Chemplast has produced not just cricketers alone, but wonderful human beings. This is possible only if a company has its house in order in many more ways than one. The company has striven hard to instill into each person the deep rooted spirit of cricket in the work place. And it’s this custom that has created such a wonderful set of cricketer- gentlemen not to mention the delightful ethos in the workplace. “The achievements of an organisation are the results of the combined effort of each individual.” That’s what the company believes in and that’s why it is able to deliver and meet with both internal as well as global expectations, year after year, irrespective of the state of the economy.
That’s exactly what Kapil Dev did when he won the 1983 World Cup and put India on the international map of cricket. He took a bunch of really nice people who could play cricket, bound them together in a spirit of bonhomie and friendship and having set certain clear objectives, asked them to go enjoy themselves. The result was a World Cup victory. The Sanmar Group is pretty much the same. It's a bunch of great people, supporting each other's
weaknesses and feeding off their strengths, united by the incredible spirit as set out by Shri KS Narayanan the Chairman Emeritus of the Group. He passed away barely five months ago but his spirit binds and unites the group into a solid cohesive unit that continues to perform and excel in every department.
The Group's undying love for sport has seen it achieve many accolades. Under the able leadership of three generations of cricket lovers, KS Narayanan, N Sankar and N Kumar and with people of quality like Bharath Reddy in close support, The Sanmar Group has won the Palayampatti Shield, VAP, the Moin-ud-Dowla, KSCA, Corporate, Hindu, Buchi Babu, YSCA and Arlem trophies many times over, along with many others. This has been possible because the Group has recognised young talent and invested both time and money in it on a timely basis. Apart from supporting TNCA and the Madras Cricket Club for many decades now, the Group has established a system that scouts for talent and absorbs it in its embrace, moulding it with the best of cricket support in the form of a professionally managed team and excellent back-up support both on the field and off it. One only has to visit the IIT-Sanmar cricket ground to see the great facilities provided by the Group. It is a showpiece and arguably one of the best grounds in India. It offers four practice wickets and six center tracks offering varied playing surfaces.
Even the great Sachin Tendulkar remarked at seeing the ground, “The quality and atmosphere of the Sanmar cricket ground are excellent. I enjoyed playing in the ground nestled in the sylvan IIT Campus” with Sir Richard Hadlee adding to this praise saying, “The IIT-Sanmar Ground is an outstanding one, the pitches and pavilion there can compare with the best anywhere.”
Cricket contracts, employment, good cricket grounds, an excellent pavilion, comfortable dressing rooms and trophies are synonymous with a dedicated set of people sharing the same vision, making it a challenge in their busy schedules to firstly hiring people of similar vision and then combining the united knowledge and efforts of each individual to ensure that the company achieve harmony and perfection; not perfection in the winning trophies sense but perfection in playing the game in the true spirit of the game sense. The trophies would come later.
In short The Sanmar Group has upheld and maintained the true spirit of India's incredible culture and traditions in its quest of continued growth and evolution both in the workplace and off it. Its management policies are a showpiece for the world to see, its people its trophies and the job has just begun.
(One of the most talented batsmen not to have played for India, Saad bin Jung now writes regularly on cricket).