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Our Growth Story is Connected with Millions of People in India and Around the World and will Continue to Strive

By: Amit Malhotra, Mccoy Group Of Companies

Please tell us about yourself and the McCoy Group

Thank you for this opportunity given to me. I’m a serial entrepreneur after having nearly 30 years of experience. I can actually say that because I’ve built multiple organizations within McCoy. Just for the sake of our audience to know exactly the whole model of McCoy Group as of today, I will give a short overview. Way back in the late nineties, we were one of the first people to bring out silicon sealants into India, also the first ones to introduce expansion joints, textile silicones, personal care silicones, hardware for doors and windows made of uPVC, aluminium, and glass and glazing.

Later we added products such as applications for the automotive industry, solar industry and construction & building sectors. We built a large distribution network over the years. It’s been 30 years and over 50,000 retail outlets selling McCoy branded products in different versions. When I came into the business, we set up a joint venture in 2010 – McCoy Soudal – and we exited it in 2022 with a great relationship with Soudal from Belgium.

We built the largest brand of sealants and foams in India. Across this country, it’s the most respectable and reputable brand. After exiting from the business endeavour with Soudal, we went ahead with another joint venture with a publicly listed company called Rossari Biotech Ltd., which is in the business sphere of silicon meant for textile, agrichemicals, and personal care. The company is now housed in Mumbai, present across India, and around the world. The company is growing into multiple folds.

Out of love for this industry and love for digital transformation, we started McCoy Mart in 2016-17. We built the first online product mart in 2018, which is an e-commerce platform. We wanted to build a digitally-led business, which brought me to this. I and my great team at McCoy Mart were able to build a leading platform – India’s biggest online construction marketplace – McCoy Mart where we are today. McCoy Mart houses over two hundred people, which is also phenomenal.

We initiated a business in 2010 called McCoy 8M, which is our vertical for architectural hardware for aluminium, and uPVC doors and windows. Now this business is also 13-plus years. WFM Media, which was also our brainchild, started in 2013, and by the end of 2013, we had a fabulous team. We published our first edition in 2013 and we just published the 50th print edition last month. It’s a great accomplishment for me personally and our team because this was a great journey where we could give back to the industry, which I think we should contribute to. Everything is not just meant for money. So it’s a proud feeling.

Please tell us briefly about your incredible journey as a business leader.

I have been part of the Indian growth story for over 25 years and have seen the launch of many products, competition among brands, emerging markets, digital transformation, etc. It has just been beautiful to be in businesses of automotive construction, glass & glazing, textiles, agro e-commerce, digital transformation, etc. I had many wonderful opportunities for mergers and acquisitions with partners, and joint ventures for global partnerships with multi-billion dollar companies to build large manufacturing plants, and I am continuing to do so. I also feel fortunate to have worked with the biggest law firms from India, and from around the world.

We have worked with some of the Big 4 consultancies, and they continue to be part, of helping us build a very strong McCoy executive team, which now houses all the businesses, under one umbrella. We, with this growth story, are connected with millions of people in India and around the world and will continue to strive.

Please tell us about the growth story and future of the Sealants and adhesive business in India.

Answering your question on the current scenario of the sealants and adhesives & foams market in India, I think McCoy has been part of the growth story from the first few cartridges. We started to sell the first few cartridges in India for other multinationals, then built McCoy Soudal, and then exited from there. But having said that, it’s a growing industry as India continues to shine with growing infrastructure projects, real estate, etc. Of course, post-pandemic, things have changed and growth is now happening across the board.

The future of the sealant industry is not like earlier which was very industrial. Now it’s gone from home to home. I have a dream that sealant should be available in all retail shops across the country. In the first 10 years of my journey, that dream became true. But I wanted to see my sealant and adhesive products in all retail shops. It might take a little more time to fulfil that dream. I’m happy to inform you that our products are available in 60 to 70 per cent of the retail shops. And that’s the same vision I have for all the other businesses of McCoy as well, going global.

Having said that, sealants are now used across all homes. It’s become a DIY (Do It Yourself ) product. It’s available across all retail channels. Of course, multiple brands of great companies are available now. The future for this segment is tremendous. Sealant has become a common ancillary to all applications, and it’s common. We can find glass sealant, glazing sealant, kitchen sealant, bathroom sealant, façade sealant, fenestration sealant, etc. One of the biggest users of sealants is the window industry. I’m happy that the McCoy brand has been a part of the industry and continues our journey.

Please tell us about the Hardware industry in India, and about McCoy’s Hardware business 8M? What are the types of 8M hardware products available in the market?

Coming to the subject of hardware, now, specifically in India, currently, the majority of the hardware is imported from different parts of the world, which is for uPVC and aluminium windows. Of course, there are some manufacturers in India. The industry is going to grow. We at McCoy, took the initiative during the lockdown to source some local hardware products along with imported ones. The products are top-class with high standards. We are not manufacturing them, but getting them outsourced from very top-class quality, automotive and other manufacturers abroad to ensure that we can give similar quality or as good to our customers.

One of the visions for the hardware industry is that the products must be pretty similar to all different competition sources, but it’s more about bringing out standards. McCoy and I personally were involved with the uPVC Window and Door Manufacturers Association (UWDMA) for a long time. I am happy to tell you that there are about 200 members in UWDMA now, which was a journey of more than 13 or 14 years. I’m an active participant in that journey, and I continue to be along with organizations like the Confederation of Construction Products and Services (CCPS) which is working on bringing in standards, which is also currently chaired by me, making sure that we can bring all industry members together.

As far as hardware is concerned, it’s an encouraging growth story again. I am told that there are close to 8,000 to 10,000 fabricators in the uPVC industry, and maybe close to 50,000 plus fabricators in the aluminium window-door industry. The numbers have grown a hundred times over the last 10 years. The best of the best manufacturers of profiles, whether it is aluminium or uPVC, are here in India. I guess more will come. Quality is becoming more important. Understanding the quality and selection of hardware based on it is still slow. But yes, people in homes during the lockdown realised how important it is to have a window and door, which is functional, and open. Windows and door hardware should have form and function; it should last longer, and the sound should be kept out. So the importance of sealants became more significant.

Talking about the importance of hardware, if you have great weather, or if you have beautiful rain, and you can’t open your window, it is humiliating. If you are experiencing a really hot climate and you can’t close your window, it leads to utter discomfort. So all of these things have to be realised today and proper hardware should be used. Hardware plays a pivotal role because of its functionality. The opening and closing of a window or a door essentially comes out of the hardware.

So it’s important to have durable hardware to be used. Durable hardware means they should last long without any complaint, are of good quality, are made of quality raw materials, and are made using the right process of manufacturing. It’s still early days. But I am sure that over the next five to ten years, we will see very active participation from this industry, and we will continue to bring out quality products.

Talking for the brand McCoy, quality and consistency are of equal concern to us in whichever business we take up. That has been the motto of my team and me, and that’s the way we want to grow the business.

What about the other different entities you started – like this magazine and the website for WFM Media? What are the future plans for the same?

In order to give back to the industry, we started Window and Façade Magazine eight years back. The magazine kept growing in India. Then we started printing in the Middle East in Dubai in 2018. Then came the lockdown in 2020. We had to shut down the Middle East edition due to cost inefficiency. Had to take a break for a couple of months in India and the Middle East.

Thought through what we want to do with WFM in terms of printing and circulating the editions. But it was shocking to find the huge response we received when we started doing the webinars during the lockdown. We organized close to a hundred webinars in one-year time, and there were some webinars on facade safety and fire safety where we had almost 1000 to 1,500 participants attending from various parts of the world. Of course, the time was different, but people participated because they wanted to learn. So with the 50th India edition now and the 25th Global edition coming up in the next couple of months, we are very confident that this is the platform for the façade & fenestration industry to come together and share their knowledge.

I take challenges all the time. I don’t know why I do that, but that’s my way of life. And we’ve taken a challenge to launch WFM as a global platform. I don’t want to talk too much about it, but there’ll be some very interesting elements coming out from WFM, which you should be happy about because it’s a ‘giving-back’ initiative. And also to ensure that the world can know what’s going on in the facade and fenestration industry.

What is there in Store for McCoy as a company?

McCoy is also going to spread out across the world and have our business ventures with partners across different parts of the world for different businesses. And I think the only thing that keeps me and my team and all the McCoy group businesses alive is growth. India has the best opportunity for growth in the world, and we want to make sure that whatever we’ve learned over the last 25 years of our lives, and I’m happy to tell you, the executive team in McCoy is close to 50 top McCoy team members from different facets – from finance to manufacturing, to technology, to product development, to customer success, to supply chain, to HR, to people and culture to IT. They’re all there in place, and all we need to do is to scale up and grow each and every business. So be aware that when you see McCoy, it also means WFM, McCoy Mart, Romakk, and McCoy at the end.