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Jaipur Rugs weaves a
quality business model
Posted by
Shital Shah on 2 August, 2009 in
ALL
POSTS, News
Forbes India featured a social enterprise model for
carpet weavers – Jaipur
Rugs. The company, founded by Nand Kishore Chaudhary,
works in 10 states throughout India and has 40,000 employed
weavers.
With a full-fledged quality assurance process called Zero
Defect and Quality Circles (volunteer groups that discuss
solutions to organizational challenges), Jaipur Rugs also
earned Social Accountability International’s SA 8000
Workplace and Human Rights Standards. Beyond quality
business standards, however, Jaipur Rugs also creates a
quality work environment by treating employees like family.
Chaudhary believes that everyone working for the company is
part of a family. The
Jaipur Rugs Foundation (JRF), a welfare foundation for
weavers, fits in perfectly with this belief. Says Devendra
Shukla, director, JRF, “The foundation aims to take weavers
to the next level and make them stakeholders in the
business.” It provides skill training, skill upgradation,
computer-aided design training and entrepreneurship
development. It also gets the weavers Artisan Cards, a
government initiative that allows artisans several benefits,
helps them get health insurance, and forms self-help groups
(SHGs) of weavers.
JRF is also trying out a new experiment where it will form
SHGs of weavers, bring them together as a company or a
trust, and produce carpets under the new company’s own
brand. A pilot for this is on in Thanagazi in Rajasthan. The
ownership of the brand will lie with the weavers and Jaipur
Rugs will don the role of a mentor.
The vertically integrated business model allows for both a
quality product and employee empowerment. To check out some
of the rugs, see their
catalog here.
online location
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