The stone business is as old as the earth, but MS International, Inc., headquartered in Orange, California has established itself as a bedrock in the industry in the short space of three decades.
At the head of this enterprise is Manubhai Shah, who arrived in this country from Bangalore in debt from his training in mechanical engineering.
Started in Basement in 1975
As Shah put it, "Stone biz is the oldest biz in the world."
The family-owned international business started out as a basement outfit in 1975. Shah's connection to the stone business was a quarry owned by his brother in India.
Offices Now in 7 States
Today, the company has offices in five countries, seven states, and employs 400 workers around the world. One of MSI's distribution centers is located in Edison, NJ.
Stellar Performance
A few months ago, Shah was bestowed the 2007 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for his company's stellar performance in the distribution, manufacturing and security category.
Growth Despite Housing Slump
After speaking with Shah, it quickly becomes clear that his background in engineering is still very much at work. While many companies in the stone business were bracing for the impact from the recent housing slump, MSI has consistently managed to pull ahead.
Importing 1,000 Containers a Month
"In 32 years and five recessions, MSI has never gone under," Shah said. In 2007 MSI imported 12,000 of 20-foot containers of material, largely from Brazil, Turkey, China, and India, and shipped 100 million square feet of material, grossing $240 million in sales, an increase of 28 percent over 2006 sales of $188 million. The material, which includes granite, marble, slate, limestone and onyx, are installed in homes all over America
as kitchen countertops, pillars, flooring for foyer entryways, etc.
Focus on Efficiency
Shah attributes the company's success to its focus on efficiency. He criticizes his competitors for relying on the housing boom's rising tide to stay afloat rather than any merit on their part.
"Water was moving at six miles an hour and they were swimming at three miles an hour. Now you're upstream and the water is moving against you at six miles an hour. You're going to drown," he said.
As his competitors tanked, Shah said that his company was able to continue to grow by absorbing their share of the market.
Information Technology Is Key
"That was the time to show off our efficiency. It was not easy to differentiate when everyone was doing well," he said.
Indeed, efficiency is Shah's domain and the key to it he claims is information technology.
MSI's setup sounds quite simple. The company is divided into 22 teams designated in the categories of "Sales," "Product" and "Service." Shah and his wife Rika oversee the teams, serving as coaches. Shah's sons Rup and Raj also joined the business about five years ago.
Each Team an Energy Source
"Our job is helping the weakest team, and the weakest part of the weakest team," Shah said. "Each team becomes an energy source. Not consuming energy but producing energy on its own.
"It is still a mom and pop operation." Shah added.
Shah believes in not hiring liberally to make sure that the brainpower is available to meet his company's work demands.
Pride in Job Creation
He prides his role in job creation in the United States and back in India particularly in light of his own humble beginnings. Promoting Education in Rural India
He also understands the important role that education plays in providing a workforce in rural India, and has invested in organizations that promote education in the rural areas where his quarries are located.
Adaptable People: 1st Choice
"Someone gives me a choice of most talented, most intelligent, most adaptable person, I'll choose the last one," said Shah.
Shah attributes the company's move to paperless processing as one of the chief reasons for MSI's continual growth and improvements in accuracy.
Orders Input Only Once, By Customer
The company invests heavily in its information technology components. According to Shah, most orders are input only once by the customer.
"When you duplicate information, you make a lot of mistakes…being paperless makes us transparent," he said.
The same information is available to all the different branches of the company, though the screen that an employee in Sales might be staring at on a computer would be customized to include only the information relevant to his role at the company, compared to someone whose job was to track the shipping of the materials.
Milestone: Winning Contract
To Supply Granite for Vietnam
War Veterans Memorial
"We can combine the information age to the Stone Age," Shah said. Another personal success for Shah is MSI's role in bringing back black. One of MSI's early breakthroughs was winning a contract in 1982 to supply the black granite, a stone largely ignored by the industry, for the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. Winning this contract as an immigrant from India was no small feat and the project took up a lot of the young company's resources.
"We invested every dime we had to get that job done," Shah said.
Favorite Stone: Black Galaxy
Since then, Shah has campaigned for designers to incorporate black granite into American homes. His efforts have met with some success and what was once a funereal color reminiscent of death has become accepted as chic sophisticate.
Shah's own favorite stone is black galaxy, named for its gold flecks, which is unique to India.
Still, another challenge is fighting the notion that the finest stones only come from Italy, where the stone industry originated.
"When the stone was formed, there were no countries so it doesn't matter where stone came from," Shah said. He pointed out that stone formed hundreds of millions of years ago.
"Humans figured out how to use the stone for their advantage," he said, listing the progression of mankind's relationship with stone. "Knife, starting fire, wheel, coin, writing and the stone tablet...so I don't want people to think that only Italy can work with stone. Stone is stone."