“I’ll tell you a funny story,” confides Shilpa Arora, President of Bikerz US Inc. Bikerz is the exclusive distributor for India’s largest helmet brand — SMK. “The SMK name actually comes from the initials of the founders. So “K” is the last name, which stands for Khurana. “S” is my brother Sidarth’s first initial, and “M” is my dad Madhu’s first initial. So that’s how the name SMK came around. There’s always a lot of discussion and dialog in the house about why my name is not listed… I like to say the first initial is mine, but that’s another story.”
While the family name goes onto the product, Shilpa says the letters stand for the brand even more. “Three things are very important for us, the letters actually stand for Safety first, that’s in it. M is for Manufacturing first principal manufacturing excellence, right? Everything we do has to be from a manufacturing standpoint. There’s no corner cutting. Everything is done with exceptional quality and with a lot of innovation in mind. How do we improve efficiency? How do we create a product that’s better than the previous product and stuff like that. And the third letter K is Knowledge of the market. We are in 66 different markets around the world, and no two markets are alike.” SMK started with the founders’ names, but evolved to become the three key principles that drive us.
SMK started in 1972 when Shilpa’s father was curing helmets on the stove in the family kitchen to evolve into one of the world’s most advanced helmet factories. “My dad, who set the company up in 1972, has given my brother and I a very solid foundation. In addition to the foundation, we have one of the best mentors in the world! He has given us the freedom to do what we think is right for the company…”
Now Shilpa is looking to pay it forward to U.S. dealers by offering safety, solid margins and plenty of innovation to U.S. Dealers!
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