'We grew by about 200% in the first year in terms of sales revenue and 157% in terms of number of safety shoe pairs for the domestic market'

We spoke to Hemanshu Hashia, Head-Sales, Safety Jogger Works regarding their focus areas in Occupational Safety and health for this year, to know about their various products, new products in their pipeline, new innovationsthey have done recently or plan to do in the near future, their plans going forward and strategies to further penetrate the Indian market

Interviewed by Adeesh Sharma

Let's hear about your organization

We are known in the globe as Safety Jogger. Our main line of focus has always been safety shoes. We are a family- based company.

We first started our operations from a very small shoe factory in Belgium and right now we are present in around 146 countries globally.

We are one of the one of the top most brands in safety shoes.

We started from a small shoe factory in Belgium and then we started conquering the eastern parts of Europe.

This was happening about 70 years back. In these 70 years, we moved the production from far West to Far East.

We also started manufacturing in China and then we shifted almost 100% of our production facilities from China and we started exporting to China from different parts of the world.

So, while we were present in almost every part of the world, we were not in India, so the management was very actively looking at India also, not only from the marketplace but also from the perspective of starting production facilities in India.

In adherence to the slogan of 'Make in India' by our honorable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, we took a very important decision about a couple of years back that we will start producing in India and will start using the domestic platform to reach our end customers in India.

So with the ease of doing business which the government has provided us in the last two years, Safety Jogger decided that we'll start production in India.

December 2022 was when our first batch came from the Indian factory and the performance has been fantastic from thereon.

We grew by about 200% in the first year in terms of sales revenue and 157% in terms of number of pairs for the domestic market. And we are very upbeat about it. Indian market presents us a very wide opportunity in terms of growth and we are actively looking to increase our production base.

We started with just four models and have already added six new models in the first year. We further plan to add about 3035 new models in this coming year.

We have sold more than 75,000 pairs in the Indian market in the first year and we have already exported more than 150,000 pairs from India to the parts of Europe, China and Middle East.

So in one year we have shifted about 20% of our production from China to India and that's seriously remarkable considering the amount of volumes we do globally.

We are collaborating with Indian factories to produce more articles and also capture the end customer base in India and also see that India becomes a key production export house.

Where in India have you started operations from and any plans to expand further across India?

India actually has become the top most focus country as part of our global policies.

So we will be expanding in terms of products, we will be expanding in terms of distribution, we will be expanding in terms of our mind power.

The go to market strategy would be to increase our horizon. We are headquartered in Gurgaon and we have spread our factories all across the nation. We are majorly concentrating on the Kanpur and Agra belt because that's very important for us to take the raw materials in. We do collaboration with factories, wherein we bring in our own our plans, machineries, manpower, raw materials, our own manpower to produce the shoes, which our expertise.

We follow this strategy with different factories all across India. The reason why we do this is to mitigate the risk. For example, God forbid if there is a fire in a particular factory and if it's owned by us and we have an order to process, then all our eggs are in one basket.

So we do have a stock arrangement system where we use the information technology to guide us through placing, not all the models in one factory, but placing it across different factories and using our plans, our own machineries and our own manpower to control the process.

We are right now collaborating with around 15 factories all across India. Most of them are placed in Kanpur area and Agra area. Some of them are also based in South because apart from safety shoes, we are also producing fashion shoes and sports shoes for the export market.

Also, moving forward, the vision of the company is to be a market leader from head to toe personal protective equipment.

So, in 2024 we will be focused on expanding the product line, expanding the market, providing more comprehensive solutions to the customer in terms of giving them more comfortable shoes.

Since you are experts in this domain, how would you categorize your safety shoes?What are the target segments for each range of safety shoes that you have?

The safety shoe market in India, because there are different price segments which drives the whole target market as per a global research of Mackenzie India, consumes more than 23 million pairs in the industrial workspace. But all 23 million pairs is not that attractive a market for me. We are mostly positioned in the upper end and the top end of the pyramid.

As far as the industry is concerned, good that everyone realizes the need for quality shoes, which has received a boost through strong safety resolutions by the DISH Committees and by the National Safety Council.

Also, my fellow competitive brands are spreading good knowledge about the importance of safety footwear that there is no point wearing safety footwear unless and until it complies to global standards.

You can be wearing a shoe, but it's not giving you complete protection unless it complies to global requirements, ie EN 20345, ASTM 2413, and BIS 15298.

So for me, the target audience are people who understand this, who appreciate this and who know the difference among the different shoes available out there. Also, we are in the nascent stage of understanding the shoe market and are reaching out to those who don't understand these differences.

So as part of our Safety Jogger DNA, we give the knowledge and understanding to a buyer that what he should ask before buying a safety shoe.

When you say you target the premium safety shoe segment, can you also let us know what type of industries are you looking at?

We are very strong in oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, and automotives which is slowly picking up for us. Initially, we thought that automotives might not be that attractive for us because we were still of the belief that this industry prefers budget shoes. But now we have 7% of our sales coming through automotive industries.

We also have demand coming from cement industries, tires, mines, medium and light engineering, small industries and offshore drilling companies.

However, oil & gas, mines and pharma constitute about 40% of the turnover right now.

How would you differentiate yourself from competition in terms of key features/innovations your shoes bring to the market?

When we started Safety Jogger, it was very important for us to set ourselves apart from the competition. Our every shoe complies with the three global standards mentioned above. This is something not all the key brands out there can claim.

So what we give is a local product with a global certification.

No matter where a person is wearing our shoe--in America or in Europe or in Australia or in India--he's getting the shoe which is passing all the global certifications.

We don't discriminate between shoes that are exported and the ones that are sold in the local market. Our quality standards remain the same for both set of shoes.

We also give to all our customers a product liability insurance. For shoes that are exported, the liability is up to $5 million and if it is used in India the liability is upto $1,000,000. So, the wearer has the comfort of knowing that God forbid, in case of an accident where the product has malfunctioned, he is insured against any kind of loss/injury that might occur as a consequence.

We are able to offer it because of the brand reputation and after clearing the quality audit processes that insurance companies do before they offered this facility to us. Only selective companies in India have received it and Safety Jogger is one of those companies.

All of our shoes come up with a QR code. A customer just needs to scan the code to ascertain whether the product is genuine or not. In case the product is not genuine, our backend team receives an alert and we can immediately inform the customer to prevent him from buying a spurious product.

Another important feature is the quality of the toe cap, which is used to protect your toe against a 200 Joule impact. In addition, the toe cap in our shoes also has compressional resistance which protects your foot against a vehicle overrun. Our toe caps are designed to protect against vehicular force of upto 15 KN, ie 15,000 newtons. So, it will withstand, and it will protect your feet against small moving trolleys, forklifts, etc which are normally encountered on a shop floor.

Also, while adhering to the same global standards, we have moved on to using toe caps made from composite alloys, aluminium and titanium. We have brought in a product where we have used a NANOCARBON toe cap. Nanocarbon is 40% lighter than the conventional toe caps, but 25% stronger than the other toe caps.

So, if some normal toe cap protects against 200 joules impact, this will go up to 240 joules in case of a nanocarbon toe cap.

Since you are new in the Indian market, what are your strategies going forward?

We will continue to invest in the manpower and will continue to invest in the technology to reach out to the customers. We will keep using the platforms of Informa, specifically the OSH India Expo. Informa becomes a very important platform for us to show case our products and to pass on the knowledge.

We'll also continue to invest in other fares globally. We will aggressively promote the brand through increase of distributors this year to help reach out to various end customers. We will have direct employees in sales who will be our foot soldiers to reach out to more customers in the market.