From A Yarn

How SCM’s TK Chandiran found success in the ready-mades market

- Harichandan Arakali

TK Chandiran answers his own phone, he has no fancy corporate communications executive controlling access, and you won’t find a conversation with him peppered with trendy buzzwords. Responses to questions are pithy, straightforward and simple, so even someone with little knowledge of the textile empire he runs can comprehend the size and scope of how far his business has evolved.

Chandiran, 64, is managing director of the SCM Group Companies, of which The Chennai Silks, the flagship selling silk sarees, is a household name in Tamil Nadu. The group is a ₹3,000-crore enterprise that includes businesses like textile and apparel manufacturing, domestic retail and exports and jewellery retail. Another key part of the group is SCM Garments (contributing over ₹900 crore to the topline), the manufacturer and exporter of apparel—think T-shirts, hoodies, jerseys, denim and polo necks—to customers from the Sea of Japan to the Bay Area.

This journey began in a small shop started by A Kulandaivel Mudaliar, his father, in 1962 in Madurai, to sell khadi and handloom textiles. Its rise is even more spectacular given that there is no private equity or venture capital money involved, epitomising the family’s ethos of self-reliance even in its business. “If our own capital is used, we can take the risk, and without any influence or disturbance in our day-to-day affairs, we can do it in a better way. We will have more freedom,” says Chandiran.