Cheapest is best

Technology Vikas Goel claims he sells the cheapest PCs "" and now he wants to trade in commodities.

When Ludhiana born Vikas Goel set forth for Singapore in 1996, he had a clear vision "" to create extreme wealth. Ten years later he remains unabashed: "I knew wealth could be attained either by extreme innovation or extreme simplicity. And I chose the latter, doing what others were already into but with extreme efficiency," quips the 35-year-old law graduate and an MBA from Punjab University.

Having acquired a loan of $3.5 million from a local bank in Singapore, Goel set up eSys Technologies in 2000 to distribute hard disc drives in India. Within the first year, the company's revenues hit $108 million. The meteoric rise continued and today the turnover is $2 billion. eSys boasts of a distribution network in more than 31 countries.

But try asking Goel what exactly his business is all about and he shrugs nonchalantly, "I'm in the business of efficiency."

Probe further and he relents, "You can call us a combination of Amazon, Wallmart, eBay and Dell "" the business of process management efficiency. We make business transactions efficient by breaking them into different steps and finding the cheapest way to perform them."

With a geographical footprint across the world, Goel claims 80 per cent of his transactions, say from Moscow to Canada, happen not within days but within hours.

Having initially started as an HDD distributor, eSys soon ventured into manufacturing PC components and branded PCs. "Today every second PC in India has components, if not the whole system, provided by us," says the smug managing director.

eSys has state-of-the-art automated manufacturing plants in Singapore, USA, Dubai and India which produce " at $199, the cheapest PCs on the planet". boasts Goel. But what about the quality? "Approximately 10 per cent of our business comes from offering our PCs to big brands who merely put their label on our PCs," he maintains.

eSys was ranked No. 1 in 2005 Enterprise 50 awards given to the most dynamic companies of Singapore, and adjudged Indian Entrepreneur of the Year by Singapore India Chamber of Commerce in 2004.

About 12-13 per cent or Rs 1,000 crore of the company's global revenues come from its India operations which was set up two years back. "We plan to double it in 2006 and are exploring possibilities to set up manufacturing facilities in Chandigarh. In the next three months we will set up one unit each in India and Amsterdam," rattles off Goel.

With a successful business model in his pocket, Goel has now diversified into exporting mango pulp, rice, iron ore and manufacturing lifestyle products and cutlery.

"We know there's already a buyer and a seller for these products. We just get between the two of them, give them efficiency, lower cost and make money for ourselves in the process," he explains.

From eSys PCs to mango pulp, isn't the clientele vastly different? Goel doesn't think so, "In America or Singapore, our PCs are sold next to potatoes and tomatoes at stores and petrol stations. Once our brands get recognised, it doesn't matter what we sell," he argues. But IT certainly remains the mainstay of his business.