Leadership Lessons: ‘Pay individual attention to your customers’

Jayashree Ravi has the ability to immediately put a person at ease. People who are not aware of her illustrious lineage might think of her as a spiritual guru, but that’s not far from the truth.

Jayashree, who started her business on the simple premise of wanting to make her customers happy, has now documented this formula into books, her most recent one being The Magical Scroll where she talks about finding happiness. 

Probably, it is this spirit of calm that sails her through the cut-throat competition that is retail. She is the brain behind Palam Silks that has, over the years, made pattu saris relevant in a young woman’s wardrobe. Her father Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti runs the iconic Nalli Silks, while the family she married into owns Kumaran Silks. 

Having come from such a storied background in textiles, one would have expected her to have started her own business at an early age, but she did so only when she was 36 years old. “My children had grown up and I was bored. There was also this craving for an identity of my own. When I decided to start out, I thought I’d get into exports, but then I was talked out of it by my business consultant and I opted retail,” says Jayashree, who began by selling from home to close friends and only later moved to a small space. 

When it came to taking the business to the next level, she consciously decided to make her customers feel at home. “I’d always wonder, why would people come to my store when they had so many bigger retail stores to go to while I had only limited stock. 

First, they liked what I picked and we gave them personal attention. They’d tell us their requirements and we’d deliver. Also, there was a sense of familiarity where the staff would recognise them and understand their needs. We even changed the interiors according to customers’ taste,” she says. It was through these interactions that she noticed that the younger generation was moving to chiffon and lighter sarees. 

“I thought it was my responsibility to keep the tradition alive and ensure that the present generation realised the beauty of the pattu saree. The younger generation said that they could only wear a pattu saree to a muhurtham. Kanchipuram silks were known to be stiff and starched, unlike chiffon, which also looked great. So we had to incorporate all these features into a pattu saree. It had to look grand and yet be lightweight. Now, most of our sarees are wrinkle-free,” she points out. P

alam silks has carved a niche for itself in giving the tradition silk saree a makeover. To keep up with the competition, they even introduced concept sarees. “Earlier, mobile pouches were not easily available: we introduced sarees with matching mobile pouches. We had black and white sarees, tattoo sarees, readymade sarees, and the corporate pattu saree that was an instant hit. I wanted to show people that anything was possible for Kanchipuram weavers.” 

They even organised a fashion show first time in 2009 and people weren’t sure if models wearing pattu sarres would work, but she went ahead with it. The only thing that mattered to her was what her father would say — and he approved heartily of all the changes she had made. Jayashree was the youngest child and her father’s favourite — he had always been her hero. She recalls how she sub-consciously imbibed the business lessons he imparted when she was very young. 

“We had a small office room at our residence, which was above the showroom. It was the only room with a decent chair. If anyone wished to study or do homework, it had to be in that room. Whenever I was bored, I’d go to that room and ask him to play cards or ludo and he would oblige me even if he was busy.” She continues, “I remember once somebody had hiked the rates of the sarees, and my father had readily agreed to the decision. So I asked him why he had done so readily. He shared his point of view. I was only 10 years old then and yet he never said I was too young to understand such things.” 

Now Jayashree has an identity of her own and works closely with Bollywood bigwigs like Deepika Padukone and Shah Rukh Khan. Her daughters are, in turn, taking the family legacy forward and ensuring that the products reach the online market too.