Flashback
After finishing a commercial diploma in Mumbai, I wanted to start some business. It was really a natural choice, coming as I did from a business family. Apart from farming in Gangapur in Ahmednagar, we also had a sugar mill at that time.
But identifying a suitable line was a problem. I chased a few ideas, mulled over prospective avenues but nothing seemed just right. Then one of my friends told me that the power sector was very promising as there was a huge demand-supply gap in the country. That sounded interesting. Having zeroed in on the idea and sorted it out, it was now time to act.
I decided to set up an electrical equipment manufacturing concern. My initial capital of Rs 50,000 came from my family. In 1961, I started Industrial Meters on a small scale at Lower Parel in Mumbai. It was a small outfit, employing some 25 people.
Make or break
The first five years were very difficult. I was involved in every bit of the firms operations but the company failed to make any headway. Efforts at establishing our brand in the market was like spot-running. However hard we tried, we never seemd to beat the competition from the big players in the industry. The overall situation was also very bleak as it was the electricity boards which were dictating the bottomline of the business.
In 1965, I made a profit of Rs 34,000 out of a turnover of Rs 11 lakh. But next year saw real success. I visited Europe and brought back some new models of electrical meters. They were modern in looks as well as function. Since then we have pioneered many electrical meters in the country.
My strategy was to concentrate on the long term gains. I started to develop a countrywide dealer agent network and widen the consumer base. Getting the approval of the Tariff Advisory Committee so that the actual user could pay a lower insurance premium on IMPs products helped greatly.
Turning point
1969 proved to be the turning point in my life. My father died that year, and being accountable to the whole family changed my entire pace. Just a year before, I had shifted base to Kandivli in western Mumbai and the business was running fairly steadily. After the bereavement, I worked harder than ever. The day would start at 8.30 and end late into the night. Three years later, in 1971, following the national rural electrification programme, I entered the business of producing distribution transformers, and later, power transformers, too.
In 1984 I got into the chemical business just by chance. My cousins were running the firm, but they were not doing too well. I had to step in, first through financing, and then by offering expertise. We diversified the product line to tide over the cyclical nature of the chemical industry. A year later we opened another unit in Hyderabad, and one in Silvassa in 1996.
Posting profit
As I said before, we made a profit of just Rs 34,000 in 1965 on a turnover of Rs 11 lakh. From there onwards, we have steadily climbed up. Ten years later, in 1975, the total sales rose to Rs 136.41 lakh and the profit had touched Rs 3.95 lakh. Another decade later, the turnover had trebled while profits had nearly doubled. Last year, we had chalked up Rs 2.75 crore in profits.
It is amazing how we had to wait for more than 30 years for a better deal. But it was only with the opening of the economy that we made real progress. Since the last five years, we have been growing at about 40 per cent. A foreign technical collaboration is also on the cards. Today my two sons look after the day to day affairs of the company. I am involved only in policy decisions.
Rules to play by
I am very religious. After-office hours are spent in religious activities. I believe that is what gives me the strength to carry out my work successfully.
I have always believed in working through a problem rather than by trying to sidestep it and, by the grace of Radhakrishna, I have overcome many crises in my life, be it an explosion in the chemical plant way back in 1987 or a labour problem in the Kandivli plant during 1989-90: I made alternative arrangements for production, talked to the customers directly, negotiated deals and so on. Fortunately, I always found my way out of these troubles.
I hardly socialise unless it is totally unavoidable. My way of managing is by delegating work. My staff has complete freedom to handle things on their own. I know most of my 400 workers by their first names and intervene only when asked, or when things really go wrong. .
As for the future, I am aiming at running a Rs 450-crore group by 2000 AD. The challenge is obvious. The group turnover is just Rs 100 crore as of today, and it worries my managers no end. But not me. I am optimistic that we can make it.
(As told to Madhu T)
