Savani brothers Baiju, Gopal and Kishen are challenging the conventional concept of the bookshop as cement and mortar premises.
The
trio has formed Educate Yourself Ltd— headquartered in Nairobi’s
upmarket Westlands — which is a hybrid of traditional bookshop, an
educational materials resource centre, and a books-on-order delivery
hub.
They are taking the bookshop to customers, the three are saying.
‘‘We dedicate ourselves to our core calling — inspiring education,’’ is the motto on their website.
“When
we talk of educational resources it is not all about books; we also
consider special needs, for instance in early learning. We offer toys
and sports equipment for games which go towards learning activities,”
says Mr Gopal.
“We provide anything that aids
education, but our main focus is books,” adds Baiju, a Finance and
Accounting master’s degree holder from the United States University,
Africa. Educate Yourself helps companies to stock up libraries and
provide training materials.
“They can select a
particular book that they need to train employees. We give them the
various options available in the market... [or] import if they are not
available locally,” says Baiju.
The brothers ventured into the business after learning from
their father who started the Savani’s Bookshop, a major conventional
bookstore in Nairobi.
“Our main knowledge in the field comes from our father,” says Baiju, adding the father is their motivation.
Educate
Yourself, which was founded in 2010, has all types of customers,
including doctoral students, schools, institutions of higher learning,
private and government institutions, NGOs, and individuals.
“We
mostly import products from overseas, we represent a number of local
and global publishers,” says Baiju, adding that they have 35 employees
in four branches across Nairobi.
Has the firm ventured beyond Kenya? They have ties with a company in Tanzania which distributes their products.
They also supply markets in Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Zambia.
A Top 100 mid-sized company, Educate Yourself attributes its success to diligence and customer care.
Top
100 is a survey run by Nation Media Group’s Business Daily newspaper
and financial services firm KPMG. The survey celebrated its tenth year
in 2017 and is open to companies whose turnover is between Sh70 million
and Sh1 billion.
Educate Yourself did not provide its financials for this story.
“For
us, the customer means everything, the fact that we have been able to
maintain our clients for the last seven years is our high point,” said
Baiju.
“We go beyond customer satisfaction to customer
delight,” adds Gopal, who has a master’s in Strategic Management, also
from USIU.
Forex, which affects the cost of importing books and stability in pricing ranks among the group’s headaches.
“Unfair
competition,” adds Baiju, also is a key challenge because “we employ
locally and pay taxes but are faced with the challenge of foreign
companies selling their products here and taking away all the profit.”
He says “nobody benefits, not the government, not the people of Kenya.”
Updated
stocks across the year and prompt deliveries, says Baiju, are some of
the customer experience focus areas that have placed them ahead of the
pack.
They are alert to the new developments like the
government’s decision to supply books and stationery directly to schools
and the planned new syllabus.
“As much as people and
schools are going digital, learning digital is a challenge because
people still prefer learning the traditional way. We are ready to offer
digital content as well,” says Baiju.
Sincerity and honesty are also their guiding principles as learned from the priest.
“My
guru says that if a customer walks to your shop and asks for an item
and you give it to him at the correct price and he walks out happy, that
is as good as going to the temple to praise the Lord.”
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