Charting new territory is their success mantra

Not content with the thought of managing their families' established businesses these three entrepreneurs ventured into emerging fields

Saraansh Tandon, Namit Bajoria and Ruba Singh are strong believers in diversification. Not content with the thought of managing their families’ established businesses, they ventured into emerging fields, introduced new products and took their brands into uncharted territory.

Chandigarh-based Tandon, now 26, founded a product-based start-up called Competent Groove. “I wouldn’t have been able to sustain myself in the existing family business for the next 50 years. I wanted to do something where my passion lies -- to make life easier for people by deploying technology. So I ventured into a new area,” he said.

Competent Groove “is in the business of mobile applications, business automation and responsive websites,” said Tandon, the company’s CEO. His family-run business, Competent group, which has over 4,000 employees, is in businesses such as BPO, call centres, manpower outsourcing, stock and commodity broking and insurance broking.

Recently, Competent Groove launched ‘Feet Port’, a mobile application that enables a company to manage its workforce more efficiently by tracking their activities and locations. It works with a mobile application designed for an Android device (for the field) which is paired to the cloud and is accessible through a browser-based interface (for the office).

The app is useful in tracking the movements of field workers. Tandon’s clientele includes pharmaceutical companies, insurance agents and his own group companies. The product can be deployed for information collection, verification for banks and telecom service providers, he said.
 
“For field work, one has to constantly stay in touch with everyone on the phone to give a detailed account of work in progress and that can get to you. This app allows you to share your work, submit it, and get it done with just a click,” he added.

Similarly, Namit Bajoria, director, Kolkata-headquartered Kutchina, a leading kitchen appliances maker, was never interested in the family business of chemicals manufacture. He launched a kitchen appliances venture in the year 2000. Today, Kutchina is a household name, with 24 branch offices, 51 distributors, 243 dealers and over 1,500 employees. What clicked was Bajoria's determination to introduce auto-clean chimneys -- at a time when they were almost unheard of in India.

“My father asked me to visit our factory in Ranchi after my board exams. But I told my father I wanted to do something on my own. Though he agreed, my father still wanted me to get some experience, so I worked for a few firms before starting my own venture,” he said.

Having seen auto-clean chimneys at an exhibition in Germany, the concept fired his imagination. “It immediately caught my attention as the chimney in our house was a nuisance, requiring cleaning every other week. That's how Kutchina started with auto-clean chimneys and we started importing them from Germany," Bajoria said.

Likewise, Punjab-based Ruba Singh, director, Synergy Solar Inc., ventured into solar products retail at a time when her family was manufacturing solar panels and systems. While walking through a Walmart cash and carry store one day, she was struck by the idea of opening a similar store for solar products. In 10 months she launched the store Solarworld.com, which caters to solar products for households -- artistic lamps, garden lamps, mini street lights, classy lanterns, torches, camping glow lights, compact solar cookers and solar barbeques.

There are plans for an e-store and for 16 more brick-and-mortar stores by March 2016 throughout northern India. “We have already decided on locations and are now planning to open our franchises,” Singh said.