Indian Handcrafted Gifts with a Purpose — The SilkyKraftz Story

I am Sampurna Ganguly, founder of SilkyKraftz, a handcrafted eco-friendly gifts in India. I am an engineer and PGDM by education. Before venturing into business, I have worked in a number of multinational IT companies. It has always been my dream to set up my own business. So, after working for some years, I decided to establish my own firm.  

I have always been passionate about traditional Indian crafts as well as sustainability. I am from Kolkata and I have grown up seeing the wonderful collection of Shantiniketan artworks and have been fascinated by their intricate work. Shantiniketan is located around 180 km from Kolkata and is the centre of art and craft.

The Shantiniketan art movement was started with the patronage of the famous poet and philosopher Sri Rabindranath Tagore and his family. I have always been attracted towards history and story. So, I thought why not try to preserve this original art form which is becoming extinct day by day due to the lack of expertise and proper organization? Shantiniketan craft means mainly leather and batik work. Here vegetable tanning and plant-based vegetable dyes are used which make the products completely nontoxic. So, it fuelled my passion towards sustainability. By my humble effort I want to make the world a better place for our future generation and so eco friendliness is really important for my venture. Both of this passion combined to establish silkykraftz. 

I have done my PGDM and also have led teams in my jobs. So, it has been a huge advantage for me to lead my employees in my own company since I was already doing the same. At the same time, I have IT background. Nowadays it is practically impossible to do any kind of business without IT knowledge. Since I have the required knowledge, it has been easier for me in some ways.

I would not say there has not been any struggles, because yes it took me some time to get into pace. I am a first-generation entrepreneur and so I took time in learning. Specially how to do the day-to-day operations of a business. Now I have 15 local women artisans (Besides other employees) from Shantiniketan working for me, creating beautiful artifacts. I try to create a safe and healthy workplace for women.

I believe an organization can thrive only when the employees are satisfied in their work conditions. I won’t say that there have not been conflicts, because yes, there have been in the beginning as it took time for me and my employees to understand and get comfortable with each other. But now I can proudly say that my employees trust me that I have their as well as my organizations best interest in mind.  We also keep in mind of their work-life balance.

We take help from trained fashion designers to make new and contemporary designs along with the traditional ones. Also, we organize hands on training for new kind of artifacts. This is not just a business for me but also an expression of art and sustainability. So, our products are affordable as well. Customer is the king for us and we have a separate section for customer service and it’s our policy to solve their issue as soon as possible.

We have been featured in several journals and have been recipient of a number of awards towards our contribution in Indian business eco-system. With all your good wishes we thrive to expand our business towards a much larger customer base.

Check out our products on our website https://silkykraftz.com/ and follow us on our Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/silkykraftz8/

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