feet factory in Jurehra  Industrial Area in rural Rajasthan for the further growth. We are working on various schemes for expansion and backward integration. This second factory is fitted up and ready to take on orders as it has increased our production capacity three fold. We hope to move some of our operations there after the pandemic or even starting a new project there.

• V&M has just bought a printing press of Heidelberg Company and this has been kept at our new facility while yet another one is being arranged at the Manesar facility.

• We have built a large machinery base and have sufficient machinery capacity to quickly double our production. There is also a large pool of manpower available and willing to join us quickly. .

• V&M constantly ploughs back profits also into expanding and widening its machinery base which enables it to improve quality and also to introduce innovative techniques such as laser engraving and printing on leather including digital printing. Our machinery base includes Pattern stitchers from Mitsubishi Japan, varied stitching machinery from Garudan, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Japan while specialized leather goods machines are from Italy. This year we are, along with routine capacity expansion, in the process of adding more stitching machines from Durkopp Adler, two more machines from Mitsubishi and and additional embossing machine from Italy. We also have two wide format digital printers.for proofing and transfer printing.

• New machines have been added in the book production division to enable higher quality and more varied products.

• The mix of machines has been selected so as to produce products of consistently good quality while keeping the essential uniqueness that is the strength of Indian handicrafts. Recently added an Epson dye sublimation printer .

Progress and Turnover  

• Our turnover has been increasing steadily. We have, sometime before the pandemic, crossed the 3 Million Dollar in a financial year. The challenge is to regain those levels and go beyond quickly and progress has been made. The infrastructure for meeting the challenge exists.There are many who have worked with us earlier and are waiting to get back to work.
• We have worked with a  number of retail chains and other designers in the USA, Canada, the UK and the EU.

V&M is a growing firm and in a position to expand the product line. We are also in a position to add more buyers but we are proceeding steadily rather than rapidly. We want to give personal attention to all our customers in all aspects. 

We are proud to get continuous reorders from our buyers. 

Concern for the Environment  

• We are concerned that we do not pollute the environment in any way. At our new factory we have installed sound damping generators to overcome our one area of weakness. Rain water harvesting systems are also operational at all the premises.
• As a commitment to a cleaner environment we are installing a part back up of solar power. As part of the war against global warming we set up a 10 KW Solar Plant at our Manesar Facility in 2016. An additional 32.4 KWp solar capacity has since been set up entirely by our own management and technical team.
• We organise FSC rated paper for such of our buyers who demand it. Further actions have been initiated to ensure compliance to GRS standards by using paper from recycled fabrics wherever possible.
• A major effort is under way to improve our environmental sustainability. We have co tmpletedhe Facility Environmental Managemen Module (FEM) of the Higg program of  the SAC.

Social Responsibilities  

• We are members of the SEDEX, UK (Registration No S 350624339643). We meet the ethical and social requirements of all our buyers some of whom have independent audits and inspections done through internationally reputed agencies.
• V&M has been audited by Elevate, Intertek, Omega and Bureau Veritas. We have also been audited for CT-PAT.
• V&M had been awarded the Gold Certificate in India's Zero Effect Zero Defect Programme.
• We are fully aware of, and comply with safety standards such as REACH, California Proposition 65

Awards 

V&M has been the proud recipient of two National Awards including for quality of products and Ms Suman Chawla received a Haryana State award in the category of outstanding woman entrepreneur also.