Mr. Subroto Upadhaya, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Valcoat Paints, emphasizes innovation, exclusivity, and market resilience as MSMEs carve a ₹16,000 crore niche in India’s booming paint industry.  Under the dynamic leadership of CEO Subroto Upadhaya, Valcoat Paints is making a notable stride in India’s fiercely competitive paint market. At the Paintvision Global Business Summit 2025, they shared the insights into how MSME companies like theirs are moving forward, facing challenges and becoming great. Providing the best explanation he added.
Challenges
While talking about challenges Mr. Upadhaya shared his experience. “The challenges in the paint market that we faced in the current scenario are definitely from the big companies with the price cuttings in the Market. The extended credits by the big companies who earlier don’t used to give. But nowadays they are doing this. The one major thing is the market is growing overall it is a very encouraging sign.”
Market Share of MSME
However, his concern regarding market is – “People say there is no work nowadays but still it is growing and it’s a good sign.” Additionally, “That is around an estimated over 80,000 crores paints market in India and it’s growing like anything. And the mid-sized segments, MSMEs like ours are around 3000 all companies in India. They are growing and they are contributing around 20 to 22% of the Market share. That means approximately 16 000 crores are the markets of MSME.”
Furthermore, moving onto the innovations-“MSME now have to do an innovative type of marketing, innovative means being from the sales background you attract the market with lot of new packaging, like the design which we have made is something very different from the normal stereotype designing of the packaging.” The companies are now taking forward the legacy with good and attractive packaging designs.
Dealers Profit
He explained how the dealers are being profited, with the best example. ” Now the dealers want profitability. We are giving exclusivity to a certain dealer in particular one Market. Suppose you are staying in Noida sector 56, I am giving one exclusivity to one particular dealer and not to everybody which normally big companies are doing.
If your neighbour is selling at Rs10 you will sell that Rs11 or Rs12 but if you do not give exclusivity, you will not get around in 5 km radius.”
Explaining about the various innovations and market trends, Valcoat is also emphasizing product mix selling—training their sales teams to promote a full range from base coats to finish coats. “Various kinds of products are there like from the base coat to the finish coat. We trained our people in that way that they sell a range of products. So that training has been given to our boys to the team members.”
Competition
“The competition is good, and competition should be there of course. It gives a good healthy atmosphere to the market. Either you compete exams or anywhere the competitions are there you upgrade yourself. You have to make your own place in the competition. You go for any business competition that creates inner strength for any individual to fight back. Don’t come back with fear, stand and fight.” It shows how the company takes challenges, in a positive way.
Current Trends & AI
“Currently we are not using AI, but we saw the program regarding AI, in the Global Business Summit. Definitely we will be working on that, in depth within the next 3 to 4 months. That’s a really good sign and paint vision is really doing a fantastic job here, promoting innovation and knowledge.”
The insightful conversation with the company is a sign of healthy market. He expressed gratitude to the Paint Vision ““Paint Vision is doing a fantastic job by bringing knowledge, innovation, and vision to the forefront.”