The company
Dharnish is the managing partner at Sri Nandudeshwara Company, also known as SNC Ventures, which owns the brand Svasti. Svasti has been a family business since its inception in 1950 by Dharnish's grandfather Mr. B. V. Muniswamaiah Setty.
Originally a farmer from the small village of Kolar in Karnataka, Dharnish's grandfather moved to Bangalore in search of better opportunities. He identified a gap in the market for high-quality pooja samagri that were not easily available and started a small store in the market, which still exists today in the heart of the city's market. Now, Svasti has grown into a prominent brand located in a beautiful five-floor store in Bangalore's city market, employing over 20 people and offering a vast array of more than 10,000 products dedicated to pooja samagri.
Under the leadership of Dharnish's father Mr. Rajendra Bidlur, who managed the business for over 50 years, Svasti has grown to be a one-stop destination for pooja samagri. They offer a wide range of products including yantras, kum kums, temple kalasams, home decors, agarbathis, brass products, deepams, and various idols. Each product category offers a vast variety of options, ensuring customers find exactly what they need.
Dharnish, after completing his MBA from Aston University, UK and gaining two years of work experience, took over the business in 2008. His modern approach and innovative strategies have helped Svasti further expand and reach new heights. After he joined the family business, he worked on analyzing market trends and customer preferences, which has been instrumental in onboarding unique marketing clients and exploring new business opportunities in today's market.
The challenge
From its early days in the 1950s, Svasti dealt with the challenge of manual billing and bookkeeping.
"We started with a manual book and did manual billing," Dharnish recalls.
The process involved creating manual bills, categorizing them into ledger books, and sending them to an auditor for approval.
The traditional method was not just time consuming but also error-prone. We had to do a lot of crosschecking, and any mistakes required adjustments at multiple levels.
Recognizing the inefficiency and potential for errors in this system, Dharnish sought a comprehensive solution that could streamline their operations and grow with the business. He wanted a user-friendly product that could integrate all aspects of their business seamlessly.
The solution
Having known about Zoho for an extensive period, researched and learned about Zakya, a division of Zoho Corporation launched specifically for the retail segment. Although Zakya was still in beta at that time (which typically comes with bugs and integration issues) Dharnish found it to be different.
"When we started to use Zakya, we were in a very small premise, and were about to move to this 20,000 square-foot, five-floor building as a part of our expansion. Everyone was against me to go with software in beta. However, I said to everyone very strongly that I am going ahead with Zakya. The product is a trustworthy, user-friendly, and secure software. If it would have failed, it could have potentially crumbled the business, but Zakya helped us grow bigger."
Before expanding to their new facility, Dharnish explored multiple software options but found Zakya to be the most economical and feature-rich. Other software solutions were either too basic or highly priced with third-party implementations, leading to increased costs. Zakya, however, offered all the necessary features under one umbrella, making it the ideal choice for their expanding business.
"The seamless implementation process of Zakya was impressive. Our product list was ready, and it took less than 10 minutes to start billing. This is a record that no other software can match. The most amazing part about Zakya is the support. I would give 10/10 for the support I get for Zakya from the initial time until now. The team has been exceptional, with clear, concise, and prompt responses to all my queries. They know me by name, which adds a personal touch that makes a huge difference, and made me confident in the product.""
In today's digital era, businesses need to be present across online and offline channels and omnichannel marketplaces. This requires robust, scalable software that evolves with market changes. With Zakya, they know the stock availability of any product among their 10,000 products instantly, improving their customer response rate by 200% and significantly enhancing customer satisfaction.
"The POS offered by Tally, for instance, was not user-friendly, had outdated features, and lacked integrations with new-age websites. Sending a WhatsApp message to a customer without integrations was impossible. But now, we have streamlined our communication and order processing with Zakya's integration with WhatsApp."
Zakya also supports their online business by providing real-time stock updates, aiding in better reordering and inventory management, ensuring timely deliveries to customers.
Benefits and ROI
Zakya stood out with its clear, concise user interface and straightforward functionality. The ease of onboarding and training new employees with Zakya has been a significant advantage.
"Anyone who knows to read can operate Zakya without any challenges; the UI is super simple and extremely good," Dharnish noted.
This simplicity and efficiency enabled Svasti to focus on customer interactions and relationship-building, rather than administrative tasks.
Unlike other POS systems, Zakya offered seamless integrations with modern ecommerce platforms and real-time stock updates. Furthermore, Zakya's integration with Shopify enabled Svasti to manage orders from various channels effortlessly. This omnichannel capability ensured Svasti could maintain optimized inventory levels and assure timely deliveries to their customers.
"Earlier, paying a supplier was a tedious task involving multiple steps and manual errors. Now, Zakya's supplier payment feature has simplified this process. We just need to add the bills to the purchase module, and the integration with ICICI Bank allows us to pay suppliers with a single click. This efficiency eliminates the dependency chain and reduces errors, making our lives simpler."
Looking forward
As Svasti continues to grow Dharnish plans to enable his staff to use Zakya independently.
"Zakya can help us expand to any number of outlets, and we can track every outlet individually from anywhere," Dharnish said. "For anyone who is starting up, I would always suggest you rely on Zakya for your business. Zakya would be a big game-changer for anyone who wishes to grow in this competitive era."
He advises other businesses to make the best use of technology for sustainable growth.
"We are in an age wherein all the unorganized sectors need to start putting a lot of effort into implementing tech," Dharnish concludes. "A tool like Zakya has been made affordable, and I am a strong believer that a business can only grow when it can adapt to and can implement tech in certain areas where it is possible."
- Industry typeRetail
- Employees11 - 50 employees
- Type of businessPooja store
- Previously Used Software