KOCHI: It all started with a friendship.Before Kochi-based startup Zarnik Hotel Supplies, India’s first technology-enabled hotel supplies company, hit gold, its founders Azhar Umar, Prashobh Kumar and Rahul Jayan were classmates, who became friends during their student years in Chinmaya Vidyapeet here.
“After graduation, the trio went their separate ways to pursue higher education and a corporate career. In 2014, they came together with a shared zeal to live their dream and the adventurous life of entrepreneurship. Nothing beats working with your friends for the rest of your life,” says Azhar, in the way he likes their story narrated.
Zarnik Hotel Supplies already has a warehousing facility at Kalamassery and is setting up its first fulfilment centre in Bangalore, which will cater to Karnataka and the seven nearby states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra and Goa. The setting-up is expected to be over by March 2017.
Coming back to the startup, Azhar explains, “The biggest struggle a hotelier faces is coordinating with multiple vendors while creating the perfect guest experience. This is where we come in, by becoming a single-source vendor for luxury hotels across India. From guest amenity kits to luxury toiletries, slippers and linens, we are a one-stop shop for the hospitality business.”
The company began with 20-odd products. Today, it has grown to include over 300 products by building a network of hotel supply manufacturers. Zarnik now works with some of the finest hotels in India, upholding their motto of showing commitment in helping hoteliers enhance guest experience.Slovenian for leadership, the term ‘Zarnik’ was coined by the founder trio when they were at Chinmaya. They stuck to the name and gave it to their startup.
“For Zarnik, Kerala is a crucial market, which includes approximately 1800 small and big hotel and accommodation establishments. Kerala figures in the top 5 tourist destinations in India and houses the highest number of boutique and up-scale properties,” says Prashobh, adding, “Our primary target will be to enable serviceability to locations such as Munnar, Thekkady, Ootty, Coorg, Manali, Srinagar, Shimla and others.”
Zarnik is also partnering with NGOs to implement a nationwide soap collection programme, under which hotels collect gently-used soap bars from checked-out guest rooms and send it to the NGOs who clean, sanitize (so that they are pathogen-free and do not transmit disease) and recycle them and then distribute them among the needy. The startup also came up with a linen buyback programme, via which discarded linen is collected from hotels and shredded to make fiber for recycled linen or articles like bags.