Apart from providing additional protection against physical damage, packaging helps improve the shelf life of products and enhances ease of handling. Being widely used across various industries, unique packaging strategies play a vital role in promoting brand identity.
Established in 2007, Star Boxes India (SBI) is a Tamil Nadu-based leading packaging manufacturing firm offering customized packaging solutions to its clients. A subsidiary of Star Packaging (Pvt) Ltd., a market leader in Sri Lanka for Corrugated boxes, SBI, has been leveraging cutting-edge technologies and innovative structure designs with appropriate materials to provide high-quality packaging solutions to its clients from a wide range of industries.
From helping the firm diversify its product range to various business challenges, one of the key figures behind the growth of SBI is its Chief Financial Officer, Hari Hara Subramanian. A qualified Chartered Cost Accountant, Hari Hara completed his CA in 2002 and later, pursued his Diploma in Business Management (Satellite course) from XLRI, Jamshedpur. Recently, he also completed his executive program in Strategic Finance from IIM, Lucknow.
During his CA Articleship, he did his industrial training with Sundaram-Clayton Limited under the supervision of L. Venkatesan, Vice President – Finance of the firm, whom Hari Hara considers his guru. “During those times, Accounting Standards were getting implemented and Venkatesan involved me in the finalization of consolidated accounts of the group, which gave me an excellent learning opportunity.
I have worked a major part of my career in the manufacturing sector and got involved in various functions, such as costing, audit, and treasury, which has given me ample exposure and a good foundation to leverage my experience in the present company”, says Hari Hara.
Having spent almost 15 years of his 20 years career at SBI, Hari Hara has been a part of the firm since its inception and apart from finance, is involved in a wide range of other business functionalities of the firm, including strategies, HR, supply chain management, and operations. He is also involved in handling workers to ensure that they are effectively aligned with the organizational goals and has been a part of the core team that has been working very closely with the CEO V. Nandakumar to help SBI grow since its inception.
Starting from negotiation to transaction execution and transition to the new management along with the proper cultural integration, he was also actively involved in the acquisition of a company at every stage that helped SBI diversify its product lines. According to Hari Hara, “All these opportunities have provided me ample exposure to run the business, thanks to the management, especially our CEO V. Nandakumar. He has provided me opportunities to get involved in these areas and drive the company from a finance perspective”.
To drive growth within the company, Hari Hara chairs the daily operations review meetings, where a wide range of factors, such as Rejections, Overall Equipment Efficiency, Downtime details in the machine, Cost per Kg., absenteeism and cost impact, repeated breakdown, inventory aging, and many more, are regularly reviewed. Further, Monthly Review Meetings are held, where apart from monitoring the target vs the actual figures, variance and reasons for the same are also analyzed. Finally, profitability and cash flow get monitored customer-wise and accordingly, marketing targets are set.
Continuously learning, and willingness to adapt to the requirements will help in aligning with the organizational goals, thereby utilizing the abundant opportunities for our growth
While SBI faces various challenges in terms of people management, availability of quality manpower, and integration of individual goals with organizational goals, Hari Hara tries to mitigate those challenges by continuously engaging with the people, training and communicating with them regarding organizational requirements, and supporting them on achieving the same.
“My leadership philosophy is teamwork and encouraging the right attitude among people. I try to inspire our workforce to perform better by regularly engaging with them almost daily, defining the targets for them & supporting them for achieving the same, understanding their weakness and finally, training them regularly to improve their work knowledge”, shares Hai Hara.
To stay abreast of the latest changes in the industry and tech world, Hari Hara regularly attends seminars and meetings organized by CA Institute and other professional forums, certification courses, and training programs, reads business magazines & listens to podcasts, and regularly interacts with business leaders, leading consultants, and government officials. “I am evolving and learning every day. I shall pass on the same suggestion to budding professionals also – Invest in Yourself. Continuously learning, and willingness to adapt to the requirements will help in aligning with the organizational goals, thereby utilizing the abundant opportunities for our growth”, he signs off.
