The Next Drape On Armaan Arora D'Décor is India's premium home furnishings and accessories brand and the world's largest producer of woven upholstery and curtain fabrics. The brand has been making strong strides in the market for nearly two decades and has attained exponential growth as well. With a loyal customer base, the seventeen-year-old homegrown brand exports home fabrics to 65 countries worldwide.

D'Décor is India's premium home furnishings and accessories brand and the world's largest producer of woven upholstery and curtain fabrics. The brand has been making strong strides in the market for nearly two decades and has attained exponential growth as well. With a loyal customer base, the seventeen-year-old homegrown brand exports home fabrics to 65 countries worldwide.

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Armaan Arora, the Director of Business Excellence at D'Decor Home Fabrics Pvt. Ltd at the company's three-day FabriCare Showcase held in Mumbai. We commenced our chat by enquiring about the origin story of D'Decor. "My mother and father started D'Decor, Ajay Arora the Managing Director and Simone Arora, the Creative Director. I would say D'Decor was a story of three decades. Started in 1998 with the first stall in HeimTextile which is a German home furnishings fair. So, I think that the first decade was about getting the product right, like going to Italy, buying designs from Italy, buying machines from Italy, and really fine-tuning the product. We got a lot of support from the government as well in setting up manufacturing. We got a lot of support from banks as well. So that first ten years was about building European products in India."

To do so they leveraged a lot of technology, did their SAP in 2005 and that's when Ajay Arora came up with the idea of launching a B2C brand in India. "So that's when we set up our distribution company, Home Ideas. So that's what the second decade was about. It was about building out this category brand. One of the large innovations that we deployed was a swatch model where the retailer doesn't keep inventory. It shows fabric in a cut-length model in swatch books as you've seen. Which was a game-changer. We got retailer buy-in because of that and a lot of our partners and our dealers helped propel the brand across India," Arora said.

Presently the brand is in the sell in India and the make in India decade.

"Selling in India I think part of it is now about expansion. It's about category expansion. It's about brand expansion. As you can see today one of the brands that we launched last year is FabriCare. It's a new brand. We set up a new manufacturing plant somewhere around the tune of a hundred crores which makes blackout curtains. With support from the Government," Arora shared.

Any consumer of D'Decor would agree the end-to-end service the brand provides for every purchase adds ease to shopping. Whether it is the method of selecting fabrics or the brand sending trailers to take measurements for your purchase, you are at times only burdened with choices and footing the bill. We wanted to know does this layer of customer care sets the brand apart from the other 'do-it-yourself' companies in the market. Arora said, "So, I think in any market, there are two channels. There is this ready-made channel which is what you're calling the do-it-yourself, you don't need a tailor or anyone to help you in between and then there's a customized channel. I think we have consciously chosen to play in the customized channel."

He added, "I'll speak about India, I think there is a large market for the IKEAs of the world and they offer great value and we don't play in that.

I think we play in the customized segment of the market. People want to really do up their houses well and sometimes they need other people's help, sometimes they need customization, and sometimes they need colours to match. I would say that one of the big assets India has is labour. So, you know, our tailor community, architects and interior designer community, why not leverage them, to only make your life more convenient, to probably make your home look prettier, to suggest a fabric that is a better choice? So, why do it yourself?"

We finally asked him about some lessons learnt in entrepreneurship to which Arora said, "My short journey so I'll just echo from my parents." "First, 80% of your business comes from your existing customers. 80% of your business is your paid customers. So, keep them happy, protect your core." He added, "Second, at least in my view, strategy is more important than execution." "I think the third which is important for any field is grit.

As an entrepreneur, every day you go to work, there are seven things that go wrong and three things that go well. So, take it on your face, realizing that you can improve and push through every problem and look at every problem from a solution mindset. I think those are the three things that I would say," he concluded.