In a constantly changing world, for all your lifetime, whenever anyone asks who are you, your name reflects more than your personal and national identity. The sum total of your entire personality projects your cultural identity. You may be travelling all around the world, thinking you are out of your culture, but your culture resides in you always and forever.
That is why in a global village, you find yourself culturally connected or disconnected at certain places. To deal with it, immigrants often keep with them numerous artefacts reminding them of their roots.
Similarly, people from different cultures want to understand, learn, and know about other cultures. Like westerners trying to comprehend the vast expanse of Asian cultures and their age-old wisdom. In effect, they want to buy or source cultural items from South Asian countries like India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, China, Japan, and South Korea. Most importers and exporters look at these culturally enamored peoples’ emotional exchanges as another profit-making commercial business. Thus, almost all the time, they ‘over promise and under deliver.
UPOD Sourcing’s Founder and Director, Mr Rahul Puri, experienced it first-hand. Mr Puri comes from a financial background. However, he has been in the industry for about eight years and started his career by working with a company based in the USA as their representative in India. The company dealt in textiles, ornaments, indoor and outdoor home décor, and handicraft. It worked with eight to nine factories from south and north India, procuring different materials for its US clients. Mr Puri dealt with everyone and everything from the company’s procurement processes to managing their entire supply chain.
Erasing the Cultural Mismatch
An avid explorer of cultures all around the globe, with time, Mr Puri, with his keen observations, learned and experienced the cultural gaps between countries, which makes conducting business overseas difficult. Like, American and European markets had certain expectations regarding sourcing materials/ finished prodcuts from Asian countries. However, what they received from exporters had not always met their expectations. Intending to bridge this gap, Mr Puri and his extremely professional team including Dipti Kishore, Business Development Head, and Anupam Shukla, Operations Head introduced Under Promise Over Deliver (UPOD) Sourcing.
UPOD is a sourcing company that helps wholesalers worldwide import from India. “We help them with their entire supply chain from Product development to shipments delivered to their warehouse,” informs Mr Puri. UPOD specializes in home furnishings and home decorative products. Its métier includes home decor, designer tableware, utility products, lighting (lamps and lanterns), home fragrance and incenses, garden accessories, carving products, and kitchenware products from different parts of India.
What and how exactly UPOD and Mr Puri underpromise and overdeliver could be surmised from Angela Walls’ testimonial. “Georgetown Home & Garden LLC is an import and wholesale company dealing in indoor and outdoor décor. My company is 18 years old, and I have mostly imported products from China.
I met Mr Rahul Puri in 2019 at a trade fair in Atlanta. Later that year, I travelled to India to attend the New Delhi Fair and elected to use Mr Puri from UPOD Sourcing as our representative for orders for goods made for my company.
As I spoke to multiple vendors throughout the fair, Rahul accompanied me and often raised questions and issues that I had not considered, even with my 35 years of buying experience. I will not hesitate to use Rahul’s services in the future and highly recommend UPOD Sourcing.”
Showcasing the Indian Cultural Heritage to the World
Thus, UPOD is an end-to-end Sourcing Solution provider catering to the growing global demand for one-stop sourcing solutions. It serves a wide range of international clients, including importers, various brands, retailers, and e-commerce businesses.
According to Mr Puri, India has a rich culture and heritage renowned worldwide. The creative manufacturing sector with handicrafts and handloom products in India is in demand domestically and internationally. The handicrafts sector is the second largest employer after agriculture in India. It holds huge potential for sustainable livelihoods for artisans spread over the length and breadth of the country.
UPOD has helped customers by looking at expanding their growth capabilities in Home Decor, Home Furnishings and Handicraft products from India. Mr Puri shares, “We can help our customers get designed exclusive products in collaboration with the manufacturers that reflect the passion and originality in every dimension.”
The highly experienced team of designers and artisans develop a range of customized designs in accordance with the procurement requirements of the customers. Deepti adds, “We have earned a reputation of being among the competent service-oriented company.”
“We support our customers through the entire sourcing process from finding the right vendor to shipment and delivery, by meeting their price targets, providing quality assured products, and offering highly buyer-focused services,” says Anupam.
A Journey of Mastering the Procurement Art
Reflecting on their journey, Mr Puri says, “I feel we entered the market at the best and worst time as we saw the decline in demand from the traditional customers and an increase in the demand from newcomers in the industry.”
“That allowed us to make the best use of the surging demand and adapt to the change in the industry,” adds Dipti.
While Anupam says, “As they say, ‘Change is the only constant’, and we need to adapt and excel.”
UPOD’s USP in terms of services is providing complete transparency from the start of the manufacturing cycle, where the product is made, to the containers/shipments being delivered to customers’ warehouses worldwide.
Mr Puri says, “We want to understand the customer’s vision and bridge the gap between India and the importing country to the best of our abilities. We want to customize the solution as per their brand vision. In a world catching up with AI, we still believe a personal touch is important.”
Dipti furthers that as their names say, they want to ‘Under promise and Over deliver.’ They entered the market because it was being done otherwise. Anupam insists that they want to exceed their client’s expectations regarding timely delivery and quality product.
A Personal Touch
In terms of offerings from product developments to shipments reaching their warehouse and only to B-B customers. Sometimes importing into a country and setting up the supply chain for smooth functioning can be very complicated. Mr Puri explains, “We want to simplify the same for products manufactured in India to the world. And that is the problem we are solving.” From a concept of a product to the shipments delivered to their warehouse.
Sourcing is an industry in which many companies want to automate the process, but still, you need that human touch to it because people working overseas do not want to interact with a computer. They want a real face behind the computer to understand their emotions/feelings about the brand. And also understand their vision. “Our team also helps them at the design, concept stage and brainstorming. With technology, we also want to give a personal touch to the service,” Dipti says.
Again, technology is important. Mr Puri says they will see how exactly advanced techs like AI&ML can impact the industry in the upcoming days, weeks and months. He adds, “Yet, we have already started adapting AI into our operational work. I think it is important to learn the technology before using it.”
“There will always be a good and bad and how you can make the good fit at your work,” states Anupam.
Solving Problems with Authenticity
Speaking about the challenges, Mr. Puri says they will always be there, and so will be opportunities. “We see challenges as opportunities, and that is what keeps us ahead in the game,” she says. While Deepti adds that there are always challenges when dealing with manufacturers around India and making them match the expectations of the West.
In his advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the Sourcing and Procurement solution space, Mr Puri says, “I learned a lot from new companies entering the space. So, I would suggest that if you have something in mind – go the extra mile. It is never crowded.”
Going the Extra Mile
UPOD, Rahul and his team’s excellence in overdelivering could be seen from another client’s testimonial. Bernard M., the Director of Supply Chain Management at Restall – Perrin street, said in his review, “I have been working with UPOD for about 18 months. Rahul has fulfilled multiple roles for me as a sourcing, quality, and logistics partner. I have found UPOD to be very knowledgeable and professional in all our dealings. He offers me local expertise in the Indian manufacturing industry, providing advice on relationship management, quality control, and price negotiation. I highly recommend UPOD’s services.”
Scaling UPOD’s operations and offerings in the future, Mr Puri envisions growing to new markets. Diversifying has helped in the past. It could be product lines or countries.
“We started catering to the Canadian market last year. We aim to initiate business in Australia. Strengthen our team and innovate in products, designs. Operations – Ongoing improvements and processes,” he concludes.
