Leaders

India is in the race of becoming self-sustainable in many fields, and aggressively promoting Indian handmade products on a large scale. To exploit this opportunity, Saranya Subbaiya established Village Decor with a vision to maximize the use of Village Handmade products and make it a mainstream product line in the global market. Through Village Decor, it is not only endeavouring to developing the social economy of the villages, but also helping them to bring their handmade products to the world. The company thrives to provide on-time delivery and excellent customer support to all its customers. The vision of the company is to reach global customers’ homes with Indian handmade products.

Saranya Subbaiya belongs to Tindivanam, and from an early age itself nurtured a dream to becoming a software engineer, and landing a job abroad, which turned true too. She ventured on her career employed as a Software Engineer with an MNC in Chennai, and having continued over there for about three years, also worked later in London for a year. After that, she founded Village Decor company along with her husband because she wanted to start something of her own. She believes that entrepreneurship is a learning process where every day you learn new things from your team, the customers, suppliers, service providers, and the society.

Saranya Subbaiya engages in an exclusive interaction with the Women Entrepreneur Magazine.

What motivated you to establish Village Decor? Tell us about the underlying idea behind the venture and some of its most unique features.

I do not come from a business or entrepreneur background, but my husband does, and after marriage, my husband and I together decided to start a business in our hometown. The best option we had in mind was selling products on an e-Commerce platform, moreover like work from home that today all IT professionals are doing. That is how the brand name Village Decor came into existence in 2016. Making a sustainable living is the underlying idea behind the establishment of Village Decor. The unique feature of our company is that we only focus on ecofriendly products sourced from my local village artisans.

Tell us about the various role and responsibilities you shoulder as the founder of Village Decor. What are your primary focus areas in the said role?

Since we started as a small company, I have had to handle everything. My role entails every technical aspect of my organization, like business reports, documentation for establishing, reading government policy & marketplace policy, accounting, everyday processing, data analysis, customer communication, and decision-making. But my current primary focus is on digital marketing, SEO, and web designing.

"Making a sustainable living is the underlying idea behind the establishment of village decor"

Throw some light on the most critical business challenges you face as a business leader. What steps do you take to overcome the roadblocks that you encounter?

There are many challenges I faced in my journey in business, but to me, the most critical challenge I faced concerned building a team, and hiring a technical knowledge or experienced person in a village which is quite hard because everyone wants to work in a reputed company in a city and not in a village. To overcome that, we constantly promoted our company jobs through local ads and described the roles & responsibilities our company is hiring for. Due to that, we got wellexperienced associates on our team, from nearby locations. At present, recognized by our company, they are working hard to realize our company’s vision.

In your opinion what are some of the most significant milestones that you have achieved throughout your professional journey? What has been your success mantra?

Today, our Indian handmade traditional products have reached international customers in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Dubai, and Singapore, which we feel very proud of and assume them most significant milestones we’ve achieved so far.

My success mantra is to find solutions for the problems we face in day-to-day life. My big thanks to my family because they have supported me all the time, and that made my personal as well as my business life equally balanced, encouraging me to move forward and attain great success.

Drawing from your experience as a business leader, what would be your advice to young women and girls who also aspire to become business leaders and entrepreneurs in the future?

I would like to advice that, every woman needs to step out of her comfort zone because there is always space for growth and improvement. So don’t stop your entrepreneurial dream if you face any problems, fight against them and find a solution because it is the only solution that takes you to success.

Saranya Subbaiya, Founder, Village Decor

Coming from a financially challenged background, Saranya Subbaiya had always aspired to do something great enough so that she and her family would never have to face any financial challenges. She studied hard and became a software engineer, worked for MNCs in Chennai for three years after that she moved to London. Having spent a year in London working, she came back to India and decided to start a business along with her husband in her hometown, and incepted Village Decor.

Educational Qualification: B.Tech, Information Technology

Headquarter & Other Office Locations: Chinnanerkunam, Tindivanam, Tamil Nadu

A business leader you admire: My Husband