Everybody aspires to dwell in a perfect place. It could be our beloved homes or the commercial premises. Homes that are well-designed exude an aura of positivity, exhibit a class, reflect admirable features, and offer unique satisfaction to the legatees. Sounds fascinating, right?
Well, to live in a dream home is not a part of any fairy tale; however, it can be easily created by professional interior designers with their design skills. These creators can customize the property into a beautiful abode. Interior designers give the magical transformation to the property from numerous aspects of space utilization, planning of elements, furniture with upholstery, storage and utilities, beauty and aesthetics, and many more.
Similarly, just like these admirable qualities, a finely designed office space breathes in interesting energy of admiration, oneness, class, and enthusiasm. It makes it an ideal place to work, and clients value the association respectfully.
Rimjhim Charan, Partner and COO of 100 Krafts, is an expert who believes that such a complex and dynamic project which has to result in a unique output must be run based on predefined systems and stringent processes. Regardless of the size and features of the property, she identifies the requirement and understands the client’s expectations. Rimjhim, with her team of Architects, Civil engineers, Interior designers, project managers and site engineers, applies her unique skills to customize beautiful, thoughtful, and user-friendly space designs which support every need of the customer.
The best part of her working style is that she offers the best-suited solutions to the customers matching their requirements and everything with their budget.
In an interview with the team of Insights Success, Rimjhim Charan provided an in-depth summary of her professional journey, the challenges she faced, and her plans for the coming future.
Rimjhim, please brief our audience about 100 Krafts, its background, and what inspired you in venturing into the interior designing business.
100Krafts was the brainchild of the main founder Ravi Roshan in 2012. I got invited and joined the business as cofounder first handling Pune as a new GEO and gradually the entire business operations of 100krafts. From then on it has seen various versions from an aggregator to a platform and now a full ecosystem. 100krafts is just not an interior designing company; we are, as we call ourselves, an ‘interior solution platform’ where we bring together a team of expert designers, experienced consultants, and diligent executioners. Each of our interior solution programs begins with understanding the actual and latent needs of our customers and then presenting to them our customized solutions – which are then taken up for end-to-end execution.
We prefer to use a thematic format of design rather than just a standard modular format.
Tell us more about your decision in entering the interior world and what made you begin your business.
While working at various levels of the industry, both Ravi (CEO, 100krafts) and I identified that there existed a wide gap between the industry offering and customer expectations. Numerous designers work with typical mindsets, which I felt was incorrect. I strongly felt to address the need of the customers by creating solutions customized to their requirements.
I have 17+ years of industry-wide experience, and since the last 10 years, I am entirely dedicated to Interior design and execution platform solutions. In 2004 I was an Affiliate manager and working in Online marketing and my forte has been CRM in various sectors ranging from Online gaming (www.empireonline.com) and online Forex (www.finotec.com) to education, including being an independent sales consultant for high-quality (Interactive multimedia products) for homes, schools, and libraries.
After moving to India with my husband Nitin and 2-month-old Lavanya from Cyprus in 2008, we settled in Pune and I was still working from home, online with my old colleagues from Finotec. In 2010 we were blessed with another angel Tishya and once she turned two years old, I wanted to go back to work. It was then that I joined 100krafts. It was a start-up in Bangalore, and we were seeing huge opportunities in Pune as well.
Please brief us about your journey in the industry and how you have made the business excel in its niche.
The key has been being customer centric+ following a well-set process within automated systems and taking ownership of the entire works of the house. We developed a patient value-based approach where our first step is understanding the functional requirements. Then we identify the property with its dimensions and measurements and craft interior solutions which are aimed to offer the best possible lifestyle experience to our customers. A home speaks about the people who live in it.
100Krafts has redefined modern-day interior design through complete customization and cutting-edge technology. Our 10+ years of experience delivering designs and happy homes to 2500+ people has made us the only reliable partner who would not bundle existing pre-fixed designs but people who build a personalized design experience based on your custom needs.
Our win is when we can deliver the quality and experience during the whole course of the design and execution phases.
What are the aspects of your success, and which factors helped you stand out?
“Get Unique Design, Robust Quality and Years of Sustainability with our value-for-money interior solutions” became the identity of 100 Krafts. In order to work in a self-sustaining futuristic business model, we adopt these Six steps for effective working.
Our 8-Step Scientific Approach
- 5Ws and 1H
- Your Requirements analysis
- Site Analysis
- Layout and concept presentation
- Design Refinement
- Execution Begins
- Several milestone-based execution phases
- Audits at each stage.
I strongly believe in standing by our commitments given to our clients, associates, and our employees as well. Honoured commitments build trust and respect for a healthy professional relationship. Promise we Keep and the Elegance we Deliver…!
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the industry?
Well, I wish to appeal to young designers to develop a customer-centric approach. Understand that it is most important to clearly understand and offer the customers with the right solutions that meet their requirements in a feasible budget and add an amazing beauty quotient to their property. Young designers get lured by the quick-money approach and start designing and delivering whatever carpenters or contractors can make. This is not why they have attended design school. We have to deliver innovation and magic and make the others work towards its delivery.
Both Ravi and I have created the next set of leaders in our company who think in the same manner as us and in a few years, they will be the next set of Directors working towards achieving our dream of being the one-stop solution platform where trust and credibility is the baseline and not fear, mistrust and mismanagement.
We both welcome budding entrepreneurs in this industry to connect to us and we can work towards a single vision of streamlining the highly unorganised interior industry.
We need to stick to the standards and the ideal way of working and not jugaad and wrong commitments which plague the industry pan India.
Don’t go after big designs and loud elements. Be a solution provider than a ‘typical money-based’ designer, which is common everywhere.
Being an experienced leader, share your opinion on how the adoption of modern technologies like AI and ML is impacting the interior designing space and how is 100Krafts adapting to the change?
Yes, I agree that the role of modern technologies is becoming more important and are on the main game-changers in every industry. We have modern websites that provide with the latest information. The modern interior designers use the latest design software like AutoCAD, 3ds max, SketchUp pro, Autodesk Revit, TurboCAD, ArchiCAD25 and many more, offering numerous supporting features for better presentations and better showcasing of the interior solutions. With the Metaverse making such a noise and being in trend we too are tempted to offer Virtual reality like walkthroughs for the customers. It would make them see their house and walk inside it even before even its created will be fun. However, we are holding our horses and looking out for funding for more technology integration.
With the rising competition and with customers well aware of the interior practices, it becomes very essential to stay up to date with modern technologies and meet the customer requirements with professional finesse.
100Krafts team is looking forward to regular research of newer aspects in material, innovative high tech usable upholstery to offer and improvise our solutions with the highest levels of quality, value-addition, and customer satisfaction.
