Mr. Bahadur Ali, as the name suggests is virtually ‘The Brave Guy’ in the industry who has learned the science of Poultry Management and then implemented his vast knowledge and experience in business expansion and diversification. Today, the group has reached an annual turnover exceeding INR 3000 crores. The company’s phenomenal growth is attributed to its foresight in terms of its true vertical integration and diversification of its business.
In an e-interview with the visionary of the group, TGTF brings the success story of IB Group, presents challenges and many more.
Starting your journey with Poultry business way back in 1984, please share your experiences of these three decades you have been in the poultry business.
Started in 1984 as a small poultry farm, the venture IB Group has grown today into INR 3000 crore company with multiple agro-businesses. A strong thrust on R&D, consistent automation, up-gradation of process and a dynamic team of innovative thinkers under the guidance of my brother Sultan Ali as Chairman of the group and myself as the Managing Director have enabled the IB Group to uncompromisingly provide value to its customers.
With a humble beginning in Rajnandgaon, in 1984 on the suggestion of a veterinarian to opt for poultry business, my elder brother started a small poultry farm of 500 chicks. Soon we faced various difficulties in marketing due to the exploitation by the middleman. To overcome this challenge we opened a small shop in Rajnandagaon with live chicken to provide healthy and quality chicken to the end consumer. Encouraged with the positive results, we opened another shop in Nagpur and subsequently, with the support of a family friend, we took first bank loan in 1987 and purchased land for expansion of poultry farming which proved to be a turning point of our poultry business.
Please share your experience of World Poultry Congress, 1996 – which perhaps brought the turning point in your life.
The year 1984 to 1996 was the unique period of our workmanship, the company was growing rapidly with the initial investments in the poultry business. However, November 1996 was another turning point when I visited the World Poultry Congress, at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. I met an American consultant who introduced the scientific way to run this business and hence given us the roadmap to success.
IB Group has also diversified into the dairy segment since 2006, which is still a disorganized sector in India. What kind of challenges has your group faced in the Dairy sector?
The company continued to forge ahead, looking for new opportunities and markets. In order to provide nutritional products, it diversified into dairy farming and today Abis Dairy has more than 5000 high yielding cows and buffaloes.
To avoid human interference, the company has heavily invested in the latest technology like milking parlor, advanced laboratory to ensure quality assurance of raw material to end product i.e. milk.
Zeeshan Ali (2nd generation joining the family business) is heading the dairy business, has visited the USA and Europe several times to study the latest developments in the dairy industry and applied those technologies at their dairy farms to stay ahead of the competition.
As an industry leader, you have witnessed the transformation of the livestock industry in India in the past decades. In your opinion what have been the key challenges and the key drivers of prosperities for the livestock sector during this period?
In order to have the best performance at the lowest production cost, IB Group made massive investments in technology, infrastructure, and system management. While the air and water could be taken care of by technology, for best quality feeding, IB Group has set-up fully automatic poultry feed manufacturing plant, one of the best in India, equipped with the extruder, expeller, pellet mill, bulk storage silos, dryers, finished product silos and bulk tankers. It has the most sophisticated completely computerized pellet feed manufacturing plant with a capacity of 1000 tons per day (TPD).
Floating fish feeds was the only segment that was not consumed within your group. Could you please throw some light on the kind of market scope and future predictions pertaining to this segment?
After surveying the global trends and Indian market requirements, a fish feed plant was established in 2008. The concept of extruded fish feed was introduced, which floats on the water. The company installed three extruders from Muyang, China and one from Wengers, USA. The total capacity is to manufacture 1000 tons per day (TPD) floating fish feed. Floating fish feeds are now marketed all over India with special emphasis in Andhra and West Bengal belt. The company is also exporting fish feed to Bangladesh and Nepal.
IB Group is always known for bringing innovations into their business, what are the latest innovations being adopted by your group and what are the future expansion plans of the group?
The basic recommendation is that even as you grow, make sure that you keep the production cost low.
Could you spell out any suggestions for the newcomers, who may be keen to make a career in the poultry industry?
Personally, I believe in one policy i.e. to invest in the best technology and adopt best practices in the business. Do whatever it takes to keep low cost and high quality.
We have created a work culture in the company to provide ample opportunities for individual growth and development with the organization’s business objectives. This has resulted in growing on the average annual growth of 30 percent for our different groups of companies.
Published On: Oct 17, 2016
Published By: Benison Media
