Humble origins: 10 was the number of people initially employed by Brighto Paints when it commenced operations in 1973.
Very few Pakistani businesses can claim to have carved out an international presence for themselves without external help. Brighto Paints, once a small-scale business, has now established itself as a respectable brand both nationally and internationally – quite literally, all on its own.
The paint manufacturer has taken 40 years to streamline operations and go multinational, but it remains a humble business if compared to its competitors in Pakistan. Nonetheless, its management remains hopeful: citing a recent run of healthy growth, they say they eventually wish to make a mark as one of the best paint manufacturing companies in Pakistan and the world.
A colourful history
The company initiated operations back in 1973, in Shahdra, a small township in Lahore. Established with one small unit that produced oil-based paints, Brighto Paints had a starting workforce of only 10 people.
The management later enhanced the plant’s production capacity in 1981 to add water-based paints to its portfolio, and output touched 1,000 litres per day for each category. But between 1973 and 2000, the company largely remained unorganised, even though it experimented with many things to enhance operations – like establishing Pakistan’s first alkyd resin plant in 1989.
In the year 2000, Brighto Paints established itself in the local market by enlisting as a private limited company. From there onwards, its fortunes changed.
“We started focusing on quality [after registering our brand]; it paid off in the long run and finally helped us take our operations to international destinations,” Brighto Paints Chairman Ejaz Ahmad Sikka recently told The Express Tribune.
For Sikka, the registration of the company was a wise step: he says it helped them streamline the company’s operations, especially through the induction of a research and development wing, which has since worked on exploring new opportunities for the company.
By 2004, the company was exporting paints to Afghanistan. “I got the direction as to what and how to do business after we organised the company. It helped us in getting export orders; but, more importantly, our registered brand made us look reliable to our dealer in Afghanistan,” Sikka explained.
By 2005, the company had further enhanced its production facilities in line with international standards. It also relocated to a larger facility on Raiwind Road, on the outskirts of Lahore. Brighto Paints now hosted an in-house resin plant and the capacity to produce water- and oil-based paints under one roof.
In 2007, the company established a marketing division after realising a potential for growth and to communicate with its audience and customers on a corporate level. The company largely followed what its multinational rivals were doing in this division: it changed its decades-old logo and modified its packaging to attract customers.
Along with advertisements on print and electronic media, the company also shifted focus to establishing ‘model shops’ and ‘Brighto All Colour’ machines in different cities, which allow customers to pick and choose paint shades and mix their own colours via an automatic tinting system.
A bright future
“Our brand is the best in quality, but we are, unfortunately, seen as just a ‘local’ paint company. A majority of customers opt for multinational brands, but our marketing division is doing a commendable job establishing us as a noteworthy product in the market,” Sikka said.
Sikka claims that Brighto receives many inquiries regarding its products from abroad, especially from the US and European countries.
“Many parties are interested in working with us; the only reason for hesitation on their part is the current situation of Pakistan,” Sikka said.
To overcome this hurdle, in October 2012, the management finally kicked off operations in Ras-Al-Khaimah, UAE, after establishing a unit there to cater to the paint needs of the UAE, African, Saudi Arabian and Omani markets.
“This was our first step in taking on global competition. With the passage of time, we will take our production facilities to other countries as well,” Sikka added.
For now, the company seems to be doing quite well. Brighto Paints’ revenues from exporting paint to Afghanistan touched Rs400 million annually. The company currently produces five million litres of paint ever year from the Raiwind plant alone, and its annual turnover has reached Rs1.2 billion. Today, over 250 people are employed by Brighto Paints.
Sikka’s pride in his company isn’t a sign of complacency: “Since we started, till today, we have never contacted any bank for a loan. We started our own business, and we are sticking to the belief that we can run it on our own.”
Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2013.
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Any student of Finance can see systemic problem in their financial structure. for example this organization is equity based only. This is just the begging to understand that how much fundamentally flawed this company is in its management principals.