The Social Man – Gaurish Aggrawal

A second-generation businessman, 24-year-old Gaurish Aggrawal has been determined to infuse new ideas and long-lasting values into the diamond business founded by his father in 1996. He joined his father in 2011 on a part-time basis as he was pursuing a Commerce degree from Punjab University and became aware of the nitty-gritties of the trade. However, it was only from 2014, when he joined full-time, the passionate and driven young scion started bringing in changes through his dedication and innovative skills.

Going Hi-Tech

Till the time I joined, our business was entirely conducted manually. Every little detail related to the business was written down on paper, nothing was fed into the computer. So, something as normal as relieving a person of his duty and settling his dues would take days. After joining full-time in 2014, I realised that to keep up with the changing times, I had to bring in the latest technology. My father and his old associates were okay with the idea of putting everything online. I developed my own inventory management programme for the showroom and factory. I didn’t buy the software, instead through online tutorials, developed it on my own to get exactly those programmes that I needed. Once this was installed on our computers, it helped us to streamline the entire process. The staff was trained to operate the system and we ensured that they were able to understand exactly what was happening. Now, all our dealings, diamond weight, colour, price etc is all available at the click of the button.

Social Media Savvy

With the growth in social media, I felt that we should also benefit from it. Till I joined, our jewellery was never photographed. We didn’t invest in photo shoots at all. Also, our small town didn’t have the facility of good photo studios. So, I invested in a good camera and through YouTube taught myself the basics of photography. Later I taught my staff too. This helped us in sending jewellery photos to our customers through WhatsApp and Instagram, which later resulted in orders. In fact, in many cases, I didn’t even meet the customers as it was all done through social media. I preferred to make the most of social media by posting photos and sending to clients for choosing. This had a considerable effect on our sales as we got lot of enquiries and sales through the social media. For my father it was a new thing and he was okay as long as the products got sold.

Learning Helps

In 2015, I went to Mumbai to study at GIA. The course expanded my knowledge on diamonds in particular and gems on the whole. So, when I returned to the business I was able to talk to clients more knowledgeably and convincingly. And this made a difference. A lot of our clients are from the defence background and when they realised that here was a young man who knew his diamonds thoroughly, they became more trusting of us. It helped in spreading the word around and getting more footfalls.

(As told to Meenakshi Kumar)