Inc. India

SEP/OCT 2010 INDIA’S BEST-PERFORMING MID-SIZED COMPANIES

OUR ANNU SURVEAL Y

The Magazine for Growing Companies

Meet India’s Best-Performing

Mid-sized Companies...

...and the Superstars The MAGAZINE for GROWING COMPANIES

How They Did It

Who Run Them

Adi Godrej of GCPL Vinod Ramnani of Opto Circuits Kamal K Singh of Rolta India Irfan Razack of Prestige Estates Projects PAGE 44

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September/October 2010 | Rs.150 | Volume 01 | Issue 08 A 9.9 Media Publication

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September/October 2010

34 Where All the Action Is

Introducing the most definitive ranking of best-performing midsized companies in India. They just might be the next best thing to happen to India Inc.

The Prodigal Son Adi Godrej has expanded his family business into an empire spread across 21 countries.

38 The Methodology How we ranked our list.

39 The Class of 2010

82 Top 100 Honourees

The complete list of 500.

A look at the best of the best. Who they are and what they do.

47 By the Numbers

96 The Way I Work

Looking at the top 500 in smaller bands of turnover, and finding the other number ones.

Karan Chanana does not believe in sleeping for eight hours a day, or in enslaving himself to gadgets. He would rather bank on hard work to build Amira Foods.

50 cr - 100 cr 101 cr - 500 cr 501 cr - 1,000 cr 1,001 cr - 1,500 cr

100 Who’s Your Guru?

THE COMPANIES

Those who lead the Inc. India 500 companies tell where they find inspiration.

The journey of five companies that quietly ploughed their way to success.

52 Glodyne Technoserve 88 Nagarjuna Agrichem 90 Bartronics India 92 eClerx Services 94 Orbit Corporation

HOW I DID IT

Four leaders share lessons from the victories and struggles of their entrepreneurial journeys.

44 Adi Godrej

IN THE SPOTLIGHT 55 Unlisted Firms

Godrej Consumer Products An empire worth 12,000 crore.

Gems chipping away at success hidden from the public eye.

58 Vinod Ramnani

Opto Circuits An eye for surgical profits.

61 Innovators

Who spent the most on research and development.

64 Kamal K Singh

67 Globalisers

Rolta India Mapping his way to success.

Companies with the highest foreign exchange earnings.

70 Irfan Razack

73 Wealth Creators

Prestige Estates Projects The many firsts in Bengaluru’s real estate.

The ones loved the most by shareholders.

76 Making It

A photo portfolio of products made by our honourees.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JITEN GANDHI

Pradip Overseas Metro Shoes Goenka Diamond and Jewels HSIL TTK Prestige

THIS EDITION OF INC. MAGAZINE is published under licence from Mansueto Ventures LLC, New York. Editorial items appearing on pages 12-13, 20-21, 25, 27-28 were all originally published in the United States edition of Inc. magazine and are the copyright property of Mansueto Ventures, LLC, which reserves all rights. Copyright © 2009 and 2010 Mansueto Ventures, LLC. The following are trademarks of Mansueto Ventures, LLC: Inc., Inc. 500.

Billion-dollar Ambitions Annand Sarnaaik’s Glodyne Technoserve just bought a US company much bigger than itself.

on the cover

Inc. 500 logo illustration by Tommy McCall

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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CONTENTS

September/October 2010

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04 Contributors 05 Editor’s Letter

16 Guest Column

06 Behind the Scenes What makes Select Citywalk so appealing to shoppers.

By Raj Bhatia Use the internet to make your company more visible. Your employees, for one, will thank you for that.

09 Launch

18 Innovation

A peek into the minds of the Inc. India 500 CEO Club The Ticker Why wrong career fits make good business sense

12 Get Real

By Jason Fried Expensive real estate is a foolish indulgence, right?

Absolutely wrong.

14 Passions

Kaustubh Nirmal professes his love for theatre.

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Guidebook

How to buy the right insurance for your business. Find the Guidebook following page 32

An effective way to kill the pesky mosquitoes.

20 Balancing Acts

By Meg Cadoux Hirshberg Words that an entrepreneur’s spouse dreads hearing: I have a new business idea.

23 The Goods

Cool office chairs that suit your back and pocket iPod docks that lighten up the mood at work Thunderbird for your email Making the touchpad on your laptop more effective Digital SLRs for the perfect shot Skins to adorn your gadgets Things That Pranav Kukreti Cannot Live Without

STRATEGY 27 TECHNOLOGY Making payments on the go.

29 SALES & MARKETING How would you market a portal that wants patients to consult doctors online? Four marketers ponder.

30 ELEVATOR PITCH Can some venture money satiate a Bengaluru bakery’s appetite for growth?

MANAGING DIRECTOR: DR PRAMATH RAJ SINHA PRINTER & PUBLISHER: ANURADHA DAS MATHUR EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR: POOJA KOTHARI ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR: ROHINI BANERJEE CONSULTANT FEATURES EDITOR: PAYEL MUKHERJEE FEATURE WRITER: SUNAINA SEHGAL CO-ORDINATOR: AKHIL BERY DESIGN SR CREATIVE DIRECTOR: JAYAN K NARAYANAN ART DIRECTOR: BINESH SREEDHARAN ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR: ANIL VK MANAGER DESIGN: CHANDER SHEKHAR SR VISUALISERS: PC ANOOP, SANTOSH KUSHWAHA SR DESIGNERS: PRASANTH TR, ANIL T, SURESH KUMAR ANOOP VERMA & JOFFY JOSE DESIGNER: SRISTI MAURYA CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER: SUBHOJIT PAUL PHOTOGRAPHER: JITEN GANDHI

SALES & MARKETING VICE PRESIDENT: NAVEEN CHAND SINGH NATIONAL MANAGER (ONLINE SALES): NITIN WALIA NATIONAL MANAGER (EVENTS AND SPECIAL PROJECTS): MAHANTESH GODI REGIONAL MANAGER (SOUTH) VINODH K (+ 91 97407 14817) REGIONAL MANAGER (NORTH) PRANAV SARAN (+ 91 93126 85289) REGIONAL MANAGER (WEST) SACHIN MHASHILKAR (+91 99203 48755) MANAGER (KOLKATA) JAYANTA BHATTACHARYA (+91 93318 29284) PRODUCTION & LOGISTICS SR GENERAL MANAGER (OPERATIONS) SHIVSHANKAR M HIREMATH PRODUCTION EXECUTIVE VILAS MHATRE

OFFICE ADDRESS 9.9 MEDIAWORX PVT LTD A-262, DEFENCE COLONY, NEW DELHI–110 024 PUBLISHED, PRINTED AND OWNED BY NINE DOT NINE MEDIAWORX PRIVATE LIMITED. PUBLISHED AND PRINTED ON THEIR BEHALF BY ANURADHA DAS MATHUR. PUBLISHED AT A-262, DEFENCE COLONY, NEW DELHI–110 024 EDITOR: ANURADHA DAS MATHUR PRINTED AT SILVER POINT PRESS PVT LTD, PLOT NO. D-107, TTC INDUSTRIAL AREA, SHIRVANE, NERUL, NAVI MUMBAI – 400706

LOGISTICS MP SINGH, MOHD. ANSARI, SHASHI SHEKHAR SINGH

COMMUNITY TEAM PRODUCT MANAGER: MAHESH RAVI SENIOR MANAGER: SHREYA PILANI ASSOCIATE: DEEPIKA SHARMA

CONTRIBUTORS Shreyasi Singh is an independent journalist based in New Delhi. She writes regularly for several national and international publications reporting on issues as varied as sustainability, social entrepreneurship, women and interesting societal trends.

Shreyasi finds the process of writing fascinating—how some thoughts, a few conversations, an empty Word document, and deft fingers can create a little slice of history. She also enjoys travelling and reading, and is working on a book of short stories.

John Khiangte talks business most of the time. If he isn’t holding forth on trends across industries, functions and geographies, then he is forecasting change (or, the lack of it).

When you need an objective answer, he’s the man you seek out. After all, he has six years of experience in setting up business intelligence units. And he’s the man behind the Inc. 500.

An alumnus of the Delhi School of Economics, John is an avid reader of political history. He does have other passions, though. He loves trying out new things, be it food, sports or travelling. “I will travel anywhere just to know what that place feels like,” he says.

Charu Bahri would like to say that she writes for the sheer love of it. But, in truth, she earns her living as a freelance writer. She enjoys writing on subjects as diverse as business and spirituality. She likes talking to people to learn more about how things work, almost as much as arranging words in a way that benefits readers the most. In the past five years, she has written 500 plus articles for a medley of Indian and overseas publications and websites. Bahri lives in Mount Abu with her parents and her dog.

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EDITOR’S LETTER

The winners of 2010 The last few weeks have been an interesting exercise in co-ordination. To put together the special issue, we had to get in touch with many of the companies that made it to our list to interview their honchos.

In hindsight, we couldn’t have chosen a worse time—it seemed as if the entire world was travelling abroad. For companies that seem to have tall domestic aspirations, our Inc. India 500 surely travel the world over.

Our email solicitation for participation got some remarkable replies—a handful got offended at being referred to as mid-sized, while one person wanted to know if we were going to charge him for covering his story.

The interviews have been a fascinating read. As I went through the stories filed by our writers, I was struck by how “unexposed” these gems have been—and how proud we are of being given this opportunity to reveal them to the world outside.

I’m sure not many of you would be familiar with the stories of the founders of Glodyne Technoserve, or eClerx Services. Not THINGS I LEARNT that it’s common knowledge that IN THIS ISSUE Adi Godrej worked as a bell boy Scale isn’t the preserve of the big in his student days in the US. boys of corporate I cannot help but express my India. joy at how unfamiliar many of Gut and feel works these CEOs—the likes of Godrej as well as analytical being exceptions, of course—to bent of mind when it the ways of fame. They haven’t comes to building a yet put up their guards against business. the world. They don’t weigh No job is menial— their answers as much. And, work is work.

they share their failures as openly as their excitement over the first clients or the plans for the future.

Overtime, as most of them become suave and develop their own ways of ‘handling’ journalists—surely we’ll miss these times. And, maybe, we’ll claim with obvious pride how we have witnessed this crop of business leaders come into its own.

For now, we’re looking forward to seeing many more of you in our annual ranking in the years to come. We love sharing your stories of success with the world. So keep giving us more.

We’ll see you next in November. Enjoy the special issue.

Pooja Kothari pooja.kothari@9dot9.in

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BEHIND THE SCENES

Companies at the heart of everyday life

Facade cleaning Keeping the exterior of a mall spread over 6 acres is not a job for the weak-hearted. Ask Technolean India, one of the first to introduce façade cleaning services in India.

Established in 1991, this Mumbai-based firm is run by Ashok Daulatram Khemlani. Its turnover is 20 crore per year and it has 250 employees.

Security Select Citywalk has secured its complex with the help of 24 Guarding. From providing trained guards to security systems and CCTVs, 24 Secure is in charge of all security-related issues at the mall. The Gurgaon-based company was founded by Nihal Duggal in 1999. The 50 crore-firm has 24 offices across India and employs around 10,000 people. It provides security solutions to malls, hospitals, hotels and corporate offices. Its clients include the Claridges hotel, and Monnet Ispat and IFFCO offices.

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Select Citywalk Mall, New Delhi

11.08.10 06:34 PM

management HedParking tk

mall’s parking is run

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Plants and lawn maintenance The well-manicured lawns and lush green plants around the mall are thanks to New Delhi-based Masjid Nursery. Founded in 1948 by Munni Lal, the nursery operates flower shops in two hotels in central Delhi and owns another nursery in the elite Khan Market. Its annual turnover is 20 crore and it employs 250 people.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY COMPANY

REPORTED BY DEEPIKA SHARMA

AD

LAUNCH

News, Ideas & Trends in Brief

Up Close and Personal A peek into the Inc. India 500 Club NEW BUSINESS

Capturing Sweet Memories

Our annual survey on the best-performing mid-sized companies of India is also our chance to get close to those who run these enterprises. Not much is known about most of these honourees, save an Adi Godrej, or a Subhash Chandra. So, this becomes our opportunity to put faces to some names and hear their voices, and get their opinions.

Like last year, we ran a quick survey this time, too, to get a glimpse into the worlds of our honourees. What we found was a confident set of people, nursing not-so-secret ambitions of making it big in the coming years. However, there was a strain of caution somewhere as well. Our biz whizzes are careful in their approach, no matter how ambitious their plans. And, they’re sure about what matters most to their businesses.

Scale turned out to be the common obsession. Just ask NK Bansal. He wants Ind-Swift to be “a 2,000 crore company by 2015”. Hetero Drugs’ B Parthasaradhi Reddy wants his company to “join the billion-dollar league” soon. It’s almost as if the 2009 continued on the next page

External factors that will impact businesses Percentage of respondents who chose from the following options

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People skills

Macro-economic factors Environmental issues

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Budgets

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Regulatory concerns

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Geopolitical factors

54 43

Globalisation Socio-economic factors

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Technological factors

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As a teenager, Deepesh Agarwal was in awe of his Yashica camera. He spent his time tinkering with it—capturing his surroundings. He even went on to pursue a Master’s degree in photography from London. That’s also where he honed his skills in “home photography”–an innovative concept. Agarwal turns up at people’s homes, along with his make-up artistes, to shoot portraits of either individuals or the whole family. After a few hours of the session, results are processed, tweaked according to the client’s requirements and shown on a projector screen, all within the comforts of the home.

Selected pictures are then burnt onto a DVD and compiled into a coffee table book. Agarwal’s Mumbai-based company, Picturesque Photographic Works, was started less than a year ago.

So far, it has completed 25 assignments, including one for veteran politician LK Advani.

Given that the company charges between 40,000 and 60,000 per session, it’s a luxury offering that attracts four to five clients a month. “It’s a way to capture family moments and preserve them,” says Agarwal.

—Sunaina Sehgal SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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LAUNCH

The Ticker

Up Close and Personal continued

recession never happened.

Nearly 40 per cent of our respondents believe that the slowdown did not in any way change their plans or strategies.

A mere 14 per cent felt that it fundamentally changed the way they plan to grow in future.

The fact that Inc. India 500 has truly put the economic woes of last year behind them, bears out in another way. This year, only 43 per cent of the respondents had macroeconomic fac-

plans, though, has changed in the past year. Organic growth, though still a favourite strategy for the future, has made way for inorganic growth for the present. Domestic acquisition is on most minds, which is just as well, given that global M&A remains slow for now.

The Inc. India 500 are also open to more joint ventures and strategic alliances this year.

Nearly 50 per cent cited partnerships as a strategy for the pres-

Parameters of Performance 0

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Customer satisfaction Growth in profit Employee satisfaction Productivity Growth in total revenue Returns on investment Growth in market share

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(Ratings on a scale of 1 to 7 where 7=most important; 1=least important)

tors weighing on their minds–when it came to external factors that they thought would impact their businesses. Last year, the corresponding number was a whopping 81 per cent—as was to be expected.

It is people skills and technological factors that are of supreme concern . Again, this points towards their plans to grow, since both these are investments that are usually made in anticipation of growth.

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ent, as against the 19 per cent last year. And more than 70 per cent saw themselves taking this route to growth in the coming years.

But, as they find their way ahead, they are sure of one thing: customer satisfaction will be their true measure of performance. It does not matter what the world uses as a yardstick, the mid-sized winners know that ultimately it’s the customer who’s the king—of course, followed closely by profits.

INC. | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

Ashish Rajpal’s iDiscoveri is the next education hottie to raise funds. India 2020 Fund, managed by the Mumbai and New York-based Lighthouse Funds, bought a minority stake rajpal in the firm. The company has an interesting model of transforming learning outcomes covering the range from preschool to enterprises...Education is the hot sector for investors and is creating strange bedfellows. PE firm India Alternatives Investment will invest 28 crore in the combination of Rajesh Turakhia and Naveen Gupta-led Frameboxx Animations, an animation and visual effects training institute, and Jagmohan Bhanver’s Indian Institute of Financial Management. Anjani Jain, vice-dean at the Wharton School is guiding India Alternatives’ hot on education education sector investments…Another feather for India as Ashoka, the world’s community of leading social entrepreneurs, and the leading global office products company, Staples, chose Shiv Bhaskar Dravid, 24, as the fourth of eight finalists in the Staples/Ashoka Youth Social Entrepreneur (YSE) Competition. He’s a young social entrepreneur working to harness the power of Indian youth and create a platform to involve them in national discourse. Check out theviewspaper.net…Foodies rejoice! IIT Delhi alums Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah-led foodiebikhchandani bay.com gets 4.7 crore in funding from Sanjeev Bikhchandani’s Info Edge, where Hitesh Oberoi just became CEO. The popular portal gets money to expand and the naukri.com owners add another growing category to their portfolio of online properties.

—Inc. India

LAUNCH

Finding the Right Career Fit Braving entrepreneurial pains to help others explore their true calling

mulated career decision algorithm, which takes students through a stage-by-stage cycle to help them arrive at a decision. We get 300 queries to 350 queries per day.

That’s been the average over the past year.

How does the business make money?

Chopra: It’s a multi-dimensional, hybrid model. Our revenue model works two ways—conversions, plus branding. We have 10 colleges, and between them, 30 campuses on board. Colleges pay us when a student, who hears of them through us, or sees them on our portal, gets converted into an admission. We get a percentage of the fee, which typically works out to be 15,000 to 20,000. Institutes pay us for online advertisements and presence. We get between 3,000 and 5,000 first-time hits per day. Right now, everything is free for students. We don’t want to add to their financial burden.

First Steps Surabhi Dewra and Luv Chopra cobbled together Rs 15 lakh with the help of family, friends and ‘fools’ to start a portal for career counselling.

Surabhi Dewra and Luv Chopra are hoping to convert “cluelessness” into an entrepreneurial success with their 15-month-old venture, Mera Career Guide, an online portal for career counselling and educational information. “Would an introvert do well in a sales job?” asks Dewra, an engineer from BITS Pliani. It’s such “wrong fits” that the young entrepreneurs, both barely 25, wish to help people avoid. From their very “start-uppish” office—a tiny second-floor space in Noida—they are building a service they wish they had had access to seven years ago.

Why do you think Mera Career Guide is important for young people?

Chopra: Career counselling does not exist in India. However, a career counsellor is needed as much as a doctor. We want to help young people (between 13 years and 25 years of age) make the right career choices—which are an intersection of interests, abilities and aspirations. We “inform” students, our counsellors “guide” them, and we help “connect” them to relevant educational institutions. We don’t want to convince them to do this, or that.

They need to self-explore, not be taken in by the herd mentality, which is what usually happens.

Dewra: You’d be surprised at the level of confusion that exists among students. Even PHOTOGRAPH BY SUBHOJIT PAUL

at a place like BITS Pilani, few know why they have opted for a certain course. I took up electrical engineering because it was sought after, and I was a rank-holder. I now wish I had taken up computer science, so I could write programmes for the portal. In fact, ideally, I should have done commerce.

What happens once a student logs in?

Dewra: We are a resource hub. There are links to educational institutions and notifications for exams, interviews and entrance tests. We also have a panel of 50-odd career counsellors across streams, who are experts in their fields. Students can write to them directly with queries. This chat feature has been very successful. We also have personality assessment tests and our specially-for-

Doesn’t the business model expose you to a bias for the institutes that pay you?

Dewra: The student is our primary client.

We are very conscious that what we aren’t selling a product. We are building a knowledge economy. A stringent due diligence is done on the institutes we partner with. We visit them several times to check the faculty, infrastructure and placement records.

We avoid autonomous institutes. We tap alumni network for continuous feedback.

We are not in for short-term profits.

Aren’t you too young to brave entrepreneurial pains?

Dewra: The toughest challenge of running a start-up is to stay frugal, even as you dream of being big. A young company must be kanjoos. That comes easily to me.

(Laughs) I am a Marwari, after all. I worked for two years with Freescale Semiconductors after graduating in 2007. I learnt a lot.

But, I knew I couldn’t spend my life in a cubicle. For me, there is no thrill in finding a good job that pays a lot. It’s great to swipe your credit card and buy something nice.

But, the first time I paid somebody a salary, it felt incredible. —Shreyasi Singh SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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GET REAL BY JASON FRIED

The Truth About Real Estate

Our new office cost a fortune, but I still think it is the best investment we’ve ever made. nearly 11 years old. But until now, it’s never really had a place to call its own.

For much of that time, we’ve been positively nomadic.

Our first headquarters was in the office of one of our original partners, a Chicago-based graphic designer named Carlos Segura. Carlos’ office also housed his design firm, as well as the T26 Digital Type Foundry and Thickface Records.

37signals lived on a corner of a big desk in a room upstairs. It wasn’t glamorous, but we didn’t need much space. It kept our costs down, too.

After we had been there a year, Carlos left the company, so it was time for us to move on as well. By this time, An Important Lesson An office could make 37signals was three people—Ernest you money, not just cost you money. You don’t Kim, Matt Linderman, and me. We were I suppose we were thinking about office have to sublease it to do that; use the empty making money and doing well and space the way most businesses do—as a space to host workshops and conferences. didn’t require much in the way of an cost centre. After all, between rent, furoffice. So when some friends/clients at a niture, technology, and the like, it adds company called Data Harbor invited us to sublease some of their up fast, especially for a young company. We were doing fairly well, extra space, we said, “Sure.” so $2,500 a month wasn’t much of a burden. At the same time, it was A year after that, Data Harbor moved, and we took over the $30,000 a year out the door when we could all have just worked from remainder of its lease for a few months. Then we decided to finally get home, which might have explained our ambivalence. a place of our own. We found it across the street (we could see it from But over the course of three years in that Spartan space, we the window of the space we were still occupying). It was too big— learned an important lesson: An office could make you money, not 3,500 square feet for just three Chicago-based employees—but the just cost you money. We had a lot of empty space. Our three desks, location was good, the rent was fair, and the landlord was a nice guy. conference room, and personal space took up only about 25 percent Still, it never really felt like home. Rather than investing in the space, of the office. Perhaps we could turn that empty space into a revenue we just put some cheap tables together and got DSL. We worked that stream. Not by subleasing it but by using it to host our own workway for three years. During this time, we brought on a couple more shops and conferences. people, but they were working remotely from other cities.

For a few years, we’d been sharing our ideas on software design,

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PHOTOS.COM

My software company, 37signals, is

GET REAL

marketing, and business on our blog, Signal vs. Noise. We’d begun to build a loyal and passionate following. So why not take advantage of that and hold a workshop about the things we were writing about on the blog? We could host it in the spare space in our empty office.

And charge for it.

We put together a one-day agenda, charged about $300 a person, and sold about 30 seats. Suddenly, we found ourselves with $9,000 in additional revenue. Our monthly rent at the time was $2,500. In one day, we just paid more than three months’ rent. That was a lightbulb moment. An office can be free—and even a profit centre—if you start thinking about your company’s by-products.

What do I mean by by-products? Just like the lumber industry can sell its sawdust (a by-product of milling trees), we discovered that we could sell our knowledge (a by-product of running a business).

And we could sell it in our spare space. Eventually, we packaged this knowledge in book form. All told, the combination of the book and the workshops has brought in revenue of more than $1 million.

But back to our real estate saga. When our lease was up, we decided not to renew. But instead of getting another space of our own, we hooked up with another friendly company we knew: Coudal Partners. I knew Jim Coudal, owner of the advertising and design firm, through a mutual friend. Jim had some extra space, I mentioned that we were looking, and he offered it at a fair price. This was in 2003.

For the past seven years, we’ve been working out of that office.

It’s been a wonderful experience. The folks at Coudal Partners are wildly creative. We’ve hired them to shoot and produce some video for us, and we even started a side company together called The Deck, a targeted ad network that helps companies reach graphic designers, Web designers, and other creative professionals. However, since we’re sharing the space, it’s not ours to do whatever we want with.

Holding workshops there has been a logistical challenge, because those events mean that the people at Coudal Partners can’t work at their own office for a day. That doesn’t scale well. We’d like to be able to do a workshop every six weeks. Or maybe host a spontaneous gathering of all our nearby customers. We needed more flexibility.

What’s more, since we’ve expanded from just a few people to 20 (nine of whom are in Chicago), we’ve outgrown the six desks we had been renting. Privacy is another thing you don’t have much of when you share an office with another company. It wasn’t an issue early on, but it is now. Our friends at Coudal Partners have been fair and accommodating, but we decided it was time to move on.

So last year, we began looking for a place of our own. From the outset, we decided to recall what we had learned years before: We weren’t just going to spend money on the space; we were actually going to make money on it. That requirement became the driving force for finding the right space.

We looked at a bunch of places. We almost had a lease done on a large factory that had been turned into a six-bedroom residence

(we’d use the bedrooms for private offices). But the deal fell through because of zoning and parking issues.

Eventually, we found a beautiful raw space just six blocks from our current office. It’s a corner space with two enormous walls of windows. Natural light pours in. We hired architects to review the space and draw up plans. We negotiated the lease, paid the lawyers, paid the lawyers some more, and signed the papers.

The design process took a few months, and the build-out took about four months. We finally moved in July. True to our vision, about a third of the 10,000 square feet is dedicated to teaching. We built a theatre-style classroom, with 37 seats, in which we can give presentations, hold workshops, and offer training and support classes for our customers. We plan on holding the first of many regular workshops this fall.

For the past few years, we’ve rented out different venues for our workshops. It cost us a few grand for the space, another few grand for the overpriced catering (we had to use each facility’s sanctioned caterer), and another few grand for audio-visual requirements and other logistical considerations. Though we were able to charge about $750 per seat for a one-day event and sell about 50 seats per workshop, renting still took a good chunk of profit out of the equation.

With our own space, we’ll not only save money on the costs side; we can make more money on the profit side. We also believe we’ll be

Just like the lumber industry can sell its sawdust (a by-product of milling trees), we could sell our knowledge (a by-product of running a business). able to charge closer to $1,000 a seat. At 37 seats, that’s $37,000 in revenue. All we’ll have to pay for is catering. All the AV requirements and Internet connectivity are built into the space. And it’s much more attractive than the venues we were renting out before. Just a few of these workshops will cover our rent for the year.

The lesson here is less about real estate than it is about business itself. Whenever you make something, you make something else.

Your by-products may not be as obvious as sawdust, but they’re there. Maybe it’s the knowledge you’ve acquired by running a business. Maybe it’s a piece of software you wound up making when you made another piece of software. It’s there; you just have to look for it.

You may even find a business you never knew you had.

Jason Fried is co-founder of 37signals, a Chicago-based software firm, and co-author of the book Rework, which was published in March.

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PASSIONS

Life Outside the Office

The child actor Acted in Mahan Atmaye in Kamani Auditorium in 1988 Participated in mono acting workshops and competitions

“I am inspired by small and independent filmmakers”

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The director’s chair English thriller A Night, A Singer & … at Alliance Francaise, New Delhi Regional films such as Bindia and Rajkumari Malayalam album Isal Maalagal (Garland of Songs) (2007).

Sunday, a Rohit Shetty film Corporate movies for the Birla group and Polaris

Busy bee Spends his free time organising plays and theatre workshops Conducts workshops for DilSeDrama on weekends

Kaustubh Nirmal

Theatre

Not so long ago, a 10-year-old was idling away his summer holiday in Delhi, when his father sent him off to a theatre camp. That’s how Kaustubh Nirmal fell in love with this beautiful medium. He couldn’t pursue it for a long time, but he always responded to the creative aspects of business, including at the firm he co-founded, Star INXS. While designing logos and websites, Nirmal directed a short film in Haryanvi, and pursued other creative endeavours at the behest of friends. He got back on stage only in 2009, when he began DilSeDrama, a theatre group run by working professionals on a “no boss” philosophy.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MADISHETTY MANASA

REPORTED BY SUNAINA SEHGAL

GUEST COLUMN BY RAJ BHATIA

Lifting the veil of obscurity

Use the internet to make your company more visible at very little cost and even lesser time.

If you are a small services com-

There’s a stronger relationship between the brand and employee retention than we may like to believe. Several years ago, I struck a conversation with a co-passenger in a Mumbai local. He told me that he worked for TVS Motors. I asked: “The motorcycle company?” He nodded proudly. “Where do you work?” he asked me in turn. “Hindustan Thompson,” I said. “That’s very good,” he said, pleased. I was thrilled to meet someone who knew about my employer. “What do they manufacture?” “Hindustan Thompson is an ad agency,” I replied, obviously disappointed.

Every small and medium company lives an obscure life. More so their employees, 16

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who have to feel small (if not sorry) whenever they answer a query like the one above. After a while, they start their answers with something along the lines of: “I’m sure you’ve not heard of my company…” In fact, scores of employees who have quit my company have confessed to me: “While you have worked in India’s biggest ad agencies, we have nothing much to say when someone asks us where we work.

Now, we’ll be joining a big brand.”

By investing in brand visibility, we can lift ourselves out of obscurity, and make our employees feel confident and proud of working with us.

Can someone find you on the net? If not, you could be in trouble. Couple of months ago, the manager

PHOTOS.COM

pany like mine, you are bound to be as “disadvantaged” as I am.

Or, so I thought, until a few months ago, when I attended a workshop. The speakers were inspiring—and more importantly—they were entrepreneurs who had been in the same boat once. Their words filled me with a new-found confidence.

I don’t feel disadvantaged anymore. I now believe that I can quickly—and successfully—influence my company’s destiny.

So, what brought about the change? No jadu-mantra—I didn’t attend a magic show, after all. The commonsensical suggestions from those who’ve tread the same path in the past, convinced me that I can lift my company out of obscurity, and make it well known, perhaps, even outside our industry.

Using information from that conference, I created my own five-point (something) suggestion list to attain visibility. Here goes:

GUEST COLUMN

who represented our client sent me a mail informing that she’s moving onto a new assignment. A lady named Mala will be replacing her. She requested an introduction-and-handover meeting later in the week. She copied Mala into the mail as well.

The moment I finished reading the mail, I was on Google, then LinkedIn, then Facebook, searching ‘Mala’. I wanted to learn as much about as her possible—her background, common contacts, area of expertise, and so on, before I met her.

Is this unusual?

Not at all. In fact, the opposite is now unusual. Every prospective ‘X’ checks us out over the Net before he responds. ‘X’ here could be anyone—an employee, client, vendor, or investor. We do the same.

Unless we have a digital presence, results are bound to show nothing. A blank is not good news. Much like CIBIL (Credit Rating Bureau)’s practice—if you don’t have any credit history, you are considered a ‘risk’, as you score less.

Digital presence starts with a good website. Nowadays, that’s our face to the world. Visible 24 hours, 365 days.

greatest interest to someone who may want to deal with us. These could be our achievements, experience, client list and work, among others. Since it isn’t possible to control the movement of a reader on the website, our design has to do this duty skilfully. I cannot emphasise enough on the strength of a well-designed and well-presented website.

A website by itself may not create a strong digital footprint. You need more. Your website, or you, or your services, may still not show up when someone searches key words that are part of your domain expertise, or are used to refer to the industry you belong to. For example, I work in loyalty marketing space, and neither I, nor my company website, pop up when someone Googles the key word ‘loyalty marketing in India’.

Why does this happen? I found out recently. First, I may not have sufficient footprint in the digital world. Second, I may not have sufficient visitors to my website. Both are necessary to improve my ranking associated with ‘key words’. There are several ways to boost both, and a good web and search engine optimisation (SEO) consultant can

A website must be like a well-written CV. It should present us appropriately to the interested public.

To begin with, having a website is reassuring to a prospective ‘X’. At least he can put a face to a name. But, a face alone may not be enough to guarantee a favourable impression. Hence, having a good website is critical.

What’s a good website? A site that makes us look bigger and better than we actually are. Yet, it shouldn’t brag, or tell lies. Remember, we are in the digital space, and facts can be verified instantly. So, the website must be like a well-written CV. It should present us appropriately to the interested public. And, it should focus on things that would be of

easily help you overcome both these limitations. You can even visit www.seomox.org.

Here are three suggestions that can help: a.Flash and pictures are not picked up by search engines. HTML formats, too, have limitations. Therefore, the language and content format you use are critical. b.Your website must have a lot of content.

It must be updated often, at least once in two or three months. I believe this leaves a positive impact on the ranking. c.Get your website designed in Word Press. Hundreds of Word Press templates are

available over the net, and many are free. In any case, the most expensive ones cost no more than 10,000. Moreover, Word Press allows instant updating. You can, in fact, learn to update content on your website on your own. Do that as often as you like. It took me less than a couple of hours to learn. The website I’ve tried this on, already shows on Google’s first page when searched!

Lastly, why is digital footprint so important? Why can’t we just make use of other media? Consider these facts: India has the third-largest number of internet users in the world—which is around 81 million. The number is bound to explode with the launch of 3G and language portals.

Facebook is now the world’s thirdlargest country! It has 500 million members—nearly twice the population of USA. It boasts of 18 million users from India—that’s 25 per cent of all internet users in the country.

Indians now spend 15 hours a week on the internet. That’s more than average time spent by all members of a household watching TV in metros!

A well-known brand may get up to 5,000 mentions a day on the net. Digital footprint, unlike the footprint we create on sand, cannot be erased.

The facts above, I hope, are eye-openers.

They suggest that unless we learn to handle ourselves in the digital space, we will never be able to build the brand.

The good news is that most of the digital space is free, or costs little. It can be easily learnt and managed, and it’s not as complicated as it may appear. An important advantage, it’s a fast medium—results are visible quickly.

I strongly urge you to connect with a consultant and chart out a strategy. I’ve already implemented mine.

PS. By the way, the conference I attended was organised by Inc. India magazine in Bengaluru earlier in June.

Raj Bhatia is the founder of Up Close & Personal (UCP), a CRM and loyalty marketing consultancy.

He can be reached at rajb@ucpdirect.com.

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INNOVATION

Companies on the Cutting Edge

“I wanted to find a solution to reduce the mosquito population, so that in future we may be able to better combat mosquito diseases” —Orwin Noronha, Managing Director, Leowin Solutions

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MozziQuit

Leowin Solutions

Attacking the bite brigade

Orwin Noronha was making a liquid repellent for mosquitoes when he came across American Bio-Physics’ Mosquito Magnet.

Although quite efficient, it cost a staggering 1 lakh, and needed an additional 5,000 a month as operating cost. That inspired Noronha to attempt a cheaper prototype. The result was MozziQuit, a mosquito trap made up of a plastic body and a patented self-heating element, which kills the culprits instantly.

Made by Leowin Solutions, MozziQuit uses the principle that mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide to lure them into its plastic body, and then, sucks them in using an integrated vacuum system. The killed mosquitoes are collected in a removable container for disposal. Founded in 2008, Leowin Solutions is working on other ecofriendly products, such as environmentfriendly waterproof paints and a specialised mix for 2-inch thick concrete for roads.

MozziQuit was one of 15 gold medal winners in the DST-Lockheed Martin India Innovation Growth Programme this year.

Basic Facts Cost: 2,990 (one-time) Operating Cost: Less than 25 paise per day Availability: In four months

PHOTOGRAPH BY RK BHAT

REPORTED BY AKHIL BERY

BALANCING ACTS BY MEG CADOUX HIRSHBERG

My Husband’s Next Business The four words an entrepreneur’s spouse dreads hearing: ‘I have an idea.’

As a resident of New Hampshire, I do not fear earthquakes. But I live in terror of four little words: “I have an idea.” When my husband utters them, the ground beneath me trembles.

We were hiking a local mountain when Gary revealed his brainstorm for a chain of healthy fast-food restaurants. This was in 2000; his first venture, Stonyfield Yogurt, had been profitable and stable for several years. Gary saw this new business as a logical extension of the mission of our organic yogurt company.

My husband sometimes refers to himself as a “pathological optimist.” To me, this plan was just pathological.

When you live with a serial entrepreneur, you are never safe from the siren song of new ideas. As one repeat offender told me, “The personality of a serial entrepreneur is almost like a curse. You see opportunities every day.” Danny Meyer cites a practical reason for populating much of Manhattan with his eclec-

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tic restaurants and food businesses: The new ventures provide development opportunities for his 1,500-plus employees. But as fundamentally, “I can’t stop thinking of ideas that excite me,” he says.

That creativity and independence are what attract people like me to entrepreneurs in the first place. As Gary points out, I knew what I was getting into when I married him. “While you didn’t sign on for multiple rounds of pain, you signed on with me,” he says. “You were drawn to the upsides of entrepreneurial business—the excitement, the fascination, and the fun.” All true. It had never crossed my mind to request a onecompany-only prenup.

ILLUSTRATION BY ANIL T

BALANCING ACTS

But when Gary broached the restaurant idea, I had not recovered—in fact I have still not recovered—from the extended trauma of the yogurt company’s start-up. Stonyfield took nine agonising years to reach profitability. Even though Gary said he intended to hire a CEO to run the restaurants, I anticipated a return to the gruelling hours and constant distractions I thought we had finally put behind us. Serial entrepreneurs are like women who suppress the recollection of labour in order to marshal the stamina to give birth again. For their families, such selective memory is not so easy to muster.

Then, of course, any new business entails risk. Here I thought we were on terra firma, only to find Gary gazing longingly at rough seas. Entrepreneurs, as I knew from experience, are masters at defining risk down. So in my brain: “Gary knows nothing about the restaurant business.” In Gary’s brain: “I’ll

tain amount of money he’d sink into it—but we passed that number long ago.”

Inc. reader Mallary Tytel, an entrepreneur married to a serial entrepreneur, tries to be realistic. “You have two choices: fighting it or going along with it,” says Tytel, founder of the consultancy Healthy Workplaces. “As an entrepreneur myself, I know there’s no percentage in going against the grain.”

Nor could I go against the grain with Gary. Painful as the prospect of this new business was, I kept my mouth shut. As long as he wasn’t jeopardising the roof over our heads or our children’s college funds, I figured he was entitled to his next dream. I comforted myself with the fact that he’d succeeded once. This time the learning curve should be less steep. Would be less steep.

Had to be less steep.

At what point, though, does the spouse get to say enough? Let’s assume that the first

When does a spouse’s desire for calm and security outweigh the entrepreneur’s desire to be ‘who I am’? bring in smart people and figure out the rest.”

For many spouses, life stages enhance that sense of risk. Entrepreneurs launching second, third, and fourth companies are by definition older than when they started out: If they fail, there are fewer years to rebound.

No wonder when the adrenaline kicks in for the serial entrepreneur, the cortisol spikes for the spouse.

Yet who would want to quash a loved one’s dream? That way, unhappiness and resentment lie. “It’s a crappy part for the spouse to play,” says a friend whose husband started a second company. “To say ‘no’ or ‘have you thought of this or that problem?’

The way I dealt with it—and I’m not proud of this fact—is, I said, ‘You want to go through this again? Fine, but I don’t want anything to do with it.’ We agreed on a cer-

business was successful, and financial need is no longer a compelling motive. When does a spouse’s desire for calm and security outweigh the entrepreneur’s desire to be “who I am”? The answer, of course, is different for each couple and set of circumstances.

Is it selfish to discourage a loved one from doing something he or she desperately wants to do because it makes you uncomfortable? Or more selfish for him or her to persist in spite of your discomfort?

Among other things, the spouse should consider whether the entrepreneur is truly succumbing to an irresistible opportunity or driven by a darker motivation. He or she may be depressed or bored, or seeking to fill a psychic or emotional void. One man told me that he kept creating businesses to escape his marital woes. Unfortunately, he didn’t

have that insight until after his divorce. At that point, he realised other ways that starting multiple businesses had made him less fit as a mate. “Entrepreneurs feel they have to have all the answers,” he told me. “Starting several businesses only reinforced that. The control issues became habit forming, a way of being. When you apply that trait to your personal life, it doesn’t go over very well.”

Fortunately, there are less risky ways, both personally and professionally, for an entrepreneur to flex those creative muscles.

Passive or active investing and mentoring can be like methadone for the entrepreneur, providing some of the thrill without all of the risk. Gary loves to mentor because, he says, “what I remember most about Stonyfield’s dark days was the loneliness. I’m rewarded by the idea that with a little of my extra time and money, I might be able to help others avoid some pain.”

And running an existing company— even a mature one—offers some of the charge of a start-up. “In my work at Stonyfield, I’m inventing new enterprises all the time,” Gary says. “I take huge risks every day.”

Not that that stopped him. Gary launched the first O’Naturals—recently renamed Stonyfield Café—in Falmouth, Maine, in 2001. As I’d feared, the business has consumed considerable time and energy. Also cash: Gary has put in much more than either of us expected. (We have since agreed on a total amount that he can risk on entrepreneurial ventures, including this one.) The café is now in two locations and is still finding its way as a business. I avoid discussing it with Gary and try not to think about it too much.

Recently, Gary assured me that he wouldn’t start another company unless I was fully behind it. If this is true, he won’t be starting another company anytime soon. Or, actually, ever. But somehow I suspect that our lives will continue to be rocked by seismic activity. I hope Gary’s next idea will score lower on the Richter scale.

Meg Cadoux Hirshberg (mhirshberg@inc.com) is married to Gary Hirshberg, president and CEO of Stonyfield Yogurt. She writes a regular column about the impact of entrepreneurial businesses on families.

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AD

THE GOODS

Your Business Toolbox

Getting the Right Support Office chairs to suit your back—and your pocket The modern day office is where new-age labourers perform backbreaking work. Literally! Meetings, projects, deadlines—the whole routine revolves around the chair. Needless to add, the chair’s your best friend at work. And like your friend, it needs to be supportive (more than your boss or co-workers), comfy, and economical, too.

Quite a list of demands from a single piece of furniture, but we dug deep to find the best deals for you.—Sunaina Sehgal

FEATHERLITE

COURTESY COMPANY (6)

SPIDER

An attractive chair, it has a non-padded backrest that looks like a web. It moves back and forth according to a person’s movement. Its adjustable arms come with backand-side locks for manoeuvrability.

The raise bar helps elevate the height of the chair to a maximum of 23 inches. price: 15,800 warranty: One year

COMFORT GALLERY

SYNCHRONY

Synchrony’s leather-padded backrest is shaped like a spine to provide better support. Its back can be locked according to one’s needs. It provides adjustable neck support, as well. It looks more comfortable than the Spider, thanks to its padded back.

It is designed for long sitting hours. price: 12,500 warranty: One year

CHB 263

This is a value-formoney product. Its high backrest supports the spine.

Armrests are adjustable and the seat is made of soft plastic, which helps when one is working long hours.

The chair moves with the body’s movements. The netted tapestry at the back makes it lightweight, yet sturdy. price: 6,500 warranty: Two years

CMB 269

This medium-back chair has adjustable armrests and a nylon base. Unlike the CHB 263, it works on a pushback technology.

(Simply put—if you push, it goes back really smoothly.)

The chair’s gas lift mechanism mitigates sudden movements or jerks, thus benefiting the person sitting in it. price: 5,400 warranty: Two years

ENCORE SYSTEMS

EC 259

Especially designed for people with back problems, this chair comes with a special lever at the centre to reduce the gap between the back rest and the spine for that extra support. The armrests can be easily moved up, down, or to the sides. It has an adjustable neck and a facility of locking the back rest. price: 7,800 warranty: One year

EC 264

Like any other revolving chair, the EC 264 has the basic features that allow the user to raise its height and lock the back. Made of leather, this chair with a high backrest is as comfortable as sitting on cushions.

Short or tall, this chair has been designed to suit all people, and prevents repetitive strain injuries. price: 7,800 warranty: One year

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THE GOODS

Products + Services

Music to the Ears Docking stations for your iPods If you are one of those people who listen to music after work– you are probably less stressed than the fellow next to you who doesn’t. There’s no doubt that music soothes nerves. Next time you slave the graveyard shift, take some time off, plug the iPod to the docking station and listen to unwind. While you are at it, we give you some options.

The Thunderbird is an email client developed by Mozilla, the people behind the popular Firefox browser. Simple to use, it’s more than just an email client—it grabs RSS feeds that let you stay updated with the latest blogs and discussions. It can be customised to needs—an option that the more commercial Outlook lacks to an extent.

It is not the most featurerich email client; however, with downloadable free add-ons, one can expand its capability. The latest version, 3.1, is easier to set up. It includes features, such as Migration Assistant, which lets you use Thunderbird the way you want. You can also install add-ons like advanced folder columns and compact headers for your message display window from the Migration Assistant. The new mail account set up wizard makes configuring account effortless. Some of the other features include an attachment reminder, which looks for the word attachment in the mail and reminds you to add an attachment. The Thunderbird is a good alternative for those who have already used Microsoft Outlook, and find it a bit slow and heavy. Moreover, it is an open source and free. site: www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

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PHILIPS SBD7000

It has an unusual design that makes it look like a large driver from a speaker.

Your iPod sits at the centre.

The dock isn’t very sturdy, but is compact enough to be carried around in a backpack. The speaker can be powered by four AA batteries that fit snugly into the back of the product. The ability to carry the dock around even while on the go is a nice thing. However, not a great option for the discerning user. price: 5,990

LOGITECH PURE-FI ANYTIME

One of the fancier-looking docking stations around, its audio quality is average, but the high frequencies seem toned down. As an iPod dock for a medium-sized room, it’s pretty good. There’s little or no distortion, which is great. The dock comes with loads of features, such as a snooze timer and FM and AM radio tuner, which work rather well. It isn’t too expensive, either. price: 7,495

BOSE SOUNDDOCK 10

One of the newer releases from the Bose stable, it’s pricey, but also one of the sturdiest docks around.

Audio quality is excellent—as expected. You really need to use it in a larger room to appreciate its performance.

For its size, it’s loud. There is some minor distortion at really high volumes. The remote has few buttons and is simple to use; the range is decent as well. A sensible purchase, if you’re looking for a lifestyle product. price: 42,638

Powered by:

Simple Client to Rescue

YOU CAN TOUCH THIS

Simplifying the touchpad Struggling with your notebook’s touchpad? HandsTalk Technologies has made life simpler for you with Witpad—its new software that converts a regular touchpad into a device with multiple features. Using touch sensors to interpret finger movements, Witpad makes it easier to browse and navigate, and use media features of the notebook. For instance, a tap on the top corner of the touchpad can close a file or browser, and a touch on the bottom-right corner of the pad shows up the desktop. Witpad even allows for customisation of commands. Launched in July, it is priced competitively at $10. Users can first download a trial version from the Handstalk website. —Sunaina Sehgal

TOP LEFT: PHOTOS.COM; LEFT: COURTESY COMPANY

EMAIL OPTION

Work + Play

Shooting for Perfection Capturing a lifetime of memories

THE GOODS

FIRST PERSON

Here’s a pop quiz for the amateurs–is point-and-shoot not good enough for you? Do you actually know what a digital single-lens reflex is? The photographer inside you is etching to come out and be a bit more than just an amateur. With prices of digital single-lens reflex (or the DSLR) at an all-time low, there’s no excuse to postpone this purchase any further.

Here are some of the best options for your consideration.

My Favourite Tool for Sharing Videos

JAMES DE JULIO How to use SlideRocket to share presentations

NIKON

D3000

The D3000 sells with an 18mm to 55mm lens. It does not come with a focusing motor, so better keep that in mind when buying a new lens, or you’ll miss out on the auto-focus function. Its competitor, the Canon EOS 1000D has “liveview” that lets one to focus using the screen.

Price: 30,950

D5000

There are some similarities in the two Nikon options.

However, the D5000’s screen is smaller than that of the D3000, and it is foldable. It has a higher resolution sensor, better ISO range and burst speed shooting rate, among others.

The HD 720p video recording feature is unique.

Price: 31,950

CANON

EOS 1000D

The Canon 1000D has a strong body, but lacks a rubberised grip. There is a gap between the hand grip and lens mount, such that fingers lock against each other while adjusting the lens. The layout of buttons is neat.

Navigating the menu isn’t overwhelming. A great DSLR for newbies.

Price: 25,295

EOS 7D

This is a large-bodied camera with an 18MP sensor that fits perfectly, but is heavy. Instead of directional buttons, you find a joystick at its back. Controls surround the top display, and its menus look fresh.

One of its unique features is the virtual horizon.

Price: 1,45,995 (with 15mm to 85mm IS Lens)

SHOWING SOME SKIN

RIGHT & TOP RIGHT: COURTESY COMPANY

Funky ware to adorn— and protect—gadgets Protective skins are now available for all hand-held gadgets and gizmos—from pen drives to digital cameras. One can upload one’s favourite designs, or use from existing options offering cartoons, graphics, abstract art and even Swarovski crystals. These skins cover all edges, whether round or straight, and can be removed easily by stripping them off the gadget. These stickers can last for two years, protecting your favourite gadget from scratches or stains. At a price range of 500 to 2,500, or 15 per Swarovski crystal, this is definitely a fashion statement that you can afford to carry! —Sunaina Sehgal

My company provides a platform for online video collaboration—so we need a way to showcase our work to prospective clients. We can’t simply embed video in PowerPoint presentations, because they would be too large to send to clients via email.

We started using SlideRocket in February, and it’s been great. We can create and store presentations on SlideRocket’s website and send out URL links to our clients over the email.

We invite our Google contacts directly from SlideRocket using Google apps. Whenever we make a change to a presentation, SlideRocket automatically updates the links.

We also use the service’s web meeting feature to present slide shows to our clients during video conferences. During the meeting, a progress bar lets us know when the next slide has loaded completely on the client’s desktop, so I don’t move forward too quickly.

We started out with the free 30-day trial, and now pay a total of $72 a month for three business accounts, which allows us to see who has viewed which parts of a slide show and for how long, then focus our followup efforts accordingly.

SlideRocket helps us allocate our time appropriately, a crucial support for a resourcestrapped start-up.—As told to J.J. McCorvey SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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THE GOODS

Beyond Business

Things I Cannot Live Without Kayak I love water and paddling sports, and intend to do justice to my Pyranha Kayak for a long time to come.

Camping gear It consists of an allseason alpine tent, sleeping bags, a 45-litre Huckfinn backpack and North Face boots.

Laptop I have a Toshiba that meets all my requirements; it’s portable and provides a good battery life.

CO-FOUNDER, TREKS ‘N RAPIDS

Pranav Kukreti

Canon cameras I love to capture candid moments on my Canons– an SLR and a 12x optical zoom SX200 IS. They are my best friends during excursions.

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Each day is a new adventure for Pranav Kukreti, the 34-year-old co-founder of Treks ‘n Rapids.

Blame all the excitement on the company that he runs—an adventure sports firm that has bagged “India’s Most Preferred Adventure Sports Company” tag for three years in a row.

The New Delhi-based company can pack in a lot of action for adrenaline addicts, with scuba diving, trekking, aero sports, wildlife safaris and adventure camps. In its tamer avatar, it markets sports gear made by international companies.

As the success of Kukreti’s company proves, this adventurer is quite the pro when it comes to manoeuvring his way through the rapids of business. –Sunaina Sehgal

...and What I Covet A Harley Davidson motorcycle I have dreamt of possessing one of these cult bikes since I was 15. Now that they are in India, I hope to get one soon.

Technology New apps that make it easy for companies to use mobile credit card processing services. this page Sales & Marketing How would you market a portal for online medical consultations? page 29 Elevator Pitch Can some funding meet a bakery's appetite for growth? page 30

The Way I Work

Karan Chanana of Amira Foods (India) page 96

STRATEGY

PHOTOS.COM

Technology Say Goodbye to the Cash Register Making sales from almost anywhere

Payments on the Go One can now key in customer's credit card data into a cell phone to process payments and send receipts.

Whether you are at a trade show, a street fair, a sporting event, or just on the road, it has gotten a lot easier to make a credit card sale. Thanks to a host of new applications, businesses can process credit cards without using dedicated wireless devices or clunky terminals, which can cost anywhere from $200 to $2,000. All you need is your cell phone.

Technicians at Jackson Comfort Systems, a $3 million company in Ohio that offers heating and air-conditioning repair and installation, recently started using their phones to process orders in clients’ homes and offices.

After an employee finishes a job, he keys the customer’s credit card information into an application on his cell phone. The data are automatically encrypted, and payment is processed immediately. No information is stored on the phone. After the transaction is approved, the technician can use the application to send the customer a receipt via e-mail or text message.

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27

STRATEGY

Processing payments on cell phones, says owner Pat Jackson, works much better than the old system, in which technicians sometimes scribbled card numbers on invoices to take back to the office. Customers weren’t thrilled about handing over their credit card information, and sometimes technicians would get back to the office only to discover that the card number was wrong or had been declined.

Jackson’s company uses Intuit’s GoPayment application, which she chose because it worked on the Nextel phones her technicians already carried on the job. For the few employees who frequently process transactions, she also purchased, for $145 each, swipe sleeves that wirelessly connect to the phones

serves as the store’s checkout counter.

The phone, which is the boutique’s only means of processing credit cards, has a small plastic cube plugged into the headphone jack.

The device, called Square, is a card reader and app that makes it easy to swipe customers’ credit cards. Instead of printing a receipt, the clerk asks for an e-mail address, and Square sends the customer an electronic receipt via e-mail.

The app can also send a receipt by text message. The cashier can even include a photo of the items the customer bought, snapped with the iPhone.

The entrepreneur behind Square, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, invited Kiya Babzani, co-founder of Self Edge, to test the device when Dorsey launched his new venture last year. At first, Babzani feared it would look unprofessional: “What if it looked like we had jury-rigged the system when we’re selling someone a $400 pair of jeans a nd a $1,50 0 jacket?” But after seeing the service in action, Babzani decided to try it out as the exclusive payment processing system when he opened his New York City boutique. So far, customers have reacted with fascination rather than skepticism, says Andrew Chen, co-owner of the Self Edge store in New York.

Because none of the credit card information is stored in the phone—the data are encrypted and sent from the Square application to the credit card companies, without being stored on Square’s servers—Chen says he isn’t concerned about someone stealing the phone. “Having a cash register with cash in it stolen from us would be a lot more costly than losing an iPhone,” he says. Still, after one customer, eager to examine how it worked, dropped the iPhone and broke the

Mobile card processors may be suited for companies that want to process payments offsite, but retailers have also begun using them in stores. using Bluetooth technology. The mobile application has become an integral part of the company’s day-to-day operations.

“I can’t think of a drawback,” Jackson says. “We’re exactly the type of business this is for.”

Mobile card processors may be well suited for companies that want to process payments off-site, but retailers have also begun using them in stores. Self Edge, a high-end clothing retailer based in San Francisco, never installed a register in the company’s third boutique, in New York City. Instead, in the middle of the store, past the racks of vintageinspired jeans and next to a rotary phone and a vintage riveting tool, there’s an iPhone on the large wooden desk that 28

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swiper, Chen is careful to hold the phone himself during a transaction.

Like traditional credit card terminals—and the dedicated wireless processors you might have seen used by delivery guys or tableside in restaurants—nearly all mobile applications that process credit cards require a merchant account, a type of bank account that enables businesses to accept payments by debit or credit. The application process involves background and credit checks, and can take a few days to a few weeks. Most mobile payment software works with existing merchant accounts. Jackson, who didn’t have a merchant account, had to open one through Intuit before she downloaded GoPayment.

Unlike most applications, Square automatically gives users access to its processing services, which means users don’t need a merchant account. After you get a free swiper and download the free application, you just type in your banking information, and you can be up and running in less than a minute, Dorsey claims. Babzani already had a merchant account for Self Edge’s other boutiques, but he liked that Square offers a single swipe fee for all transactions.

Whether you use a mobile app or a traditional terminal, most credit card processors charge a complicated array of interchange, or swipe, fees, which can range from about 1.2 per cent to 3 per cent, depending on many factors, such as whether the card is debit or credit as well as whether the card was swiped or the information was keyed in.

Although using Square requires some clerical work for Chen—to manage inventory, he manually enters information about purchases made with Square into the point-of-sale software on the store’s iMac—he says customers seem to enjoy the novelty of swiping their credit cards on a cell phone. “When people tweet about what they bought here,” says Chen, “half the time they’ll say, ‘I paid with this crazy payment system.’”

—Nitasha Tiku

STRATEGY

Sales & Marketing A portal for medical consultations Can marketers find the right prescription?

Remember the last time when you struggled to get that appointment with your doctor?

Getting the doctor’s time is such a hassle that often, when there is a specialist involved, people make do without follow-up check-ups. Life would be oh-so-simple, if only there was a specialist available online for a consultation. That thought inspired Chennai-based Vinoth Kumar to launch Doctorsandmedicines.com in May. Though still in its early days, the portal has received an encouraging response. Its unique selling point is its panel of doctors, who provide web-based solutions from their individual clinics—at their convenience. It also brings complementary therapies, such as ayurveda and homeopathy, onto a single platform. Four experts weigh in on how they would attract more patients. —Charu Bahri

How would you sell that?

PHOTOS.COM

PITCH NO. 1: Offer 'freemiums' Ajay Sanghani, founder, ITVidya.com, a community of IT professionals A popular marketing model is to offer “freemium” services, wherein patients get free membership to search doctors, view experiences and expertise and view reviews. Users who revisit the site can be encouraged to buy premier services. Special incentives can be given to patients to recommend and invite doctors known to them to sign-up and they can even write reviews of the doctors. Users may be given incentives to invite contacts (especially those who are unwell and need treatment) to sign-up for the services.

PITCH NO. 2: Spruce up the portal Samir Jhaveri, internet marketing consultant and founder, www.AwareINDIA.net New visitors landing on the home page would find it hard to figure out what the site is all about. The visual area on the home page should be utilised more effectively. Next, the team should establish a lead generating system and an auto follow-up email series to convert visitors into prospects and prospects into clients.

They should also test landing pages to achieve high conversion rates through low-cost Pay-Per-Click campaigns. Once the portal achieves a decent conversion ratio, it should work in tandem with other websites to generate win-win offers.

A Convenient Option Can online medical consultations work in the face of scpeticism?

FEEDBACK ON THE FEEDBACK: Offering “freemium” and premium services is a valid point. We plan to offer freemium services to first-time customers. We are also working on customising the home page and will appreciate pointed suggestions to add more value to it. As regards to the concerns surrounding medical consultations, we are not focusing on medical consultations for serious illnesses. Our focus will be enabling follow-up consultations.

Doctor-to-doctor secondary consultations is a good idea. The challenge is to attract a balance of senior and junior doctors—and definitely more patients.

PITCH NO. 3: Take the event route Sanjeev Sarma, CEO, Osmos Multimedia A medical consultation business can’t run online. It can be at best a medical information portal with due caveats thrown in. The reason is simple: The pain in my chest could mean anything from a minor sprain to a major block. Medical consultations cannot address such situations without prescribed procedures involving observation and diagnosis. Online queries or requests for information are not the same as medical consultations.

The model should move offline through camps and events to attract clients.

PITCH NO. 4: Deal with minor health issues first Dr Thomas Chandy, director, chief of orthopaedics, HOSMAT, Bengaluru Senior doctors are likely to shy away from signing up to offer their services via a portal. Junior doctors will probably be eager to join.

Online diagnosis leaves room for mistakes and doctors will be concerned about getting embroiled in legal tangles. This kind of one-onone telemedicine service should focus on minor health queries. The portal could also generate more traffic by offering niche doctor-todoctor secondary consultations.

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STRATEGY

Elevator Pitch Sheetals Homemade has fixed the right menu. Can 1 crore sweeten things up?

COMPANY

Sheetals Homemade FOUNDING TEAM

Sheetal and Sushwin Devatraj LOCATION

Bengaluru NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

8

FOUNDED

April 2009 REVENUE LAST MONTH

2 lakh

PROJECTED REVENUE FOR NEXT YEAR

30 lakh per outlet

BUSINESS MODEL

Sale of sugar-free and eggless desserts, packaged meals and gourmet breads PRODUCT PRICE RANGE

50 per unit to 600 per unit

CLIENT BASE

About 10 to 12 regular clients per month FUNDING SOUGHT

5 lakh to 7 lakh per outlet (for 14 outlets)

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The Pitch “We offer high-quality bakery products—walnut brownies,

orange and chocolate marble cakes—much more. Our products, which boast of more than 21 features not offered by any of our competitors, sell through stores or are home delivered. We’d like to expand services and retail through our own chain someday. We’d also like to expand our menu to include chicken sandwiches, lasagna, and many more items. We estimate returns of 20 per cent to 30 per cent, and hope to be the frontrunner in the 100 per cent vegetarian and sugar-free desserts segments. This way, Sheetals will be able to serve the niche market—consisting of diet or sugar-conscious people, senior citizens and youngsters.”—As told to Charu Bahri

The Experts Weigh In UNDERSTAND THE FRONT-END

PLAY IN A NICHE

The company seems to have understood the back-end of its business. Now, to achieve scale, it must try to understand the front-end by establishing stores in areas that the founders know well. This means determining the clientele and store layout—should it include a place to sit down? There will be competition from established brands. So, Sheetals must focus on its “It” factor. On the funding front, institutional investors need to be able to exit the business— so, the company must show clear potential of how big a brand it can become; can it grow to a point where it is either listed or acquired by another firm?

Sheetals Homemade should work towards establishing market leadership in a niche segment of the desserts industry. There is nothing special about their current expansion plans. I will suggest that they unclutter the menu and concentrate on the growing niche segment—people with diabetes or food allergies. The products may be sold at uniform prices through outlets and malls. Projected returns for its estimated turnovers seem unrealistic.

Such high returns can only be expected from a considerable scale-up. Sheetals can reach out to more customers through word-of-mouth tasting sessions and media coverage.

BHARATI JACOB, managing partner, Seedfund

RITU DALMIA, founder, Diva Italian

INC. | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

EXPLORE CORPORATE CAMPUSES

As Sheetals is yet to establish a brand name, it should ideally start with retail stores in market areas with high footfalls.

Small-sized ground floor retail spaces are hard to come by and will cost well over 5 lakh to 7 lakh estimate. Also, its products are too specialised to be successfully retailed through stores. Sheetals should explore the option of establishing a presence in food courts in technology and business parks, and corporate campuses. It should seek debt funding from banks or riskcapital funding from specialised institutions, like SIDBI, or state financial corporations.

KIRAN NADKARNI, founder and director, Kaati Zone

PHOTOGRAPH BY S RADHAKRISHNA

GUTTER CREDIT HERE

Fresh Flavour Sheetal Devatraj hopes to win some fans for her chain of stores.

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AD

WELCOME TO THE DEFINITIVE

list of the bestperforming mid-sized companies in India. Turn the

page to start reading about the bright lights of the glowing Indian economy.

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WHERE ALL THE ACTION IS Meet the honourees who have been plodding away quietly, rising to new levels of growth and excellence.

They are now ready to play a larger role in the national and global economy.

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n its 63 years of independence, India has never seen a decade like the one past. We’ve ridden the roller-coaster of hope and despair in these 10 years. The dotcom bubble inflated with the breath of a million imaginations, and its eventual deflating on the nail-bed of reality. The revival of brick-and-mortar businesses in its aftermath. The predictions about the rise of India that promised a billion brighter tomorrows. And then, like the scripted twist in the tale, the global ebb of economic fortune that threatened to wash our hopes away—albeit temporarily.

Could doing business get any more interesting?

Ask the honourees who make up our list of the Best Performing Mid-sized Companies in India. They’ve emerged out of nowhere in this decade to seize the opportunities thrown up by the opening up of the economy, by the increasing globalisation of the world we live in, and by unprecedented growth in India’s economic fortunes.

These pint-sized rockets are rarely mentioned in mainstream business press. How many know what Nava Bharat Ventures—the company that tops our list—does? Yet, it has been around since 1975 and is one of the top ferro alloy companies of the country.

It isn’t the only one. Many of our honourees have been plodding away quietly, rising to new levels of growth and excellence. And, they are now ready to play a larger role in the national and global economy.

The achievements of this group are commendable because each of them had to beat at least three others to find a place on our list. We analysed a total of 3,848 companies and chose the best 500.

Our 500 companies are a dynamic lot. Of the top 10 in the current list, five companies were not on our list last year. Glodyne Technoserve, which ranks eighth this year, was not even among the top 200 last year. Sun TV, which topped last year, has ranked fourth this year, while Educomp Solutions has gone up from 56th position last year to second this year.

Of the 500 companies that made the cut last year, 29 have grown too big for the Inc. India 500 list, having crossed our upper limit of 1,500 crore in turnover. Companies such as Electrotherm and Jai Balaji Industries managed to grow even in a bad year like 2008-09— and went beyond our list. We can only hope that our honourees will continue to do so in the coming years.

This pace of growth is not surprising, given how ambitious this lot of business-owners is. Here’s a sample: “We want to grow to a turnover of 1,000 crore within the next 3 years to 5 years,” says RG Agarwal, group chairman, Dhanuka Agritech, which ranks 135 in our current 36

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SECTOR PROFILE REAL ESTATE No of Companies 30 Total Revenue 18,963 cr 3-year CAGR 34% Average Profit Margin 11% Median Turnover 522 cr Median Profit 17 cr Top Player Peninsula Land

IT & ITeS No of Companies 50 Total Revenue 23,172 cr 3-year CAGR 21% Average Profit Margin 26% Median Turnover 397 cr Median Profit 59 cr Top Player Glodyne Technoserve

WHERE ALL THE ACTION IS

list and has clocked a growth rate of 17 per cent per year in turnover for the past three years. That’s exactly the goal that TT Jagannathan, chairman of the 470-crore TTK Prestige, has set for his company.

This desire to ride waves of growth is common. From “five-fold growth in revenue in the next five years” to “grow 20 per cent every year”, “occupy one of the top three positions” and “domestic acquisitions”—the answers resonate the yearning for size.

Such ambitions are, however, not misplaced when you consider the solid performances put in by these companies.

The top 500 list has recorded an average sales growth of 50 per cent every year for the past three years—despite fighting off a tidal wave of recession. (In fact, according to our survey, the 2008-09 global financial crisis did not in any way change the future growth strategy of 40 per cent of our respondents.)

There are a few other interesting insights into these companies. Although IT& ITeS sector boasts of the maximum number of players in this list, the fact is that there is a clear dominance of manufacturing companies. There are 39 pharmaceutical manufacturers and 21 cement firms in the top 500—and these are just two sectors within manufacturing.

This may be partially because most businesses in India are the result of the favourable environment created by the government during the Licence Raj. Many of these companies had started out being government suppliers or contractors, and over time, morphed into manufacturers.

The services sector is not only new to the game—having come to the fore only in the past two decades—it is also just about mature enough to see significant entrepreneurial activity.

Geographically speaking, our companies are scattered all over the country— from Kullu in Himachal Pradesh to Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. However, Maharashtra remains the leader among Indian states with more than 150 companies registered in the state. Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi lag behind with just about 50 companies from each state.

In terms of absolute numbers, the smallest sector in our list is capital goods with a combined turnover of 8,000-odd crore, while the largest is IT&ITeS. The average profit margins in most sectors fall within a range of 8 per cent to 11 per cent. Software is a clear exception with 26 per cent.

Textiles sector has grown way faster than the rest. The 18 companies representing the sector in our list have recorded a growth of a whopping 197 per cent per year over the past three years. The second fastest-growing is pharma with a corresponding growth rate of 66 per cent. Incidentally, seven out of our top 10 innovators are pharma companies as well.

As you will see in the pages that follow, these mid-sized players have not only grown fast and managed this growth much better than peers, they’ve also done their bit in coming up with innovations, in globalising their operations and in creating wealth for their shareholders. Our findings in each of these categories are mentioned in the Spotlight section.

Last, but not the least, we could not resist the temptation to compare the performance of our honourees with that of the giants of corporate India. We looked at the 30 companies that make up the Sensex, an index of the Bombay Stock Exchange, and compared their performance with that of the top 30 companies that shine on our list.

As expected, it is a rather David-and-Goliath comparison. The average sales of Inc. India 30 at 750 crore pale in comparison to the BSE 30’s average of 25,000 crore.

The average profits of BSE-30 grew at 12 per cent per year, while there was a 109 per cent per year growth in average profits of the Inc. India 30.

Probably, the comparison is even futile to an extent. But given that the Inc. India 30 have grown at a whopping 177 per cent per year in the past three years in terms of turnover, it’s only a matter of time before they hit the big league.

There’s, of course, no discounting the pleasure of discovering the future occupants of the corporate Hall of Fame and claiming, years later, to have spotted them ‘then’. Here’s a toast to that elite class of India Inc’s future leaders.

SECTOR PROFILE PHARMACEUTICALS No of Companies 39 Total Revenue 22,724 cr 3-year CAGR 66% Average Profit Margin 8% Median Turnover 393 cr Median Profit 20 cr Top Player Mankind Pharma

AGRI-BUSINESS No of Companies 19 Total Revenue 9,890 cr 3-year CAGR 32% Average Profit Margin 8% Median Turnover 433 cr Median Profit 34 cr Top Player Nagarjuna Agrichem

CAPITAL GOODS (ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT) No of Companies 18 Total Revenue 8,545 cr 3-year CAGR 20% Average Profit Margin 10% Median Turnover 352 cr Median Profit 41 cr Top Player Amara Raja Batteries

CEMENT & CEMENT PRODUCTS No of Companies 21 Total Revenue 13,327 cr 3-year CAGR 16% Average Profit Margin 10% Median Turnover 593 cr Median Profit 31 cr Top Player Rain Commodities SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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WHERE ALL THE ACTION IS

METHODOLOGY SECTOR PROFILE STEEL No of Companies 18 Total Revenue 10,183 cr 3-year CAGR 19% Average Profit Margin 8% Median Turnover 478 cr Median Profit 14 cr Top Player Monnet Ispat & Energy

CHEMICALS No of Companies 23 Total Revenue 12,275 cr 3-year CAGR 17% Average Profit Margin 10% Median Turnover 328 cr Median Profit 30 cr Top Player Deepak Fertilisers & Petrochemicals Corporation

TEXTILE No of Companies 18 Total Revenue 9,689 cr

When we decided to wade into the unchartered waters of mid-sized enterprises in India, we faced a dilemma.

Should we simply look at sales growth over a period of time? Or, should we look at the overall performance of a company? After all, sales isn’t the only indicator of how well a company is doing.

We opted for the harder path. To assess ‘high-growth’, we chose companies with net sales between 50 crore and 1,500 crore in the most recent year. To begin with, we created a ‘master list’ of more than 3,000 companies across 35 sectors. Of this list, nearly 40 per cent were dropped for lack of requisite data. We excluded banks and financial institutions, and public sector undertakings (PSUs). It’s difficult to define revenue for the former; and PSUs can hardly be considered independent entities with commercial objectives.

Just as a student is ranked on the weighted average of marks obtained during a three-year degree programme, our set of companies too went through a weighted analysis of the following financial parameters, annualised for comparison: 1.Top-line growth 2.Bottom-line growth 3.Profitability, and 4.Returns To evaluate the ‘performance’ of these companies, the ranking model took into account net sales, operating profits and profit after tax for each company for the past three calendar years—2007 to 2009— and added up the relevant quarterly data.

The compound annual growth rates (CAGR) of net sales and net profits for the past three years were calculated to arrive at the respective numbers for ‘top-line growth’ and ‘bottom-line growth’. Finally, ‘profitability’ was calculated by taking a simple average of net profit margins and operating profit margins.

Further, the ‘returns’ parameter was calculated as an average of the return on capital employed (ROCE) and the return on equity (ROE)1, both available in the balance sheet of a company, for the past three financial years (2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09).

We made two adjustments—the first involved converting all parameters to a scale of 0 to 100 for comparison purposes using the following equation. ith company’s score on parameterj = 50 *

parameterj parameterj’s universe average

The conversion equation assumes an inverted bell shaped probability distribution for all parameters. The converted number then represents the ith company’s score on the parameter j (j running from 1 to 4 i.e. size, top-line growth, bottom-line growth, profitability, and returns). These scores were then ranked to assess the company’s performance on each parameter.

The second adjustment normalised topline and bottom-line growth rates to address anomalies.

Finally, all companies were ranked on the basis of scores assigned for each parameter. The model gave higher weights2 to calendar year data and lower to financial year data. The top 500 companies from the universe were selected as the Inc. India 500.

3-year CAGR 197% Average Profit Margin10% Median Turnover 452 cr Median Profit 14 cr Top Player Reid & Taylor (India)

CAPITAL GOODS (NON ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT) No of Companies 45 Total Revenue 19,509 cr 3-year CAGR 25% Average Profit Margin 9% Median Turnover 227 cr Median Profit 24 cr Top Player Titagarh Wagons

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THE PROCESS SCHEMATIC Cumulative average net sales growth

Top-line Growth Score

Cumulative average net profit growth

Bottom-line Growth Score

Avg. net profit margin Avg. operating margin Average Return on Capital Employed Average Return on Equity

Profitability Score

PERFORMANCE RANK

Returns Score

Note 1: All parameters were annualised for comparison purposes; data sources were Capitaline, companies’ annual reports and online registration.Note 2: This automatically penalises older data (data as on April 2009) by placing higher weights on the more recent data (i.e. data as on December 2009)

BEST PERFORMING

The most comprehensive ranking of India’s best performing mid-sized companies 1

Nava Bharat Ventures

22

Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India

42

TRF

23

Orbit Corporation

43

MindTree

24

Koutons Retail India

44

Texmaco

45

JK Lakshmi Cement

46

Nuziveedu Seeds

47

OCL India

2

Educomp Solutions

3

Reid & Taylor (India)

4

Sun TV Network

25

Marathon Nextgen Realty

5

Godrej Consumer Products

26

Rolta India

6

Peninsula Land

27

Coastal Projects

7

Man Infraconstruction

48

Compact Disc India

8

Glodyne Technoserve

28

Emami

49

Dolphin Offshore Enterprises (India)

9

Bajaj Corp

29

Bharati Shipyard

50

eClerx Services

30

ARSS Infrastructure Projects

51

Ipca Laboratories

Rain Commodities

52

Intas Pharmaceuticals

10

ICSA (India)

11

Geodesic

31

12

Aban Offshore

32

Titagarh Wagons

53

J Kumar Infraprojects

13

Mankind Pharma

33

Lanco Kondapalli Power

54

Marg

14

The Clearing Corporation of India

34

Tecpro Systems

15

Syntel

55

35

Hindusthan National Glass & Industries

Techno Electric and Engineering Company

16

Vardhman Yarns & Threads

36

Torrent Pharmaceuticals

56

Zydus Wellness

17

Mundra Port & Special Economic Zone

37

Monnet Ispat & Energy

57

OnMobile Global

18

Allied Digital Services

38

Mangalam Cement

58

SEL Manufacturing Company

19

AIA Engineering

39

Amara Raja Batteries

59

Nagarjuna Agrichem

20

Vuppalamritha Magnetic Components

40

Core Projects & Technologies

60

Symphony Comfort Systems

21

Opto Circuits (India)

41

Ahluwalia Contracts (India)

61

Pradip Overseas

The ranking is based on three-year performance. For details on the ranking methodology, please refer to Page 38.

Source: Capitaline and online registration; all data are annualised SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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THE CLASS OF 2010

62

Deepak Fertilisers & Petrochemicals Corporation

63

Balkrishna Industries

64

Transformers & Rectifiers (India)

65

Eros International Media

66

Sanghvi Movers

67

Prestige Estates Projects

68

Temptation Foods

69

USV

70

Greenearth Resources & Projects

71

Zee Entertainment Enterprises

72

Zensar Technologies

73

Supreme Infrastructure India

74

FDC

75

Navin Fluorine International

76

Jagran Prakashan

77

Surya Pharmaceutical

78

KND Engineering Technologies

106

Parabolic Drugs

151

SKS Ispat and Power

107

Aristo Pharmaceuticals

152

Venus Remedies

108

Vikas WSP

153

CavinKare

109

Ramky Infrastructure

154

Hawkins Cooker

110

Shri Lakshmi Cotsyn

155

Dharani Sugars & Chemicals

111

Modern Insulators

156

Goenka Diamond & Jewels

112

Bliss Gvs Pharma

157

Virgo Engineers

113

Mahanagar Gas

158

Torrent Cables

114

Varroc Polymers

159

Atlanta

115

KNR Constructions

160

Glenmark Generics

116

Tilaknagar Industries

161

Lanco Industries

117

Jindal Drilling & Industries

162

HEG

118

MBL Infrastructures

119

Micro Technologies (India)

120

Zee News

121

EMCO

122

Vinati Organics

123

Cranes Software International

79

Sesa Industries

124

Omnitech InfoSolutions

80

EID Parry (India)

125

Navneet Publications (India)

81

Hanung Toys and Textiles

126

TTK Prestige

82

Ess Dee Aluminium

127

Pratibha Industries

83

Ankur Drugs & Pharma

128

Indofil Organic Industries

84

Diamond Power Infrastructure

129

Zen Technologies

85

The Tinplate Company of India

130

Sadbhav Engineering

86

Allcargo Global Logistics

131

Jaihind Projects

87

WABCO-TVS (India)

88

Bannari Amman Sugars

89

Bartronics India

90

Mandhana Industries

91

HBL Power Systems

92

AurionPro Solutions

93

Kemrock Industries and Exports

94

3DPLM Software Solutions

95

Malana Power Company

96

Hindustan Dorr-Oliver

97

Unity Infraprojects

98

Mcleod Russel India

99

DB Corp

100

Hindustan Colas

101

163

Aarti Industries

164

Tara Health Foods

165

Time Technoplast

166

Kaveri Seed Company

167

Greatship (India)

168

Parekh Aluminex

169

Hira Ferro Alloys

170

Cosmo Films

171

Twilight Litaka Pharma

172

EMI Transmission

173

Sandur Manganese & Iron Ores

174

Hinduja Global Solutions

175

Shantha Biotechnics

176

Polaris Software Lab Indian Immunologicals

132

Swaraj Engines

177

133

C & C Constructions

178

L&T- Valdel Engineering

134

Rithwik Projects

179

PNC Infratech

135

Dhanuka Agritech

180

Jessop & Company

136

Motherson Sumi Systems

181

SIRO Clinpharm

137

Hyderabad Industries

182

Hikal

138

Shilpa Medicare

139

Sabero Organics Gujarat

183

WMI Cranes

140

Gayatri Projects

184

Ashoka Buildcon

141

Powerlinks Transmission

185

142

Genesys International Corporation

McNally Bharat Engineering Company

143

Cox & Kings (India)

186

JK Paper

144

Powerica

187

National Engineering Industries

145

Hetero Drugs

188

Everonn Education

Banco Products (India)

NKG Infrastructure

Unichem Laboratories

146

189

Oil Country Tubular

Responsive Industries

Page Industries

147

190

102

VST Tillers Tractors

KRBL

GMR Energy

103

148

191 192

3i Infotech

104

Infotech Enterprises

149

Orient Abrasives

193

Relaxo Footwears

105

Godfrey Phillips India

150

L&T Infocity

194

Jyothy Laboratories

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THE CLASS OF 2010

195

Ind-Swift Laboratories

237

Matrix Laboratories

279

Globus Spirits

196

ICRA

238

Nu Tek India

280

Fem Care Pharma

197

Axiom Impex International

239

AcroPetal Technologies

281

Kirloskar Pneumatic Company

198

Elgi Equipments

240

JMC Projects (India)

282

Amira Foods (India)

199

Gmmco

241

Treadsdirect

283

PI Industries

200

Base Corporation

242

Falcon Tyres

284

Astral Polytechnik

201

BVG India

243

ETC Networks

285

INOX Air Products

202

Solar Industries India

244

HSIL

286

Dhampur Sugar Mills

245

Arch Pharmalabs

287

Brandhouse Retails Infinite Computer Solutions India

203

UB Engineering

204

Kitex Garments

246

Metro Shoes

288

205

Totem Infrastructure

247

Rajshree Sugars & Chemicals

289

Tata Refractories

206

Electrical Manufacturing Company

GSS America Infotech

290

Kavveri Telecom Products

207

Sahara Prime City

249

Meghmani Organics

291

Manjeera Constructions

208

Zylog Systems

250

Sahyadri Industries

292

Valley Iron & Steel Company

209

KSK Energy Ventures

251

Cochin International Airport

293

Technofab Engineering

210

Tata Technologies

252

Kwality Dairy (India)

294

GVK Biosciences United Breweries Holdings

248

211

Jolly Board

253

Empire Industries

295

212

Aqua Logistics

254

Kirloskar Electric Company

296

Nitin Fire Protection Industries

Liberty Phosphate

297

Thinksoft Global Services

298

Archidply Industries

213

Insecticides (India)

255 256

Carrier Airconditioning & Refrigeration

299

Indo Bonito Multinational

257

Firstsource Solutions

300

Banswara Syntex

258

DT Cinemas

301

Indian Hume Pipe Company

259

Astec LifeSciences

302

BS Transcomm

260

Thiru Arooran Sugars

303

Rainbow Papers

261

Bilcare

304

Jocil

Greenply Industries

262

L&T-Sargent & Lundy

305

Riddhi Siddhi Gluco Biols

Sunflag Iron and Steel Co.

263

The Andhra Sugars

306

Info Edge (India) Resurgere Mines & Minerals India

214

Sunil Hitech Engineers

215

Shriram EPC

216

Usher Agro

217

Natco Pharma

218

Confidence Petroleum India

219

Visaka Industries

220 221 222

Sakthi Sugars

264

UIC Udyog

307

223

KPIT Cummins Infosystems

265

ETA Karnataka Estates

308

Dwarikesh Sugar Industries Gulf Oil Corporation

224

Nectar Lifesciences

266

Selan Exploration Technology

309

225

JB Chemicals & Pharamaceuticals

267

Amar Remedies

310

DCW Cheema Boilers

226

IFB Industries

268

Galaxy Surfactants

311

227

Jay Shree Tea & Industries

269

Century Plyboards (I)

312

Apollo Metalex

228

Tata BP Solar

270

Fabindia Overseas

313

Rupa & Company

229

Usha International

271

Indraprastha Medical Corporation

314

DCM Shriram Industries

230

Godrej Properties

272

MSK Projects (India)

315

Om Metals Infraprojects

231

Kalpena Industries

273

Simbhaoli Sugars

316

Holostik India

232

Liverpool Retail India

274

WPIL

317

Cantabil Retail India

233

Ramco Industries

275

Persistent Systems

234

318

Sagar Cements

Sonata Software

276

The Anup Engineering

235

Simplex Projects

319

Amrutanjan Health Care

277

NIIT

236

GTL Infrastructure

278

Mahindra Lifespace Developers

320

Sree Rayalaseema Alkalies and Allied Chemicals

The ranking is based on three-year performance. For details on the ranking methodology, please refer to Page 38.

Source: Capitaline and online registration; all data are annualised SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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THE CLASS OF 2010

321

Numeric Power Systems

364

NELCO

409

Easun Reyrolle

322

SeQuent Scientific

365

CTR Manufacturing Industries

410

Hindustan Polyamides & Fibres

323

Sudarshan Chemical Industries

366

Setco Automotive

411

Compuage Infocom

324

Ponni Sugars (Erode)

367

Great Offshore

412

Asbesco (India)

325

Veena Industries

368

Vishal Information Technologies

413

GEI Industrial Systems

326

Cera Sanitaryware

369

Strides Arcolab

414

Modern India

327

VIP Industries

370

ABC Paper

415

Dynamatic Technologies

328

Ind-Swift

371

Hitech Plast

416

Balaji Amines

329

Transport Corporation of India

372

TVS Srichakra

417

Somany Ceramics

330

TIL

373

Kiri Dyes & Chemicals

418

Jupiter Bioscience

331

Anil Products

374

India Motor Parts & Accessories

419

Mazda

332

Sonata Information Technology

375

Himalya International

420

JVL Agro Industries

333

Sharda Ispat

376

Tata Elxsi

421

Elecon Engineering Company

334

Gillanders Arbuthnot & Co.

377

Horizon Infrastructure

422

Eskay K`n’IT (India)

335

Talwalkars Better Value Fitness

378

Gujarat Reclaim & Rubber Products

423

Zenith Infotech

336

Tantia Constructions

379

Aditya Birla Chemicals (India)

424

Ador Fontech

380

Aarvee Denims and Exports

425

Dhunseri Tea & Industries

337

QuEST

381

Pacific Industries

426

Godrej Agrovet

338

Excel Crop Care

382

Voltamp Transformers

427

Development Consultants

339

Anu’s Laboratories

383

English Indian Clays

428

Star Delta Transformers

340

Thangamayil Jewellery

384

Reliance Natural Resources

429

Indian Cable Net Company

vCustomer Services India

385

SRS Real Infrastructure

430

LGS Global

386

Valecha Engineering

431

Godrej Oil Palm

387

GEE

432

NOCIL

388

Chettinad Cement Corporation

433

Avon Corporation

389

Goodluck Steel Tubes

434

Flex Art Foil

390

Hexaware Technologies

391

Sanwaria Agro Oils

435

Shri Nataraj Ceramic and Chemical Industries

392

Granules India

436

Jeypore Sugar Company

393

KLJ Resources

437

Munjal Auto Industries

394

Geometric

395

ABT

438

Indowind Energy

396

Avon Cycles

439

Anuh Pharma

397

440

Prism Cement

Max Healthcare Institute

441

Excel Entertainment

398

IMP Powers

442

Garware Offshore Services

341 342

Shree Digvijay Cement Co

343

Haldyn Glass Gujarat

344

Dishman Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals

345

Kovai Medical Center and Hospital

346

TCS e-Serve

347

Suprajit Engineering

348

Gulshan Polyols

349

Saraswati Sugar Mills

350

International Conveyors

351

Savita Oil Technologies

352

Graphite India

353

Aarti Drugs

354

Venkys (India)

399

RS Software (India)

443

Ambience

355

Gujarat Fluorochemicals

400

Spanco

444

PCI

356

Ajanta Pharma

401

N.R. Agarwal Industries

445

Gandhi Special Tubes

357

Consulting Engineering Services (India)

402

Patels Airtemp (India)

446

Manjushree Technopack

358

Minda Industries

403

Mascon Global

447

Mercator Lines Saurashtra Chemicals

359

Parenteral Drugs (India)

404

Nitta Gelatin India

448

360

Prakash Steelage

405

Mittal Corp

449

Bedmutha Industries

361

Datamatics Global Services

406

TV Today Network

450

Ester Industries

362

Everest Industries

407

Sree Rayalaseema Hi-Strength Hypo

451

Vardhman Acrylics

363

Kudremukh Iron and Steel Company

408

Siva Industries & Holdings

452

NCL Alltek & Seccolor

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THE CLASS OF 2010

453

Surana Industries

470

Indag Rubber

487

Jubilant Chemsys

454

Atul

471

National Peroxide

488

Autometers Alliance

455

Jaybharat Textiles and Real Estate

472

Himatsingka Seide

456

Richa Industries

473

Polyplex Corporation

489

Himadri Chemicals & Industries

457

Asian Granito India

474

Kabra Extrusion Technik

490

Dish TV India

458

Zandu Realty

475

Iris Computers

491

Brigade Enterprises

459

VMT Spinning Company

476

Tata Sponge Iron

492

CMC

460

Petron Engineering Construction

477

Dharma Productions

493

Finolex Industries

461

Camlin

478

Kalyanpur Cements

462

Provogue (India)

494

H & R Johnson (India)

479

Poly Medicure

463

Kanani Industries

480

GMR Power Corporation

495

NCL Industries

464

Gujarat Apollo Industries

481

Wim Plast

496

Shivalik Agro-Poly Products

465

Va Tech Wabag

482

Coromandel Engineering Company

497

Gloster Jute Mills

466

Raunaq International

483

Anjani Portland Cement

498

Financial Technologies (India)

467

Grabal Alok Impex

484

Sai Service Station

468

Associated Stone Industries (Kotah)

485

Deccan Chronicle Holdings

499

Midfield Industries

469

Baba Arts

486

Century Enka

500

Gabriel India

The ranking is based on three-year performance. For details on the ranking methodology, please refer to Page 38.

Source: Capitaline and online registration; all data are annualised

HOW I DID IT

ADI GODREJ A SWELLING EMPIRE

I was born in Mumbai in 1942 and did my schooling from St Xavier’s School. I did reasonably well; in fact, I stood first from my school in the SSC exams. After my intermediate exams, I made it to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1959. I was one of the youngest students there.

At MIT, I realised the importance of studying management. In those

days, there were no management schools anywhere, except in the US. My Master’s degree in management, with a minor in mechanical engineering, gave me the best possible education and training I could have hoped for before joining the family business.

My first lessons in business, however, started way before this. My mother, Jai Godrej, was my first true mentor. When I was just five years old, she taught me how to cross the road alone, in front of our home at Malabar Hills in Mumbai. Of course, there weren’t so many cars on the roads then.

At 10, I was given a monthly sum as pocket money and told to accommodate all my purchases—my schools books, lunch and toys—within that sum of money. So, I learnt the fine art of budgeting at a rather early age. By the time I reached my teens, my mother allowed me to travel across the country, alone. I had to make my friends convince their parents in turn, so that we could take advantage of this freedom.

I travelled to far-flung places in India on third-class carriages of Indian Railways. In hindsight, there could have been no greater way of knowing how India lives and thinks.

MIT taught me the power of team work. I was a member of Pi Lambha Phi—a fraternity at MIT, which was known for welcoming people of all races and religions. In 1961, our fraternity elected an African

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At 68, Adi Godrej, chairman of the century-old Godrej Industries, is enjoying his reign over an empire spread across London, Jakarta, Buenos Aires and Mumbai.

The lessons he picked up—at home from his mother, those at MIT and the ones that came through his 47 years of running the family business— have helped the diversified conglomerate ensure that every third consumer product used by an Indian has a Godrej stamp on it. Not a great believer of long-term planning, his focus remains on expanding his businesses and keeping the contemporary charm of the brand intact.

AS TOLD TO DHIMAN CHATTOPADHYAY PHOTOGRAPHS BY JITEN GANDHI

True Contentment Adi Godrej turned his century-old family business into a 12,000-crore behemoth with a presence in 21 countries.

HOW I DID IT American classmate as its president— something unheard of in those days.

It was also the only time that I truly had to work hard to make ends meet. The

government of India rules then allowed people to carry only a few dollars while leaving India. So, I first worked as a research assistant for Franco Modigliani, who later won the Nobel Prize for economics, and then, as a bell boy in a hotel.

I had always been sure that I would join

my family business. In 1963, I joined Godrej Soaps, with no previous work experience. I was the first management graduate to join the company, and brought with me a set of fresh values and a new way of looking at things. The total turnover of the group then was 10 crore.

Those were socialist days when we had to

pay up to 90 per cent tax on income. In some years, we had to pay more taxes than our income, so we sold Godrej Soaps to Godrej & Boyce, a family-owned company, to get the cash needed to pay the taxes!

The transition came in 1991 with the

opening up of the economy. We put a restructuring process in place. In 1993, we went public for the first time with Godrej Soaps. I also realised that the new economic order presented a perfect opportunity to expand through joint ventures. It was a good option for both sides—the foreign companies would get a foothold in India, and we would gain access to a vast wealth of knowledge about global best practices. And of course, the process would result in a spike in revenues. Fortunately, most of our joint ventures have worked well for us and even in cases where they have ended (P&G and GE), we have gained enormously.

In 2001, we de-merged Godrej Soaps into

Godrej Consumer Products and Godrej Industries. It turned out to be a great decision. Since then, the market cap of Godrej Industries has gone up at a compound rate of 60 per cent, while that of Godrej Consumer Products at 45 per cent.

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Leading the Pack Godrej was one of the first Indian businessmen to recruit graduates from the IIMs.

Looking back, my biggest contribution in the initial days was to bring in new management principles, hitherto not followed by most Indian businesses. This was also the phase when the first of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) were coming up. I would drop by the campuses, meet students and faculty, and then pick up the best talent on the block. I was one of the first to recruit IIM graduates.

I had no idea that 47 years later we would be a 12,000-crore group (consolidated revenues) with a presence in 21 countries.

Today, roughly 25 per cent of our sales come from outside India. And all our businesses are standalone companies with none of the CEOs coming from the family.

We are now focused on moving into newer areas. Our real estate arm is growing at a

steady rate and we are also looking at strategic acquisitions. The next generation, our children, is also in the process of re-energising the group’s existing brands and taking a fresh look at products so that they become more attractive to younger customers. It is our constant endeavour to be seen and known as a contemporary brand.

One of my biggest weaknesses is that I am a poor listener. Till a few years ago, I

didn’t really listen to what others had to say.

I have tried to change that. Now, I make an effort to listen carefully when a suggestion is made, or when someone is making a point. It helps, especially, when we plan for the long term, since my vision doesn’t go beyond five years. I consider myself better at visualising short and medium-term targets. So when it comes to setting goals for the future, I make sure that I get the views of other people, both family members and others around me.

Apart from my mother, I’ve been fortunate to have two great mentors—my

father, Burjor, and my uncle, Naval. While my father, a technology expert himself, stirred my interest in technology, my uncle has been a guiding force in most business matters in those early days.

I honestly feel I would have failed as an entrepreneur, if I had to start from scratch.

To be successful as an entrepreneur, you need passion as much as perseverance.

There is no success without failure. I do not know if would have passed muster.

BY THE NUMBERS

Taken together, our 500 honourees constitute a vast pool of data. It’s easy to overlook smaller companies in this universe of winners. So, here is another look at our list—this time, within a certain band of turnover. Divided into four categories and then ranked according to their performance, here are the other number ones.

The four bands in terms of sales are: 1.

2.

3.

4.

50 crore to 100 crore 101 crore to 500 crore 501 crore to 1,000 crore 1,001 crore to 1,500 crore

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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BY THE NUMBERS

HIMALYA INTERNATIONAL No. 375

Started in 1979, Himalya International has an array of products in its portfolio—all in the food segment. From growing mushrooms to baby potatoes and manufacturing Italian cheeses, it has grown at 21 per cent for three years ending 2009.

50 crore - 100 crore Rank Company Name

3-year CAGR (%)

1

Zen Technologies

51

2

Genesys International Corporation

32

3

L&T Valdel Engineering

42

Why we’re growing

4

SIRO Clinpharm

45

There are three things that helped us the most in the past year. The best of them was our diversion to the domestic market with its burgeoning middle class. The second thing was our decision to innovate and diversify our production lines. Besides contributing to

5

Jolly Board

3

6

AcroPetal Technologies

30

7

ETC Networks

48

8

GSS America Infotech

30

MAN MOHAN MALIK, Chairman & CEO

our top-line last year, they show promise to become star products, and could lead our growth plans for the next few years. And finally, our advertising and brand building exercise helped us to reach Indian consumers, which in turn led to better sales.

Our challenges The logistic chain is a challenge for us. Since our products are temperature sensitive, maintaining the chain from factory to fork is daunting. The infrastructure is inadequate and power supply erratic. Another big challenge is the quality of inputs, especially the milk for our cheese and yogurt plants. Adulteration is rampant and laws are not properly implemented.

What’s next We have earmarked 20 crore for cold chain development for our distribution throughout the country. We hope to increase our sales from nutritional supplements, launched earlier this year.

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9

Astec Lifesciences

39

10

L & T-Sargent & Lundy

42

11

ETA Karnataka Estates

95

12

Selan Explorations Technology

22

13

The Anup Engineering

37

14

Manjeera Constructions

47

15

Nitin Fire Protection Industries

34

16

Thinksoft Global Services

19

17

Apollo Metalex

838

18

Holostik India

21

19

Amrutanjan Health Care

7

20

Talwalkars Better Value Fitness

39

21

International Conveyors

15

22

CTR Manufacturing Industries

15

23

Vishal Information Technologies

26

24

Himalya International

21

25

Pacific Industries

4

26

Patels Airtemp (India)

15

27

Siva Industries & Holdings

9

28

Asbesco India

26

29

Mazda

10

30

Development Consultants

26

BY THE NUMBERS

101 crore - 500 crore Rank Company Name

3-year CAGR (%)

1

Bajaj Corp

1,247

2

Geodesic

31

3

Clearing Corporation of India

4

Vardhman Yarns & Threads

5

Allied Digital Services

19

6

Opto Circuits (India)

15

7

Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India

19

8

Orbit Corporation

40

22 1,414

9

Marathon Nextgen Realty

32

10

Core Projects & Technologies

35

11

Compact Disc India

37

12

eClerx Services

32

13

J Kumar Infraprojects

53

14

Zydus Wellness

66

15

OnMobile Global

36

16

Symphony Comfort Systems

49

17

Transformers & Rectifiers (India)

24

18

Eros International Media

39

19

Sanghvi Movers

14

20

Greenearth Resources & Projects

36

21

Zensar Technologies

13

22

Supreme Infrastructure India

64

23

Navin Fluorine International

16

24

KND Engineering Technologies

70

25

Ess Dee Aluminium

20

26

WABCO-TVS India

27

Mandhana Industries

24

28

aurionPro Solutions

39

29

Kemrock Industries & Exports

32

30

3DPLM Software Solutions

22

1,521

MARATHON NEXTGEN REALTY No. 25

Part of the 40-year-old Marathon Group, Marathon NextGen Realty has been with the promoter Shah family since 2002. It has grown at a compound rate of 32 per cent between 2007 and 2009.

Why we’re growing We have developed an expertise in low-cost land acquisition. We never go to auctions. It helps that we can efficiently and strategically acquire land, and convert it quickly into a real estate property.

We have gone into the root of asset reconstruction. We run a holistic company, where everything from planning, design and construction is done by in-house teams. This saves us costs and time.

Moreover, our sales increased even in the downturn because our properties were in near-ready condition.

MAYUR SHAH, Managing Director

Our challenges It hasn’t been easy to raise debt. The industry faced this challenge, not just us, where the costs of raising funds went up substantially between 2008 and now. Getting approvals are a major challenge in real estate, making it difficult to turn around a project. Manpower has been a big challenge in the past 6 months to 12 months. Not only has there been a shortage of skilled and unskilled workers, there’s also a huge increase in the price at which it is available.

What’s next We are sitting on big project opportunities. We’ve acquired sufficient land for the next 7 years. We’ll now plan those. We’ll be launching a few major projects in the next couple of months.

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BY THE NUMBERS

USV

No. 69

501 crore - 1,000 crore Rank Company Name

3-year CAGR (%)

Established in 1950, USV is considered one of the top pharmaceutical companies. The manufacturer of cardio-vascular and anti-diabetic medicines has done its bit to spread good health.

1

Reid & Taylor (India)

1,769

2

Educomp Solutions

56

Why we’re growing

3

Peninsula Land

27

The Indian pharmaceutical market is growing at 15 per cent, compared to 5 per cent worldwide. Seventy per cent of our products are marketed in India. We define our goals clearly, so we can work together to achieve those. We’ve got a great team of scientists, who manage to produce original research—we have 57 patents.

4

Man Infraconstruction

84

5

Glodyne Technoserve

39

6

Mankind Pharma

20

7

Syntel

14

8

AIA Engineering

15

LEENA TEWARI, Chairperson

Our challenges Competition is a big challenge. We compete with companies, such as Novartis, Merck and Sun Pharmaceutical, which also produce anti-diabetic medicines. Recruiting good people is another challenge. We have found that it is rare to find professionals, who can imbibe the spirit of transparency and team spirit. Also, it’s difficult to find people who can break the Chinese walls, and get involved in different aspects and genres of work.

What’s next We want to grow by 20 per cent in the next 12 months. We are awaiting three international patents, which will increase our brand popularity and growth in international markets, mainly Europe and US. We hope to increase our share of the cardio-vascular market in India by 20 per cent through franchisees. And, of course, we want to grow to a 1,000-crore company soon.

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9

Vuppalamritha Magnetic Components

125

10

Coastal Projects

56

11

Emami

16

12

ARSS Infrastructure Projects

67

13

Rain Commodities

21

14

Titagarh Wagons

35

15

Tecpro Systems

45

16

Rajasthan State Mines & Minerals

21

17

Mangalam Cement

8

18

TRF

28

19

Nuziveedu Seeds

17

20

Texmaco

16

21

Dolphin Offshore Enterprises (India)

39

22

Marg

54

23

Techno Electric & Engineering Co.

9

24

SEL Manufacturing Company

44

25

Nagarjuna Agrichem

18

26

Prestige Estates Projects

27

27

USV

11

28

FDC

10

29

Jagran Prakashan

7

30

Surya Pharmacuticals

32

BY THE NUMBERS

KOUTONS RETAIL INDIA

1,001 crore - 1,500 crore Rank Company Name

3-year CAGR (%)

1

Nava Bharat Ventures

15

2

Sun TV Network

9

3

Godrej Consumer Products

14

4

ICSA (India)

30

5

Aban Offshore

25

6

Mundra Port & Special Economic Zone

25

7

Koutons Retail India

38

8

Rolta India

11

No. 24

Started in 1991 as Charlie Creations to manufacture garments, Koutons got its present name only in 2006, after it became a public limited company. It sells garments for men, women and children from more than 1,400 outlets across the country. The company has grown at 38 per cent to a turnover of more than 1,000 crore in 2009.

Why we’re growing My biggest strength is the people I work with. Their experience, as well as experimentation in brand and line extension, has helped us target a wide range of audience, which was not the case when we launched. We have been successful in understanding the customer needs and taste, and thus, created designs that are readily accepted and picked by our target audience.

9

Bharati Shipyard

26

10

Lanco Kondapalli Power

31

11

Hindusthan National Glass & Industries

31

12

Torrent Pharmaceuticals

10

13

Monnet Ispat & Energy

13

14

Amara Raja Batteries

12

15

Ahluwalia Contracts (India)

21

16

MindTree

19

17

JK Lakshmi Cement

9

18

OCL India

20

19

Ipca Laboratories

13

20

Intas Pharmaceuticals

15

21

Pradip Overseas

44

22

Deepak Fertilizers & Petrochemicals Corp

11

23

Balkrishna Industries

7

24

Temptation Foods

25

Zee Entertainment Enterprises

6

26

EID Parry (India)

28

27

Ankur Drugs & Pharma

23

What’s next

28

HBL Power Systems

9

29

Unity Infraprojects

24

30

Mcleod Russel India

16

We want to make Koutons a ‘family experience’ in shopping. So, we will focus on consolidating our presence through family stores, which will sell all our brands under one roof. Also, given the increase in the standards of living and brand consciousness amongst customers, we see a lot of potential outside metros as well. So, we will continue to focus on tier-2 and tier-3 cities. We will continue to follow our aim of providing the best quality and latest fashion products for our customers at affordable prices.

137

DPS KOHLI, Chairperson

The way our customers have accepted and responded to our brand has helped us venture into tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Last, but not the least, our understanding of the market and venturing into cities at the right time with the right product mix and sticking to our strategy all through has helped us in being where we are today.

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THE COMPANIES

ANNAND SARNAAIK | Chairman & Managing Director, Glodyne Technoserve

“MY LEADERSHIP STYLE IS MORE GUT AND FEEL” Annand Sarnaaik started Glodyne Technoserve just over a decade ago. A leading technology infrastructure management services firm, it recently bought American company DecisionOne. Now, it is gunning for a growth of 150 per cent in the next two years.

BY SHREYASI SINGH PHOTOGRAPH BY JITEN GANDHI

Contentment does not come easy to the stars who

inhabit the entrepreneurial galaxy. Annand Sarnaaik, chairman and managing director of Glodyne Technoserve, India’s leading technology infrastructure management services (IMS) company, is no different, having pursued contentment relentlessly in his 13-year-old business.

However, he confesses to having experienced a rare “yahoo” moment last month. That’s when Glodyne, which closed 2009-10 with a turnover of 721 crore, acquired DecisionOne—one of North America’s largest pure-play technology IMS companies with more than $200 million in revenue. The $104-million 52

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acquisition brought with it several marquee Fortune 500 clients in the US and Canada.

“This deal has given us a lot of pride. With this acquisition, we are looking at a turnover of nearly 1,700 crore by 2011. Buying something much bigger than ourselves has given us the confidence to reach the billion-dollar milestone by 2013,” claims 42-yearold Sarnaaik, who co-founded Glodyne, earlier called Paradyne, with his wife and former colleague, Divvyani Sarnaaik, in 1997.

Clearly, Sarnaaik’s not daunted by his huge appetite for growth. Glodyne needs to grow at more than 150 per cent over the next two-and-a-half years to reach its

In Pursuit of Scale Buying a big company has made Annand Sarnaaik confident of reaching the billion-dollar milestone.

THE COMPANIES goals. As Sarnaaik points out, there are immense opportunities Backed with good advice and prayer, Paradyne survived. In 2005, that are yet to be tapped in the $54-billion global technology IMS it went public to raise nearly 14 crore. The company was rechrismarket. Of this, only $1 billion to $3 billion currently gets outtened Glodyne in October 2007 to avoid confusion with an IT sourced to India. Glodyne’s stock movement over the year proves firm in the US with the same name. its capacity for wealth creation. Its share price, which hovered at Sarnaaik, who says his leadership style is more gut and feel than 318 in August 2009, is at 830 today. thought, credits his success to two key factors. “For me, commitThere’s no doubt that this is an exciting time for the company. ment is primary. Through these years, we have built the company With DecisionOne in its fold, the Mumbai-based Glodyne on making commitments and honouring those. It doesn’t work in boasts of a 3,200-plus workforce spread across offices in key loca- the short term, but in the long term, it yields huge dividends. Our tions in India and North America. It is now able to offer more clients have stood by us,” he says. services in data centre, networking, server, and workstation and Some smart strategising has also helped the company get to application management services. Sarnaaik has hand-picked a the sweet spot. First, unlike many of its competitors, Glodyne team to oversee the integration process and make Glodyne’s concentrated on the domestic market through its first decade recent acquisition a success. with almost 85 per cent of its business coming from within India.

Such successful scenarios didn’t always seem possible. The son Essentially, IMS helps companies optimise their complex IT of a school teacher and a government engineer from Washim, a infrastructures. Sarnaaik understood that a large chunk of IT small town in Vidarbha, Sarnaaik grew up dreaming of becoming budgets were spent to maintaining current systems, especially an engineer and bagging a well-paying IT job. Post his engineering during recession phases when cost optimisation assumes top priority. Wisely, Glodyne chose pretty early on to be a pure-play from Regional Engineering College in Nanded, Maharashtra, he even got the opportunity to live his dream as an associate, market- technology IMS firm. That’s probably a key reason why the recent interest shown by big IT majors in the tech IMS and Remote IMS ing PCs and servers, in HCL-HP’s enterprise division in Mumbai in 1991. It’s here that the metamorphosis took place. space doesn’t have Sarnaaik worried.

“Companies trust you will do a better job because of your “When you work for a year or so, you have clarity. I realised that focus,” he says. Staying away from customised application developI wanted to work for myself. I didn’t know then how big or small. I ment, where most of the IT blue-chippers were digging gold, also just wanted to do it,” says this first-generation entrepreneur. Two helped Glodyne manage the crowded talent market more effiyears into HCL-HP, Sarnaaik quit his job to join a group of colleagues to start Indosys, a systems integration company in 1993. In ciently. “Our business model has been more supportive of and the next four years, the group, which also included Sarnaaik’s wife, dependent on technology. That’s been a great advantage.” tried to build a business together.

The effort has paid off. Glodyne has attracted a stream of presIn 1997, the Sarnaaiks decided to part ways with the rest of tigious awards. For the past three years consecutively, the company their business partners. With 10 lakh that they got from exiting has bagged the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific award Indosys, the couple founded Paradyne Infotech. The primary that seeks to honour fast-growing technology companies. In 2009, business focus was on hardware sales. But as implementation and it also received the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India award, and services orders started flowing in thick and fast, Paradyne grabbed a fifth ranking in BT 500 India’s Most Valuable Compadecided to switch gears. nies in the 10 Years’ Profit Performance category.

Things moved briskly and by 2005, ParaDespite this meteoric rise, it’s Glodyne’s subdyne hit 70 crore in revenue. It undertook stantial niche in service offerings for the governCOMPANY DASHBOARD some key projects, such as setting up Reliance ment’s social initiatives that gives Sarnaaik the Glodyne Technoserve Infocomm’s infrastructure with Sun Microsysmost satisfaction. Under its “E-Disha” protems. There were roadblocks, too. An engagegramme, Glodyne is implementing the ambiSector IT & ITeS ment with India Infoline, an Internet service tious 284-crore National Rural Employment provider, to set up its entire bandwidth, almost Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) project in Bihar. It Year of incorporation 1997 tripped the company, even as the dotcom bubhas already started a similar NREGS implemenNet sales 2009 ble burst at the turn of the century. Paradyne tation in Maharashtra’s Gadhichiroli district.

(January to December) had bought a lot of equipment from Cisco on “It is our way of being conscious corporate 611 crore credit and found it tough to pay for it, as India citizens. There is nothing that makes you feel as Three-year sales CAGR Infoline went down. good as when your work helps the needy,” says 39 per cent Sarnaaik remembers seeking Wipro chairthe rather proud founder.

Average profit margin man Azim Premji’s support at the time. “He has As Sarnaaik powers ahead to claim a greater (last three years) been a role model. You don’t forget help chunk of the global market, he also enters what 14 per cent extended to you during tough times.” is most definitely Glodyne’s golden phase. May Market cap (as on His maternal grandmother’s blessings have be this is where this continuous pursuit of conDecember 31, 2009) also worked, Sarnaaik adds.

270 crore tentment just might find an answer.

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Unlisted Firms SPOTLIGHT

UNLISTED FIRMS

There’s always a curiosity about companies that are not listed on any stock exchange. Here are 10 gems that are still not in the public eye.

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SPOTLIGHT Unlisted Firms

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t is not surprising that a majority of the companies on our list are publicly-listed companies. In fact, just about 20 per cent of the companies in this exercise are unlisted. That is primarily because it’s difficult to find financial data on such companies. Not listed on any stock exchange, these companies are owned by private shareholders and investors, and by law, are not required to declare their financial results in a public forum. We bring you the top 10 in this category and an interview with one of these hidden gems.

Rank

Company Name

Sector

CAGR Sales (%)

1

Reid & Taylor (India)

Textiles

1,769

2

Bajaj Corp

Consumer Durables

1,247

3

Mankind Pharma

Pharmaceuticals

20

4

Syntel

IT - Software

14

5

Vardhman Yarns & Threads

Textiles

6

Vuppalamritha Magnetic Components

Telecomm Equipment & Infra Services

125

7

Coastal Projects

Construction

56

8

Lanco Kondapalli Power

Power Generation & Distribution

31

9

Tecpro Systems

Capital Goods-Non Electrical Equipment

45

10

Nuziveedu Seeds

FMCG

17

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1,414

Sales of top 10 unlisted companies

7,079

( crore)

4,098 2,530

2007

2008

2009

Unlisted Firms SPOTLIGHT

“I’m a self-motivated person who’s egged on by targets.”

Nuziveedu Seeds | No. 46

MY BACKGROUND

Father’s occupation: My father started out as a government officer in the ministries of agriculture and commerce respectively. He came back to Buntur, his hometown, to do something on his own. In the seventies, he got into the nascent seeds industry.

My previous jobs: I have never held a job. I knew that I will study agriculture and join the family business. I have been running Nuziveedu Seeds since 1990.

MANDAVA PRABHAKAR RAO, Chairman

MY COMPANY

Its origins: Started in 1973 by my father, M Venkataramaiah, who is a postgraduate in agriculture science, Nuziveedu Seeds makes seeds for cotton, rice, corn and lately, vegetables.

Why it’s growing: Agriculture as a sector has grown. With food prices going up in the last three years to four years, farmers are finding agriculture more remunerative.

As a result, they are using better quality inputs. And with seeds being one of the most important inputs, this has helped us grow. Food is likely to remain a cause of concern for most developing economies, where the supply fails to match the rising demand. I believe agri input companies will continue to grow. Further, our plant

breeding practices have helped us develop better and better varieties and hybrids.

That gives us an edge in the market.

HOW I WORK

My role: I run the various companies in the group. I still personally handle the breeding activity for cotton. I spend half my time on the seeds business, and the rest in high-level, strategic decisions.

Where I get my inspiration: I’m a self-motivated person who’s egged on by targets. As a company, we’re motivated by the success of farmers, when they grow crops using our seeds.

What I lose sleep over: HR is not a worry but is surely an area we need to focus

more on. We have to figure out how to bring and retain high-quality talent. Once this issue is resolved, all others become manageable.

WHAT’S NEXT

We have gone from a turnover of 1 crore in 1985 to 100 crore in 2000. Our aim is to cross 1,000 crore by 2011-12. We ‘ve taken the right steps to get there. We see significant growth in the vegetable seeds division started three years ago. We aim to list on a stock exchange either by next year, or the year after that. For now, my aim is to bring good management bandwidth in the company, and limit my involvement to policy and important issues.

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HOW I DID IT

VINOD RAMNANI A SURGICAL EYE ON PROFITS

I wasn’t raised to run a company. My father was an officer with the

Indian Railways. Education was very important to him. So he made sure that all his children—I, my two brothers and two sisters—concentrated on our studies. I did my mechanical engineering from The Manipal Institute of Technology in 1979.

I don’t think I could have been anything but an entrepreneur. If you have an appetite to learn, to observe your environment and to make a real impact, you need to be on your own. I think some of this is inborn. It is in me, at least.

I learnt to think big from my first boss, Mr Sajjad. I worked with

him at New Standard Engineering in Mumbai after finishing my engineering. He would always say: ‘The ground is very crowded; to succeed, you have to look up’. He gave me tough assignments, and asked me to learn on the go. Those were invaluable lessons to be learnt at 22.

In 1982, I went to the US for better opportunities. The economy was in doldrums then. I didn’t get a job right away. In Chicago, I sold shoes at a retail shoe chain called Wild Pair. We would get a 5 per cent commission on sales. I quickly figured out that I should focus on black women. Most of them had a thing for boots, which were priced higher. So, commissions from these sales were more. Within a month or two, I was the best salesman they had. Every time I got that odd feeling about selling shoes, I would tell myself ‘what the heck, work is work’. Our US subsidiary, Criticare, is based in Chicago. Even now when I am there, I like walking past that store.

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As a young engineer in the US in 1982, Vinod Ramnani sold shoes, worked as a hotel bell boy and hawked groceries.

The marketing insights he gained from these odd jobs came handy years later, while he built Opto Circuits with his partners, Thomas Dietiker and Jayesh Patel. Together, the trio grew it into a 1,100 crore company—and more importantly, into a leading developer, manufacturer and marketer of invasive and non-invasive medical devices in India. For now, the chief managing director has only one goal in sight—taking his company to the billion-dollar goalpost in the next three years to five years.

AS TOLD TO SHREYASI SINGH PHOTOGRAPHS BY S RADHAKRISHNA

In Good Health Vinod Ramnani exhibited a healthy appetite for growth, buying 10 companies in 20 years of operation.

HOW I DID IT

I moved to Detroit to live with my brother.

He bought me a $500 car and I decided to try my luck on the West Coast. I went to Los Angeles. I had to sleep in the car on many a day because I had no money for rent. I sold groceries at the famous India Emporium.

I also worked at the India Sari Palace.

This was an important stint. I made my first acquaintance with the Indian business community here. Many of them continue to be business associates, and several have guided and mentored me.

After more than a year in the US, I finally got a $1,000-a-month job with DC Motors. One of their clients was UDT Sensors, whom I would visit often. A chance meeting with the company’s president, Deepak Chopra, changed my life. When asked about my future goal, I told him that I wanted to sit in his chair. He liked my answer, and hired me immediately. I was sent to manage the San Francisco branch, where I met Thomas and Jayesh, my present partners. I later spent two years in Puerto Rico handling that region independently. In 1987, I moved back to the US. Then, Deepak quit UDT to start Opto Sen-

sors. I joined him and moved to lead the Singapore division. Thomas and Jayesh joined us too. We did exceptional business in the first year. But, in 1990, Thomas, Jayesh and I decided to go our own way.

We founded Elekon Industries in Singapore to manufacture optical sensors for healthcare and security markets.

Moving manufacturing facilities to India really changed the game. In 1992, we shifted to Bengaluru and registered as Opto Circuits. Although I have been Managing Director of the company since, we have built the business together.

Luck played its part in our success. In the

early part of this decade, we bought over Unilever’s thermometer business. It was a really small, inconsequential deal for them.

But, it made a lot of money for us. In 2002,

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The Machinist Ramnani relied on his ‘neversay-die’ attitude to build his medical devices company into a 1,100-crore business.

the SARS virus hit Southeast Asia and thermometers sold like popcorn.

My journey’s been full of highs and lows.

Earning my first dollar was such a high, as was appointing a CEO for our German subsidiary in 2006. But I also remember the times when I have stayed up at nights, not knowing what would happen tomorrow. In 1994-95, things were particularly bad. We lost all our big OEM customers. It taught us a critical lesson—to have our own product line and not depend on the OEM business alone. Things were also tough before we went public in 2000.

For a first-generation business, acquisi-

tions are the fastest way to grow. In healthcare especially, research and development takes so long that growing organically isn’t always possible. We have bought 10 companies in the past 20 years. You need to have an open mind with acquisitions.

Nobody sells a company that is doing well.

Something always needs to be turned around. You need to recognise the synergies and work hard at aligning them.

Three mantras rule the way I work. First, never ever say die. Be creative and always look for opportunity. Second, never stop

learning. You never know enough. Third, get the best out of your people. Everybody has weaknesses. You need to identify their strengths. As the head of the business, ultimately, I am responsible for the failures.

In the next few years, we want to become a billion-dollar company. I know that won’t be easy and there are other big players in the game. I also want to make the company less vulnerable. We are not very big and need to build a brand. I want to bring it to a stable position before I hand over the reins to the younger generation.

I haven’t thought much about retirement

yet. But, I am conscious of having a succession plan. We are hiring youngsters with good professional backgrounds, and letting them learn the ropes. My son is in his final year of engineering, and my daughter is studying medicine. But, they haven’t decided what they want to do yet.

In business, thing are never easy. Every

situation seems as tough as the one before.

That’s the price you have to pay as an entrepreneur. That’s also why you get a kick when you are successful. There are so many things not in your control. You have to fight it out.

Innovators SPOTLIGHT

INNOVATORS

A look at companies that excel in finding a new way of doing things.

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SPOTLIGHT Innovators

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nnovation is not commonly found in Indian enterprises. It becomes all the more imperative to find and reward this attribute. Defined as companies that not only spend a significant proportion of their revenues on research and development, but also attempt to discover new products, technologies and processes, here is our list of the best innovators. They have gone beyond process improvement and problemsolving to imbibe the spirit of true innovation.

Rank

62

CAGR Sales (%)

Company Name

Sector

1

Torrent Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceuticals

10

2

Intas Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceuticals

15

3

Unichem Laboratories

Pharmaceuticals

5

4

Oil Country Tubular

Steel

7

5

Kaveri Seed Company

Miscellaneous

20

6

Shantha Biotechnics

Pharmaceuticals

27

7

3i Infotech

IT - Software

5

8

Natco Pharma

Pharmaceuticals

13

9

Matrix Laboratories

Pharmaceuticals

25

10

Ajanta Pharma

Pharmaceuticals

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Average R&D spend of top 10 innovators ( crore per annum)

54 38

2007

43

2008

2009

Innovators SPOTLIGHT

“I trust the good deeds God has chosen for me.”

Shantha Biotechnics | No. 175

MY BACKGROUND

Father’s occupation: My father was a farmer and a landlord.

My education: I am an electronics engineer by training. I also did a Master’s in business administration from Osmania University.

My previous jobs: I was a scientist and a bureaucrat before becoming an entrepreneur. From 1972 to 1977, I was a radar scientist with the Defence Electronics Research Labs; thereafter, I worked with APIDC, an Andhra Pradesh government enterprise. In 1985, I became a director in Hyderabad Batteries, which was my first entrepreneurial effort.

MY COMPANY

Its Origins: I started Shantha Biotechnics in 1993 as an Indo-Oman joint venture. We brought out India’s first locally-developed r-DNA Hepatitis-B vaccine in 1997, and initiated the bio-technology revolution in India. We followed that up with several low-cost, next generation healthcare products.

While the Indian pharma industry played in the field of generics, we worked on original research on the development of antibodies for the treatment of cancer. In fact, we have created a culture of research and development within the company by investing more than 25 per cent of our earnings in R&D.

KI VARAPRASAD REDDY, Managing Director

The quality of our product attracted Pfizer, which asked us to produce the Hepatitis-B vaccine under its brand name. We have been a part of Merieux, the first vaccine firm in the world.

Why it’s growing: Our work has made world pharma firms confident about the future of biotech in India. Last year, SanofiAventis made us a part of its group, by replacing Merieux. Our faith in homegrown technology and social entrepreneurism has given us an edge in innovation.

HOW I WORK

Where I get my inspiration: The satisfaction of reaching out to many more of

the suffering millions; social consciousness; the revolution Shantha’s endeavour triggered in the Indian biotech sector.

What I lose sleep over: Nothing whatsoever. I trust in God and the good deeds he has chosen for me. I go to bed with the satisfaction of doing my best and within minutes I slip into deep slumber. Even the treacheries cannot rob me of my sleep.

WHAT’S NEXT

We will continue focusing on the development of vaccines. Moreover, we’ll improve our efforts on domestic marketing, so that Indian citizens would benefit more from our work.

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HOW I DID IT

KAMAL K SINGH MAPPING SUCCESS ON THE BUSINESS GLOBE

I grew up in Madhya Pradesh. My father, a doctor by training, was a

professor at a medical college. He had seen his own father, a well-known doctor, spend little time with the family and didn’t want the same thing for us. So, he chose to teach medicine instead of practicing it.

In my days, students had to choose their future streams of study in

Class 8. My father wanted me to take up biology and follow the family tradition. But my mother said, ‘your father is very bright, he became dean of a medical college at a young age and even did his Master’s from the US. But, he hasn’t achieved his potential. His father had, but did not have a family life.’ She suggested that I do something different.

So, I took up engineering—not because I wanted to be an engineer, but because I just wanted to be different.

While studying engineering, I realised that I didn’t want a job in a big

company. That would, in effect, be the same as being a non-practicing doctor. In my heart, there was this entrepreneur wanting to prove himself. I decided to give him a chance. It also seemed the best way to achieve professional success.

My first business was a steel rolling mill in Indore. That was in 1971. I was just out of college and determined to do my own thing. My father loaned me 1 lakh to set it up, which I returned a few years later. The factory did well in the next few years. By 1978, it was doing more than a crore in business. By then, I was yearning to get out. The steel business was very cyclical. So, I waited for the next up in the cycle and folded the company.

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For someone who took up engineering merely to do something different, KK Singh, founder and chairman of Rolta, one of India’s leading IT companies, has written quite a tamper-proof code for uninterrupted success. And yet this journey might never have been this way, had Singh not listened to his gut as a 21-year-old and ventured out on his own. His gamble paid off. Rolta ended 2009-10 with a turnover of more than 1,000 crore. A firm believer in continuous change, he is confident that his recent acquisitions will script even greater successes for his AS TOLD TO SHREYASI SINGH PHOTOGRAPHS BY JITEN GANDHI

The IT Factor Kamal K Singh wrote a tamper-proof code for the success of his software company.

HOW I DID IT

I had made enough money by then to retire. But then, I decided to move to Bombay, my dream city, to set up a business in 1980. I felt I had arrived.

I spent a lot of time researching ideas, and finally chose IT—still a nascent sector then. People viewed it, at best, with suspicion. The notion that computers would displace labour made it difficult to sell IT. I believed it would work. We started operations in 1982. Our first client was ONGC, for whom we set up a data processing centre. ICICI was another early client. We did really low-end support for them. Slowly, we started writing applications.

The big break came when we began interbranch reconciliation for banks. We worked with almost all the established banks, like Central Bank and Bank of Baroda. These were large contracts, priced at more than 50 lakh.

In 1985, we decided to change tracks and

focus on computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) and geographic information systems (GIS). Till then, we were competing on price and getting work. That was a dangerous game to play. Any bigger company could slash rates and put us out of business.

TCS and Wipro were already huge companies then. The only answer to this was being different. We researched a lot of options and finally homed in on CAD/CAM and GIS. The move paid off. We had cutting-edge technology and a niche offering.

By 1992, we were fully established. And

within a few years from that, we became market leaders in GIS. In the mid-nineties, we started branching out to the US and Europe. And then we landed a contract from AT&T Saudi Arabia for mapping the whole country. It was a $50 million contract. That gave us a great push.

It was time for change again. In 2000, we

did another brainstorming. Internet technologies were coming up and we wanted to

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Size Does Not Matter Singh doesn’t worry about how big or small Rolta is, as long as it continues doing good, meaningful work.

embrace them. From being just technology providers, we became system integrators and solution providers. We also forayed into the defense sector. Till recently, we were primarily doing mapping work for the security establishments. Now, we are setting up a unit to manufacture nightvision goggles for them.

Though engineering and GIS have been the

critical verticals, there continues to be tremendous opportunity in main IT work. Just IT could be a $100-million business for us. It is a crowded market, but our patented IP separates us from the others.

In the last two years, we have chosen to

own specialised intellectual capacity. In April, we acquired OneGIS, which gave us IP to the OneView Mobile solution, a GIS application that allows field personnel to automate their daily work assignments, and is used by several large utilities in North America. We are one of the few companies in India with this level of IP. Again, we have changed the course of the company. Now, we play on the high-end value chain. Going forward, we hope to earn 20 per cent of our revenue from IP based solutions, up from 8 per cent now.

Change keeps me going. And that’s true of the company as well. Irrelevance can be the death of a business. It’s the most important issue to tackle—how to offer relevant services or products to the market.

In a knowledge-based company, getting the right people is the biggest issue. Money comes with ideas and success. But, ideas come from people. It’s a vicious cycle, though. A start-up doesn’t get the best people because they won’t come even if they are paid more. That’s been a constant challenge, to get good people and retain them.

Rolta is a unique company. And I am proud of getting it here. I don’t get worried about how big or small we are, as long as we are doing good, meaningful work. We have recently partnered with CBSE to teach geospatial science.

What’s always helped me is my ability to think clearly. I am not a technology, or finance guy, but I can very quickly get into the deep of things. Any decision I make is based on hardcore information and research. But, in the end, it is driven by my gut. Otherwise, I would never have founded Rolta and gone into the IT space.

Globalisers SPOTLIGHT

GLOBALISERS

It isn’t easy to do business in one country, let alone expand operations beyond geographical boundaries.

Here’s a look at the inhabitants of a truly global world.

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SPOTLIGHT Globalisers

T

he world’s usually not enough for the truly ambitious. That’s also the case with some of our honourees, who have crossed geographical borders in pursuit of their global ambitions. We’ve listed 10 firms that earn a significant proportion of their revenues from overseas operations and have demonstrated an equivalent or better ‘operating’ competitiveness compared to their peers. Here’s the journey, motivation and vision of one such enterprise.

Rank

68

CAGR Sales (%)

Company Name

Sector

1

Aban Offshore

Crude Oil & Natural Gas

25

2

Matrix Laboratories

Pharmaceuticals

25

3

Amira Foods (India)

FMCG

42

4

MindTree

IT - Software

19

5

Syntel

IT - Software

14

6

KRBL

FMCG

15

7

Balkrishna Industries

Tyres

7

8

Geodesic

IT - Software

31

9

Ipca Laboratories

Pharmaceuticals

13

10

Great Offshore

Shipping

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The average foreign exchange earnings of top 10 globalisers ( crore)

469

2007

869

565

2008

2009

Globalisers SPOTLIGHT

“The recession didn’t really affect us—or, the food sector as a whole.”

KRBL | No. 148

MY COMPANY

Its origins: My family had multiple business interests, primarily cotton. In the early seventies, there was a separation within the family, after which, my father got the rice business to run. Now, my two brothers and I run different aspects of our business. We started out supplying basmati rice to exporters. Then, in 1980s, we started exporting directly, at first to Saudi Arabia. In 1998, we started selling locally in India. We were doing well in exports; and were selling our by-products, primarily broken rice, which could not be exported, in bulk to wholesalers. We realised that we could sell those directly in the domestic market. By 2002, we became the number one player in rice. Today, we sell a million tonnes of basmati rice.

Why it’s growing: We’ve been a growth story for many years now. The recession didn’t really affect us—or, the food sector as a whole, for that matter. Our branding efforts of the past five years have begun to bear fruit. The brand we have created in the international market helped us immensely to meet our numbers.

HOW I WORK

Where I get my inspiration: I get inspired by the people I meet on my travels.

ANIL KUMAR MITTAL, Chairman and Managing Director

When I went to see Sun Rice in Australia, or, when I see the value addition that rice businesses can think of in developed countries, I get inspired to think of new ways to add more value to our business. I also read a lot.

What I lose sleep over: I’m a carefree person. I have no worries. If there are any business issues, I don’t keep them on my mind.

WHAT’S NEXT

1) We still have a lot to do in marketing.

We are working hard to create more awareness for the brand in the international markets.

2) People have not worked on the by-prod-

ucts of rice, such as rice bran oil. We are doing a lot of research to develop a brand for this oil.

3) We are going into power. We are the only company to produce power from rice husk.

4) We’re working with Indo Rama to make Furfor Oil from rice husk, which acts as a solvent for purifying crude oil. We’re targeting a bigger share of industrial and pharma uses in the next 15 months.

5) We’re working on extracting silica from the ash of the husk in our boilers.

We want to be vertically integrated in all segments of the rice product. Our whole focus is on utilising each and every thing coming out of rice.

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A Daring Dive Irfan Razack left the safety of his family’s clothing business to venture into the riskier real estate sector in Bengaluru.

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HOW I DID IT

IRFAN RAZACK LEAVING HIS MARK ON THE CITY’S SKYLINE

Irfan Razack’s fierce ambition and passion for excellence probably permeates best through the uber cool malls and world-class buildings that he has built for Bengaluru. He has done with Prestige Estates Projects what an artist always wants to do with his creations—leave behind a mark. And in the process, Razack introduced newer ways of developing real estate in the city. His 830-crore construction company is now getting ready to expand to the north and west of the country.

AS TOLD TO MAHESH RAVI PHOTOGRAPHS BY S RADHAKRISHNA

I studied at St Joseph’s Indian High School in Bengaluru and then

went to St Joseph’s College of Commerce. I held leadership positions at school and college, which taught me a thing or two about leadership early in life. Those experiences also made me a lot more confident about dealing with people and taking important decisions.

I was always ambitious. Nobody had to ever push me to achieve

things in life. I wanted to be either a lawyer, or a chartered accountant, and was exploring both options. But destiny, I guess, had something else planned for me. My parents wanted me to be a part of the family business at some point, so I decided to leave law and accountancy aside, and take the plunge.

Our venture was in retail. We sold clothes for men and offered pre-

mium tailoring services. Our clients included the who’s who of Bengaluru, both business and political. This network helped us a lot when we forayed into real estate years later.

We ventured into real estate almost by chance. We sold off a family

property owned by my father and uncle. That triggered a process of buying and selling real estate. It also opened our eyes to the huge opportunities that lay in the sector. There was no better way to generate such large returns that quickly. That apart, I liked the idea of making a difference to the way the industry was being run; and was kicked by the thought of leaving a lasting impact on Bengaluru’s landscape.

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HOW I DID IT

We decided that built-up products would be great for the city. In 1985, we got into our own construction. We started off with office properties like the House of Lords and were significantly involved in executing premium commercial real estate projects. Residential projects were next in line.

Our focus was always to do what others

have not done. We liked to set new benchmarks for the city. Now, every builder in Bengaluru goes out of his way to produce good buildings.

The nice thing about all this is that we

have managed to inject innovative changes into the real estate business in Bengaluru.

For instance, we were the first entity to encourage “joint development” of various properties, defined as a partnership between the owner of a property and a developer/builder.

In fact, my first client for this plan was my father-in-law. He wanted to sell off a family property. He was getting old and did not have the energy to tend to the property. I was against the idea of him selling off the property. So I suggested that he go in for joint development of the land. That way, he would still remain its owner and yet not have to bear the full responsibility of looking after it. In 1986, this was a new concept in Bengaluru. Now, of course, joint development has become very popular.

I am proud of the properties we build.

With each one, we raise the bar. In 2000, when we built Acropolis in Koramangala, we set new standards in beauty and elegance. Then we built Forum, the city’s first mall, which set off the mall revolution here.

Through this property, we ushered in Bengaluru’s first food court and first multiplex.

UB City, one of the city’s newest landmarks, was a prestigious project for us. It stands testimony to the fact that Bengaluru can produce world-class buildings, architecture and landscapes.

I never lose sight of the fact that the

customer is of prime importance. For me,

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Focused on Ambition Razack gave Bengaluru its first mall, Forum; and with it, he set off the mall revolution in the city.

once a commitment is made, you cannot back out until it is delivered. Even if it costs me money, time or extra resources, I ensure that commitments are never forgotten.

It’s also important to trust the abilities of

the people working for you. The only demand I make of them is, “show me the passion and commitment”. You can deliver results only when you are enjoying what you do. No matter what your vocation, job, or routine is, if you don’t have the passion or the commitment, you will get nowhere.

It can be tough to run a family-owned business, since the stakes are higher here.

There has to be a strong understanding between the family members. You need to be sensitive to each other’s views and carry everyone with you. Otherwise, you might end up dealing with a lot of rancour and bad blood. That’s why, each of us ensures that we understand our responsibilities and focus on executing them to the best of our abilities. Each family member in the business understands that a professional

approach to business is vital to keeping our heads nicely afloat. As long as you have that understanding in place, there are fewer chances of things getting messed up.

Over the next 25 years, I would like to expand Prestige’s footprint across India.

Till now, we have primarily focused on Bengaluru. The future plan is to cover more of South India and then slowly branch out westwards and northwards. My next milestone is to move from a privatelyheld enterprise to a listed company.

I get inspired by my desire to have newer and higher goals. There is still a lot left to do and achieve. You can’t hang up your boots, thinking you have done enough.

There is always something more to learn.

In real estate, you end up creating something out of nothing. Barren landscapes give birth to architectural wonders. That art will stand there long after its creator is gone. It’s this desire to leave behind something monumental that keeps you going.

You have to be thinking and living this dream all the time.

Wealth Creators SPOTLIGHT

WEALTH CREATORS A look at companies that created the maximum wealth for their shareholders.

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SPOTLIGHT Wealth Creators

T

he past two years weren’t easy on wealthholders. Not when the smartest investor of the world, Warren Buffet, had to write off $25 billion from his wealth. The stock exchanges didn’t help, with both the Sensex and Nifty struggling to crawl up from the lows of 2008. And yet, some of our resilient honourees have managed to satisfy their shareholders.

When evaluated on the net change in their market capitalisation over the past three calendar years, each of these firms came up trumps. Here’s introducing the new order of wealth creators.

Rank

74

Company Name

Sector

CAGR Sales (%)

1

Educomp Solutions

Computer Education

56

2

Godrej Consumer Products

FMCG

14

3

Torrent Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceuticals

10

4

MindTree

IT - Software

19

5

Ipca Laboratories

Pharmaceuticals

13

6

Zydus Wellness

FMCG

66

7

EID Parry (India)

Sugar

28

8

Responsive Industries

Plastic products

24

9

GTL Infrastructure

Telecomm Equipment & Infra Services

46

10

Reliance Natural Resources

Miscellaneous

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Average Market Cap ( crore)

3,718

3,444

1,472 573 2007

38 2008

529 2009

Top 10 Wealth Creators Remaining listed companies

Wealth Creators SPOTLIGHT

“It gives me a lot of energy to be with people who enjoy their work.”

MindTree | No. 43

MY BACKGROUND

Father’s occupation: My father was a doctor in the Indian Army, thanks to which, I learnt to adapt to change quickly.

My education: I studied engineering at the University of Roorkee. Then, after many years of working, I did an MBA from the Asian Institute of Management, Manila in 1973.

My previous jobs: I joined Burmah Shell in Kolkata after my graduation. Then, DCM Shriram and Wipro followed respectively.

ASHOK SOOTA, Executive Chairman

MY COMPANY

Its origins: MindTree was started by 10 of us in 1999. Some of us had worked together at Wipro. We’re in our 11th year, and all of us are still together, along with most of the senior team.

Why it’s growing: We have been a consistent growth story for the past five years or so. We’ve grown at a compounded rate of 50 per cent since 2004. That gives us a track record and history, which in turn, gave us the momentum to get over the effects of recession. Second, since March 2009, we have added two new areas to our offerings—infrastructure support and testing, and analytics, both of which are highgrowth areas. We also acquired a captive unit in the middle of the year, which added

to our revenues. Given that it was a tough year, that too made a difference.

HOW I WORK

Where I get my inspiration: The fact that we’ve got such young MindTree minds. It gives me a lot of energy to work with people who enjoy their work.

What I lose sleep over: Jet lag and the work that piles up due to travel. I’m concerned about the “musical chairs” game being played in the industry currently. It’s affecting everybody by adding to the overheads in the system.

WHAT’S NEXT

The main thing is to keep proceeding in a

certain direction so that we meet our vision of being a billion-dollar company by March 2014. We need to focus on strong organic growth for that, with a selective approach towards M&A. Seventy per cent of our business is new application development, which is a discretionary spend for our customers. Only 30 per cent is maintenance and infrastructure support. So, we have to build our pipeline of multi-year contracts to reduce our dependence on the economic cycles. We also have to make a success of our new initiatives, including our entry into the digital surveillance space and 4G infrastructure. We need to grow at nearly 40 per cent a year to achieve our goals. It’s a stretch, but totally achievable.

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The Inc. India 500 group is dominated by manufacturers of products—things that you can see, feel and touch. From railway wagons and bicycles to glass containers and aluminium coils, our stalwarts make a variety of things. Here are some of them.

REPORTED BY AKHIL BERY AND SUNAINA SEHGAL PHOTOGRAPHS BY JITEN GANDHI

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PRADIP OVERSEAS Ahmedabad, Gujarat, No. 61 Established in 1980, Pradip Overseas is a leading manufacturer and exporter of household furnishing products, such as bed sheets, quilts, towels and curtains. Promoted by the Karia brothers, Pradipkumar, Chetan and Vishal, it is now a publicly-listed company. Its products sell all over the world, with more than 40 per cent of sales coming from overseas operations. It works on a variety of fabric, ranging from pure cotton to polyester, jacquard and flannel.

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MAKING IT

METRO SHOES Mumbai, Maharashtra, No. 246 Last year, Metro Shoes became the first footwear retailer in the country with more than 100 standalone stores.

The icing on the cake came in the form of the ‘Retailer of the Year’ award for its category from the Asia Retail Congress. Started nearly six decades ago, Metro Shoes makes a variety of footwear for the discerning Indian consumer. The company clocked a turnover of 285 crore last fiscal.

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MAKING IT

GUTTER CREDIT HERE

GOENKA DIAMOND & JEWELS Jaipur, Rajasthan, No. 156 Diamonds are forever. That’s certainly what Navneet and Nitin Goenka hope for. The brothers sell their sparkling stones under two brands—G Wild and CERES. Sported by celebrities such as actor Shilpa Shetty, jewellery hallmarked CERES starts at 5 lakh and goes up to crores. Its nobler cousin, G Wild is priced much cheaper.

Established in 1990, Goenka Diamond and Jewels procures the precious stones from Russia and Africa through miners, and cuts and polishes them.

Its four manufacturing units design some of these into jewellery pieces for retail in India. The company has processed 50,000 carats of diamonds this year alone.

PHOTOGRAPH BY NAME TK

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MAKING IT

GUTTER CREDIT HERE

HSIL, Kolkata West Bengal, No. 244 A leading manufacturer of sanitary ware, HSIL was founded in 1960 by the Somany Group in collaboration with Twyfords of the United Kingdom. It produces a range of products for bathrooms, such as faucets, showers and sanitary ware. Although better known for sanitary ware, HSIL also makes products for kitchens, such as sinks and built-in hobs. Its products sell under the brand name Hindware.

Its products are available across India through a network comprising 1,000 direct dealers and 12,000 sub-dealers.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY NAME TK

MAKING IT

TTK PRESTIGE Hosur, Tamil Nadu, No. 126 If there is one thing common to Indian kitchens, it’s a pressure cooker. The capacity may vary from 1 litre to 10 litre, but there’s no going away from the cooker’s importance to the scheme of things. Founded in 1928, TTK Prestige started out as a distributor of pressure cookers imported from the UK. It moved into production in 1959, and now manufactures a range of kitchenware. The pressure cookers, however, remain at the core of the business, accounting for 47 per cent of the company’s turnover in 2009.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SUBHOJIT PAUL

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TOP 100 HONOUREES

A closer look at the best of the best on our list. Who are the top 100 honourees? What do they do? How have they grown in the past three years? Just some of the things you wanted to know.

IT & ITES

No of companies 50 Total revenue 23,172 cr Median turnover 397 cr Median profit 59 cr

Name: Glodyne Technoserve RANK 8 Net Sales: 611 crore Founded: 1997

What it does It offers business solutions across two strategic business units— technology infrastructure management and application software services.

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Name: ICSA (India) RANK 10 Net Sales: 1,216 crore Founded: 1994

Name: Syntel RANK 15 Net Sales: 902 crore Founded: 1980

Name: Geodesic RANK 11 Net Sales: 500 crore Founded: 1999

Name: Allied Digital Services RANK 18 Net Sales: 439 crore Founded: 1995

What it does It provides technology solutions to the power sector by identifying transmission and distribution losses, and monitoring power consumption.

What it does Its real-time content, communication and collaboration platform, works seamlessly across the web and mobiles, addressing retail segments.

What it does A leading provider of integrated IT and knowledge processing outsourcing solutions spanning lifecycles of business and information systems and processes.

What it does An outsourcing company in IT management and technical support; helps large- and medium-enterprises using a combination of onsite and remote services.

TOP 100 HONOUREES

Name: Rolta India RANK 26 Net Sales: 1,002 crore Founded: 1982

What it does It chiefly operates in three business segments: GIS, engineering and design services, and enterprise information and communication technology.

Name: 3DPLM Software Solutions RANK 94 Net Sales: 136 crore Founded: 2002

What it does 3DPLM is the world’s leading provider of CAD tools and product life cycle management (PLM) solutions. It is also the second-largest R&D lab for Dassault Systemes.

Name: Core Projects & Technologies RANK 40 Net Sales: 406 crore Founded: 2003 What it does Its products and solutions provide assessment and intervention, compliance and reporting, student information systems and campus management solutions.

Name: MindTree RANK 43 Net Sales: 1,167 crore Founded: 1999

What it does It specialises in IT services,

independent testing, infrastructure management and technical support, knowledge services and product engineering and software-product engineering.

Name: eClerx Services RANK 50 Net Sales: 197 crore Founded: 2000

What it does Headquartered in Mumbai, its portfolio comprises data analytics and audits, operations management, metrics management, and reporting services.

Name: Zensar Technologies RANK 72 Net Sales: 462 crore Founded: 1963

What it does A software and IT services company offering a range of integrated IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) products and services.

Name: Bartronics India RANK 89 Net Sales: 521 crore Founded: 1990

What it does It provides solutions using automatic identification and data capture technology, covering card, bar code, data communication, and RFID technologies.

REAL ESTATE

No of companies 30 Total revenue 18,963 cr Median turnover 522 cr Median profit 17 cr

Name: Peninsula Land RANK 6 Net Sales: 731 crore Founded: 1997

What it does An arm of the Ashok Piramal Group, this integrated real estate management company has planned and developed 20 mn sq ft of real estate. Its stronghold lies in western India.

Name: Man Infraconstruction RANK 7 Net Sales: 529 crore Founded: 2002

What it does It is an infrastructure construction company headquartered in Mumbai. Along with its subsidiaries, it is involved in residential, industrial and commercial projects.

Name: ARSS Infrastructure Projects RANK 30 Net Sales: 810 crore Founded: 2000 What it does A construction major of India, it is engaged in railways, road, highway, bridge and irrigation sectors.

Name: Ahluwalia Contracts (India) RANK 41 Net Sales: 1,384 crore Founded: 1979 What it does Ahluwalia Contracts (India) constructs buildings and manufactures ready-mix concrete for buildings.

Name: J Kumar Infraprojects RANK 53 Net Sales: 406 crore Founded: 1980

What it does Its principal activity is civil engineering construction in infrastructural projects–mainly commercial structures, dams and canals, and roads and highways.

The company is based out of Mumbai.

Name: Prestige Estates Projects RANK 67 Net Sales: 831 crore | Founded: 1986

What it does Set up in 1985, it is one of the leading property developers in Bengaluru, and has developed 13-million-sq ft of space.

Name: KND Engineering Technologies

RANK 78 Net Sales: 148 crore Founded: 1964

What it does It provides civil construction services to steel plants, housing and infrastructure sectors, and to oil and petroleum industries.

Name: Unity Infraprojects RANK 97 Net Sales: 1,367 crore Founded: 1997

What it does A flagship unit of the Mumbaibased KK Group of Companies, it deals in concrete block manufacturing and quarrying, hotel and organised retailing.

PHARMACEUTICALS

No of companies 39 Total revenue 22,724 cr Median turnover 393 cr Median profit 20 cr

Name: Mankind Pharma RANK 13 Net Sales: 840 crore Founded: 1995

What it does Among the top pharma firms in India, it enjoys a substantial market presence in the antibiotics, antifungal, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular categories.

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TOP 100 HONOUREES

Name: Torrent Pharmaceuticals RANK 36 Net Sales: 1,324 crore Founded: 1959

What it does It is a dominant player in the detection and cure of cardiovascular and central nervous system disorders.

Name: Ipca Laboratories RANK 51 Net Sales: 1,498 crore Founded: 1949

What it does It is engaged in import and marketing of pharmaceutical formulations, and active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Name: Intas Pharmaceuticals RANK 52 Net Sales: 1,146 crore Founded: 1976

What it does It engages in research, development, and manufacture of medicines for chronic or acute conditions.

Company Name: USV RANK 69 Net Sales: 837 crore Founded: 1961

What it does It deals mainly in

pharmaceutical ingredientsand is an old player in medical research.

Name: FDC RANK 74 Net Sales: 639 crore Founded: 1936

What it does It manufactures healthcare

products such as therapeutics, specialised food and bulk drugs.

Name: Surya Pharmaceutical RANK 77 Net Sales: 975 crore Founded: 1992

What it does Its portfolio includes active

pharmaceutical ingredients, finished drug formulations, and menthol derivatives.

Name: Ankur Drugs & Pharma RANK 83 Net Sales: 1,048 crore Founded: 1995

What it does It manufactures and market 400

pharmaceutical formulations in forms of tablets, capsules, liquid orals and dry syrups.

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NON-ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT

No of companies 45 Total revenue 19,509 cr Median turnover 227 cr Median profit 24 cr

Name: Titagarh Wagons RANK 32 Net Sales: 689 crore Founded: 1997

engineering works of unrestricted value with mainly government departments, as well as public and private sector organisations.

Name: Hindustan Dorr-Oliver RANK 96 Net Sales: 786 crore Founded: 1974

What it does An engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) company, Hindustan provides engineered solutions, technologies and EPC installations in liquid-solid separation applications.

What it does It manufactures railway wagons, bailey bridges, heavy earth-moving and mining equipment, among others.

Name: Tecpro System RANK 34 Net Sales: 707 crore Founded: 1990

What it does It undertakes turnkey projects in solid-handling systems (belt and slat conveyors, and bucket elevators).

Name: TRF RANK 42 Net Sales: 699 crore Founded: 1962

What it does It operates in bulk materialhandling equipment and systems divisions, port and yard equipment, among others.

Name: Texmaco RANK 44 Net Sales: 902 crore Founded: 1939

What it does It manufactures and sells heavy engineering products, including railway freight cars and agro machinery.

Name: Sanghvi Movers RANK 66 Net Sales: 337 crore Founded: 1989

What it does It provides heavy-lift and maintenance services for large-scale projects.

Name: Supreme Infrastructure RANK 73 Net Sales: 404 crore Founded: 1983 What it does The company undertakes

CEMENT

No of companies 21 Total revenue 13,327 cr Median turnover 593 cr Median profit 31 cr

Name: Rain Commodities RANK 31 Net Sales: 810 crore Founded:1974 What it does A cement manufacturer, it also engages in calcined petroleum coke (CPC) trade and power generation.

Name: Mangalam Cement RANK 38 Net Sales: 633 crore Founded: 1978

What it does An offshoot of the House of Birla, its products include Birla Uttam Cement-43 Grade and Portland Pozzolana.

Name: JK Lakshmi Cement RANK 45 Net Sales: 1,414 crore Founded: 1982

What it does It offers three variants of cement through a network of 70 cement dumps and more than 2,200 dealers.

Name: OCL India RANK 47 Net Sales: 1,306 crore Founded: 1949

What it does Having diversified from cement to refractories, it has produced some of the largest refractory plants in the country.

TOP 100 HONOUREES

ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT

No of companies 18 Total revenue 8,545 cr Median turnover 352 cr Median profit 41 cr

Name: Amara Raja Batteries RANK 39 Net Sales: 1,362 crore Founded: 1985

What it does It distributes lead, acid storage

batteries for the industrial and automotive markets, and heavy industries.

Name: Techno Electric and Engineering Company RANK 55 Net Sales: 540 crore Founded: 1963

What it does Engaged in power projects, it

has worked to set up over 50 per cent of the power generating plants in the country.

Name: Transformers & Rectifiers (India) RANK 64 Net Sales: 481 crore Founded: 1994 What it does Catering to the power

Name: Vardhman Yarns & Threads RANK 16 Net Sales: 347 crore Founded: 2000

What it does Its portfolio includes yarn, greige and processed fabric, and sewing thread, acrylic fibre, and the manufacture of alloy steel.

Name: SEL Manufacturing Company RANK 58 Net Sales: 834 crore Founded: 2000 What it does A pioneer in the fields of exports and supply of yarns, fabrics and garments, it operates four units, a single knitting facility and a complete processing house.

Name Pradip Overseas RANK 61 Net Sales: 1,171 crore Founded: 1980

What it does One of the leading exporters of

the country, it has its own processing house that covers a range of products.

Name: Mandhana Industries RANK 90 Net Sales: 463 crore Founded: 1984

What it does A manufacturer of textiles and garments, it is involved in designing, dyeing, weaving, processing and garment making.

transformer sector, it is the third-largest in terms of capacity.

educators and learners across the globe.

Name: Sun TV Network RANK 4 Net Sales: 1,279 crore Founded: 1985

What it does 20 TV channels, 45 FM stations, two newspapers, four magazines and the largest direct-to-home satellite TV services.

Name: Godrej Consumer Products RANK 5 Net Sales: 1,262 crore Founded: 2000

What it does FMCG products, such as Cinthol and Ezee, that are household names.

Name: Bajaj Corp RANK 9 Net Sales: 244 crore Founded: 2006

What it does Hair-care products that are exported to countries such as UAE.

Name: Aban Offshore RANK 12 Net Sales: 1,128 crore Founded: 1986

What it does It was born as a small Chennaibased engineering firm –Aban Constructions.

Name: Clearing Corporation of India RANK 14 Net Sales: 268 crore Founded: 2001 What it does Manages electronic trading

OTHERS

TEXTILES

No of companies 18 Total revenue 9,689 cr Median turnover 452 cr Median profit 14 cr

Name: Reid & Taylor (India) RANK 3 Net Sales: 653 crore Founded: 1998

What it does It focuses mainly on men’s offthe-peg segment, and has a market share of 18 per cent. It also supplies fabrics to the firm’s Scotland branch.

This includes other sectors, which do not have a significant number of companies.

These are glass, tyres, cables, auto ancillaries, chemicals, and so on.

Name: Nava Bharat Ventures RANK 1 Net Sales: 1,161 crore Founded: 1972

What it does Power (industrial and merchant

plants), ferro alloys, infrastructure and sugar.

Name: Educomp Solutions RANK 2 Net Sales: 743 crore Founded:1994

platforms.

Name: Mundra Port & Special Economic Zone RANK 17 Net Sales: 1,135 crore Founded: 1998

What it does Provides cargo handling and value-added port services.

Name: AIA Engineering RANK 19 Net Sales: 807 crore Founded: 1991

What it does Manufactures, installs and services high chromium castings.

What it does Diversified solutions to both

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TOP 100 HONOUREES

Name: Vuppalamritha Magnetic Components RANK 20 Net Sales: 669 crore Founded: 1998

What it does Telecom backbone transmission

equipment, customer premises equipment and power conversion products.

Name: Opto Circuits (India) RANK 21 Net Sales: 455 crore Founded: 1992

What it does Medical equipment and devices, such as pulse oximeters and sensors, fluid warmers, cholesterol monitors, stents, multiparameter monitors and digital thermometers.

Name: Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India RANK 22 Net Sales: 393 crore Founded: 1996

What it does Offers holidays through a

vacation-ownership product.

Name: Orbit Corporation RANK 23 Net Sales: 447 crore Founded: 2000

What it does Redevelops cessed and dilapidated buildings in Mumbai.

Name: Koutons Retail India RANK 24 Net Sales: 1,047 crore Founded:1994

What it does It manufactures and retails

clothing for men, women and kids.

Name: Marathon Nextgen Realty RANK 25 Net Sales: 160 crore Founded: 1969

What it does It operates in two segments– property development and lease rental.

Name: Coastal Projects RANK 27 Net Sales: 937 crore Founded:1995

What it does It does underground excavation work, and road work projects.

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Name: Emami RANK 28 Net Sales: 868 crore Founded: 1974

What it does FMCG products, such as Navratna Oil and Zandu Balm.

Name: Bharati Shipyard RANK 29 Net Sales: 1,306 crore Founded: 1973

What it does Ship manufacturing and repairing, and windmill power.

Name: Lanco Kondapalli Power RANK 33 Net Sales: 1,247 crore Founded:1993

What it does An integrated infrastructure enterprise operating across verticals.

Name: Hindusthan National Glass RANK 35 Net Sales: 1,324 crore Founded: 1946

What it does Manufactures glass containers ranging from five to 3,200 millilitres.

Name: Monnet Ispat & Energy RANK 37 Net Sales: 1,412 crore Founded: 1990

What it does Manufacturing of sponge, steel and ferro alloys.

Name: Nuziveedu Seeds RANK 46 Net Sales: 551 crore Founded: 1973

What it does Produces hybrid seeds of cotton and other field crops such as corn and rice.

Name: Compact Disc India RANK 48 Net Sales: 216 crore Founded: 1992

What it does Production, distribution and

financing of films and television serials.

Name: Dolphin Offshore RANK 49 Net Sales: 536 crore Founded: 1979

What it does Diving and underwater services

to oil and gas industries; turnkey EPC construction, topside hook-up and fabrication, inspection and maintenance and, ship repair.

Name: Marg RANK 54 Net Sales: 705 crore Founded: 1994

What it does It provides infrastructure solutions; ports, SEZs and IT Parks.

Name: Zydus Wellness RANK 56 Net Sales: 249 crore Founded: 1994

What it does It is a manufacturer-cum-seller of consumer products, such as EverYuth.

Name: OnMobile Global RANK 57 Net Sales: 327 crore Founded: 2000

What it does Telecommunication services and value-added software products.

Name: Nagarjuna Agrichem RANK 59 Net Sales: 653 crore Founded: 1994

What it does Manufactures pesticide and custom-manufactured chemicals.

Name: Symphony Comfort Systems RANK 60 Net Sales: 140 crore Founded: 1988

What it does A manufacturer and importer of portable evaporative air-coolers.

Name: Deepak Fertilisers & Petrochemicals Corporation RANK 62 Net Sales: 1,279 crore Founded: 1970

What it does Multiple products—chemicals, petrochemicals, fertilisers and agri-inputs.

Name: Balkrishna Industries RANK 63 Net Sales: 1,270 crore Founded: 1961

What it does Manufactures paper, paper board and automobile tyres.

TOP 100 HONOUREES

Name: Eros International Media RANK 65 Net Sales: 479 crore Founded: 1994

Name: EID Parry (India) RANK 80 Net Sales: 1,053 crore Founded: 1788

projects, and has distribution deals.

biopesticides and neutraceuticals.

Name: Temptation Foods RANK 68 Net Sales: 1,134 crore Founded: 1991

Name: Hanung Toys and Textiles RANK 81 Net Sales: 732 crore Founded: 1990

and fruits, and gourmet products.

home furnishings.

Name: Greenearth Resources & Projects RANK 70 Net Sales: 441 crore Founded: 1994

Name: Ess Dee Aluminium RANK 82 Net Sales: 439 crore Founded: 2004

What it does Produces and commissions film

What it does Processes frozen vegetables

What it does Manufactures low-ash

metallurgical coke in Indian refractories.

Name: Zee Entertainment Enterprises RANK 71 Net Sales: 1,130 crore Founded: 1992

What it does Largest producer and aggrega-

tor of Hindi programming in the world.

Name: Navin Fluorine International RANK 75 Net Sales: 416 crore Founded: 1967 What it does Manufacutres special organic

and inorganic fluorochemicals, bulk fluorochemicals, refrigerant gases, and alkylated anilines and toluidines.

Name: Jagran Prakashan RANK 76 Net Sales: 893 crore Founded: 1975

What it does Publishes a newspaper and

monthly magazines, among others.

Name: Sesa Industries RANK 79 Net Sales: 586 crore Founded: 1992

What it does A diversified metal and mining company, the group has been involved in iron ore mining, beneficiation and exports, and engages in producing pig iron and metallurgical coke.

What it does Manufactures sugar,

What it does Makes and exports soft toys and

What it does Packaging material; aluminium

foil-based, and PVC-based thermoforming.

Name: Diamond Power Infrastructure RANK 84 Net Sales: 760 crore Founded: 1970

What it does Power transmission and

distribution service; and equipment maker.

Name: Tinplate Company of India RANK 85 Net Sales: 753 crore Founded: 1920 What it does Tin-coated and tin-free steel sheets; electrolytic tinplates, etc.

Name: Allcargo Global Logistics RANK 86 Net Sales: 516 crore Founded: 1993

What it does Offers container freight stations, and ocean, air and land logistics.

Name: WABCO-TVS (India) RANK 87 Net Sales: 426 crore Founded: 2004

What it does Manufactures air-assisted and air-brake systems for commercial vehicles.

Name: Bannari Amman Sugars RANK 88 Net Sales: 847 crore Founded: 1983

What it does Manufactures sugar, alcohol, power and granite tiles.

Name: HBL Power Systems RANK 91 Net Sales: 1,094 crore Founded: 1986

What it does Design and manufacture of specialised batteries and DC systems.

Name: aurionPro solutions RANK 92 Net Sales: 274 crore Founded: 1997

What it does Software products and IT consulting services to financial industry.

Name: Kemrock Industries and Exports RANK 93 Net Sales: 433 crore Founded: 1981

What it does Manufactures fabric-enforced polymer and GRP composite products.

Name: Malana Power Company RANK 95 Net Sales: 185 crore Founded: 1997

What it does Merchant hydro power plant.

Name: Mcleod Russel India RANK 98 Net Sales: 1,008 crore Founded: 1869

What it does 100 million kilograms of tea per year; and agricultural projects.

Name: DB Corporation RANK 99 Net Sales: 921 crore Founded: 1995

What it does Media, entertainment, print, textile, FMCG, oils, solvents and internet.

Name: Hindustan Colas RANK 100 Net Sales: 352 crore Founded: 1995 What it does Manufactures bitumen emulsions, modified bitumen and valueadded bituminous products; provides a range of road application-related products.

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THE COMPANIES

CM ASHOK MUNI | Chief Operating Officer and Director, Nagarjuna Agrichem

“WE HOPE TO BE A BILLION-DOLLAR COMPANY IN SEVEN YEARS” It isn’t easy being Ashok Muni right now. The COO and director of Nagarjuna Agrichem has just declared a drop in profits for the first quarter in the midst of a global slowdown in demand for his products. Yet, Muni is confident of selling his own brand in the international market and emerging as a billion-dollar company in the near future.

BY POOJA KOTHARI PHOTOGRAPH BY SURESH “We want to buy an international company.”

perfection. He has given the Hyderabad-based company aspirations That was CM Ashok Muni, chief operating officer and director to sell its brands in the global markets. of Nagarjuna Agrichem, a 16-year-old pesticide company, declaring So far, Nagarjuna’s been selling mainly in the domestic markets, his intentions at a press conference earlier this year. with 57 per cent of its revenue coming from sales to Indian farmers.

Although such statements are easy to write off as ambitious Another 37 per cent, which comes from exports, is mainly from dreams, this one isn’t all that misplaced. Muni’s contract manufacturing, where the company company, Agrichem—part of the $2.5 billion produces products for multinational firms under COMPANY DASHBOARD Nagarjuna Group—has grown 18 per cent to hit confidentiality agreements. “Now, we dream of Nagarjuna Agrichem a turnover of 650 crore since 2007. promoting a brand in the international market,” With his eyes set firmly on the target of $1 says the 45-year-old alumnus of the Indian InstiSector Agro Chemicals billion in revenue, an acquisition would shorten tute of Technology, Chennai. the gestation period, and allow Muni to reach his The game could change considerably, though, Year of incorporation 1993 coveted milestone sooner. if Nagarjuna has a face in the $42-billion internaNet sales 2009 It would also be a dream come true for tional pesticide market. Its Indian equivalent, (January to December) Muni. Throughout his 22-year career in the valued at $1.45 billion, is one of the largest in Asia, 653 Cr chemicals industry, he has worked for the but seems insignificant in comparison. Unlike Three-year sales CAGR Indian subsidiary of many a multinational contract manufacturing, which is shrouded by 18% company. Often, a heady, almost aspirational, non-disclosure agreements, having its own brand Average profit margin thought would play at the back of his mind— will give Nagarjuna direct access to end-users. (last three years) what would it be to work for an Indian com“We have finished the blueprint to go global.

8% pany with an international subsidiary?

Since the salient features of each country are difMarket cap (as on Nagarjuna seemed to have provided him the ferent, our strategy is going to be different for December 31, 2009) NA perfect script. And Muni is playing the role to each. We are just about to start executing those 88

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plans,” he adds. That synonymously means identifying the key people who will lead these initiatives at different stages of execution; figuring out potential tie-ups; expansion of production facilities, and fund raising, among many other things.

But right now, Muni’s got his job cut out for him. The crop protection chemicals industry is a hard one to operate in. Given that the demand for the product rides on climatic conditions, risk is an eternal partner in the business. If long spells of dry or wet weather persist, as happened in 2009, the incidence of crop disease whittles down, and so does demand for chemicals that can protect the crop.

In addition, each of these products operates within a life cycle, since crops develop resistance over a period of time, giving rise to the need for more efficient molecules.

“So, we keep our options wide open. In my life, I need a plan A, plan B, and plan C,” says Muni.

An example of this is the upcoming 250-crore greenfield manufacturing facility at the Visakhapatnam special economic zone (SEZ).

The new plant is expected to add 8,000 tonnes to the company’s existing active ingredient manufacturing plant at Srikakulam and formulation plant near Rajahmundry, both in Andhra Pradesh.

While the intent behind the creation of this facility is to produce agro-chemicals, Muni’s Plan B is to produce fine chemicals—an industry in which he has spent a considerable amount of his career.

These are chemicals used in industries, such as cosmetics, electronics, and tyres, among others. “Since the manufacturing assets are the same for both, it makes sense to cross-link both businesses,” explains Muni.

That’s not all. Even as he looks to ride the global wind, he’s making sure that his pipeline of contract manufacturing agreements does not dry up any time soon. The process of selling agro-chemicals in another country can be time-consuming because of the various legal formalities. However, as patents expire on a number of widely-used formulations and companies abroad find it increasingly difficult to manufacture these products locally, their manufacturing comes to cost-effective manufacturing centres in the East, such as India and China. “This trend is likely to continue till 2015,” says Muni. So, Nagarjuna will continue manufacturing for MNCs for the time being.

Dreams Unlimited Ashok Muni knows that his business is all about ambiguities.

The current fiscal has thrown up another challenge his way in the form of drop in profits for the first quarter. If he is disappointed with that, he certainly doesn’t show it. “It was totally expected. The global recession led to a drop in commodity prices, which resulted in panic liquidation of stocks in the market and thereafter, a drop in demand,” explains Muni, pragmatically. He also adds the point that fungal disease and pest infestation was lower in 2009 as compared to the year before. That too dragged down the demand for his company’s products.

For now, Muni would rather concentrate on the execution of his long-nurtured dream. “We have set ourselves an ambitious goal to be a billion-dollar company in seven years. So our plans have to be aggressive,” says he.

But before that, he knows he has to get his house in order. “It isn’t going to happen through a single person. A team of people have to lead this,” adds the COO, who has been busy ushering in a performance-management culture. He’s creating opportunities for his 1,000-odd team members through job rotations and succession plans, and preparing them for “interpersonal effectiveness” required to reach out to the international market.

As he gets ready for the ceaseless grind ahead, Muni dramatically resorts to philosophy: “I believe in being optimistic.

Sometimes, you may not see the fruit of your efforts for quite some time but that should not discourage you. Business is all about managing ambiguities. Just work on converting failures into opportunities for success.”

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THE COMPANIES

SUDHIR RAO | Managing Director, Bartronics India

“HOW SOON CAN WE GO TO 5,000 CR FROM HERE?” From a turnover of 1.5 crore in 2000 to a topline of 880 crore for the financial year ending March, it’s been a pretty impressive turnaround for a company that was looking to fold up just a decade ago. Now, Bartronics India, the Hyderabad-based maker of smart cards and RFID tags, is hungry for scale and global expansion.

BY ANOOP CHUGH PHOTOGRAPH BY SURESH In the late nineties, Bartronics India, a Hyderabad-based pro- “My primary job, then, was to make the company survive rather vider of technological solutions, had to battle many demons at one than to revive it,” recalls Rao, who had previously worked with bluetime. Besieged by debt, shrinking turnover and disgruntled clients, chip firms, such as TCS and Core Healthcare.

The divine push worked. Slowly and steadily, Rao and his team the company was in such trouble that it seemed only divine intervenbegan the process of “plugging the leaks”. The product offering was tion could sort out the mess.

The forces above heard it’s prayers. When Bartronics made a expanded from “systems integration” to “consulting and solupitch for computerisation of the yatra management system at tions”, which proved to be a differentiator, according to Rao. HavVaishno Devi and Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam—places of ing started off providing solutions in bar coding, one of the oldest pilgrimages that receive millions of devotees—its prayers were technologies for automatic identification and data capture (AIDC), the company subsequently moved to newer answered. The deals were won and work begun. options, such as RFID (radio frequency identity The two accounts proved so successful that COMPANY DASHBOARD tags) and smart cards.

Sudhir Rao, managing director, Bartronics, Bartronics India In the years since, Bartronics has taken on delightedly describes them as the biggest wins of local rivals, as well as competed with foreign his company in the last decade. “They weren’t just Sector players, such as Intermec of US and Synel of emotional victories, but strategic ones. Both IT & ITeS Israel. “We followed a simple strategy—of creatVaishno Devi and Tirupati are frequented by the Year of incorporation 1990 ing multiple entry barriers—which made it difwho’s who of India Inc. Our presence there creNet sales 2009 ficult for foreign companies to eat into our pie,” ated awareness about the company among the (January to December) explains Rao. Moreover, its annual mainteright set of people and showed how well our solu521 crore nance contracts with major blue-chip compations worked,” he offers by way of explanation.

Three-year sales CAGR nies in India helped as well.

The success of implementing the queue man60 per cent The company focused on the manufacturing agement project at Tirupati was even sweeter for Average profit margin sector, implementing a number of projects for Rao, considering that a rival firm, considered an (last three years) manufacturing majors like Tisco, Tata Motors, undisputed leader in the IT field, had failed to 14 per cent Voltas, Whirlpool, LML, Chennai Petroleum, execute the same project a few years ago.

Market cap (as on TVS Suzuki, Wipro GE Medical Systems, and Incidentally, that was also when Rao was December 31, 2009) so on. Bartronics helped clients with their brought on board to turn the company around.

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Pressing the Right Keys Sudhir Rao’s belief helped him turn Bartronics into a 880-crore company.

inventory, logistics management, time and attendance, and asset tracking systems.

Bartronics also benefited from being at the right place at the right time. Favourable government policies played a fair role in giving it a growth push. “In 2005, when the government made bar coding compulsory for food exports from India, there was a huge surge in business,” recalls a grateful Rao. The same year, Bartronics went public and successfully raised 48 crore through its IPO. In the coming years, as the Indian economy opened up and foreign direct investment was allowed to flow into the retail sector, the demand for Bartronics’ services went up. The company began to feel the need for another round of capital infusion. “We, subsequently, managed to raise 35 crore through a qualified institutional placement; and a further $25 million from foreign currency convertible bonds,” recounts Rao. The real test came in 2007. Bartronics had set up a smart card plant, committing to orders worth more than 200 crore over the next one year. “We had a major breakdown within the first three days

of operation. Subsequently, we had to shut down the plant for three months and run trials for three months after that. The loss incurred during those six months almost burned us out,” Rao recalls of those nightmarish days. The company recovered from the loss, but only after Rao convinced customers not to lose faith in the company.

From a turnover of 1.5 crore in 2000 to a topline of 880 crore for the financial year ending last March, it’s been a pretty impressive turnaround for a company that was looking to fold up just a decade ago. “I barely consider this as an achievement. The real test starts now—how soon can we go to 5,000 crore from here is the question,” says Rao, who can boast of a 60 per cent growth in his topline between 2007 and 2009.

At present, Bartronics seems hungrier than ever. Having entered the Middle East last year, it recently expanded to South Asia—Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. The move is expected to rev up growth of up to 40 per cent in revenue. Next on the plate is the European market.

If Rao manages to sustain this growth and find the capital to fund it, he will not need to invoke divine intervention a second time.

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THE COMPANIES

PD MUNDHRA | Co-founder & Executive Director, eClerx Services

“TO BUILD AN ENDURING INSTITUTION”

In 2008, eClerx’s biggest client went kaput and almost dragged the firm with it. In 2009, Forbes chose the company as one of the 200 best firms under a turnover of $1 billion in the Asia Pacific region from more than 24,000 options. Now that’s what we call a turnaround.

BY POOJA KOTHARI PHOTOGRAPH BY JITEN GANDHI Envision your largest client filed for bankruptcy and 14 per cent the KPO/data analytics space. Consulting firm AT Kearney calls it of your revenue disappeared overnight. There would be no doubt one of the best outsourcing companies in India. that this would be a “nightmare” of gigantic proportions. And that The focus with which eClerx has carved a niche for itself in the is exactly what Mumbai-based business-process-outsourcing com- outsourcing market, and the aggression it has shown in building pany eClerx Services had to live through after the relationships with Fortune 500 companies have collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The bank helped this decade-old company reach a turnover was its largest client. of 250 crore in FY 2009-10. Instead of aiming at COMPANY DASHBOARD The share price of eClerx, which had touched low-end outsourcing that rests on labour arbieClerx Services 500 per unit in January 2008, nosedived to 72 trage, the company offers sales, marketing supby October of the same year. port and financial services, such as risk Sector IT & ITeS And yet, like the proverbial phoenix, the BPO management and operations.

Year of incorporation firm rose from the disastrous innings to end the Started in 2000 by two business school mates, 2000 year with a 40 per cent growth in revenue over its Anjan Malik and PD Mundhra, eClerx initially Net sales 2009 previous year. built websites for dotcom companies. It soon (January to December) It is no wonder then that the company has found out how hard it was to make a living that 197cr climbed from 190 to 50 in our ranking within a way. The world expected dotcoms to change the Three-year sales CAGR year. Or, that its share trades at 700 today. Last way businesses worked. These were supposed to 32 per cent year, when Forbes magazine was scouting for the substitute the old-world companies and their Average profit margin 200 best companies under a turnover of $1 billion brick-and-mortar ways. (last three years) in the Asia Pacific region, it chose eClerx from And then came the dot-com shakeout. Sud38 per cent more than 24,000 publicly-listed companies. denly these companies seemed to be dropping Market cap (as on There were only 22 Indian companies that made like flies all around.

December 31, 2009) 790 crore the cut, and eClerx was the only that belonged to After some desperate gasps for survival, the 92

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Putting the Past Behind PD Mundhra’s eClerx Services rose from the brink of disaster in 200809 to grow sales at 40 per cent.

majority of them had crashed out, forcing Malik and Mundhra to dig out a Plan B. “We decided to focus on managing the data behind the websites.

And that fundamental shift in strategy laid the foundation for what we are today,” says 37-year-old Mundhra.

While evaluating the matrix of options, Mundhra realised that IT was far ahead in the game for them to play catch up. And, “voice was an operational nightmare” that neither of them even considered getting into. So, writing software, or running call centres were definitely out of the list.

The way forward sprang from an interesting blend of happenstance and fate—or, you could say, pluck. A few former classmates from Wharton were running their own shows, and wanted help in getting website and database management work done from India.

These small companies were on no one’s radar anyway.

“It wasn’t a capital intensive business and made sense to get into,” recalls Mundhra.

Malik was firmly ensconced on Wall Street. Mundhra, who came from a business family, had learnt the chops by running his own business as an undergraduate in Kolkata where he had set up a material handling unit. Post his MBA, he had even set up a detergent packaging unit for Hindustan Lever, one of the largest FMCG companies in the country.

Starting up was hardly a new game for either of them. So, in 2000, they incorporated eClerx and went to work. Within a year, they beat “14 competitors” to land their first “big brand client”. By 2002, Malik had come on board full-time and was spearheading the company’s move into financial services. Both followed a conservative strategy, running a cash-flow oriented business and avoiding debt. And, “we knew what our strengths and weakness were, and stayed away from business which wouldn’t be feasible”.

Last year, Sequoia Capital, one of the leading private equity firms in the country, bought a stake in the company. In the past 10 years, there have also been several proposals from companies offering to acquire the business. However, Mundhra is clear that “there’s still a lot of headroom that we want to exploit”.

Given that both of them spend all their time on this business, they want to remain “leveraged”. “The day we decide to cash out, we’ll remove ourselves completely from this business,” adds Mundhra.

While 40-year-old Malik plays a client-facing role in the organisation, Mundhra handles the operational aspects.

Together, they have managed to create “a culture and a work atmosphere” that has allowed them to “attract disproportionate talent”. With more than 3,000 employees and nearly 20 Fortune 500 clients under their belt, this team is sure to fulfil its aspiration of “building an enduring institution”.

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THE COMPANIES

PUJIT AGGARWAL | Managing Director & CEO, Orbit Corporation

“WE FOUGHT PEOPLE’S DISTRUST OF BUILDERS”

Pujit Aggarwal and his father were new to the real estate sector, but they figured out soon enough how to make it big in the business without ‘deep pockets’. The Aggarwals established a reputation for redeveloping dilapidated buildings in Mumbai. Their success has fuelled a desire to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange next.

BY POOJA KOTHARI AND SUNAINA SEHGAL PHOTOGRAPH BY MEXY XAVIER

As a 16-year-old, Pujit Aggarwal was literally “lured” into real House—once home to the Maharaja of Patiala and one of the last estate. His father and uncle were working on their maiden venture palaces in the city. Given its success in the recent years—Orbit has as property developers. On his uncle’s suggestion, post his classes at grown nearly 40 per cent in the past three years—it is difficult to Sydneham College, Aggarwal decided to try his believe that the Aggarwals are relatively new to hand at selling the block of offices his family was the sector.

COMPANY DASHBOARD developing in Navi Mumbai. His sales pitch Hailing from Haryana, the family had moved Orbit Corporation worked, earning Aggarwal a neat 1.5 per cent of to Mumbai in 1973 and founded Orbit Steels to the deal value in commission. “I had tasted manufacture steel plates. As typical of a familySector Construction blood,” recalls Aggarwal, who earned a princely owned business, they pursued other revenue sum of 1 lakh in the process. There was someopportunities, such as export of fabric, arts and Year of incorporation 2000 thing addictive about the business, and Aggarwal crafts, and later, frozen foods under the Tasty Net sales 2009 knew he wanted to be a part of that.

Bites brand. In the early eighties, the senior Aggar(January to December) Cut to today, Aggarwal, along with his father, wal introduced the Indian consumer to the con447 crore Ravi Kiran Aggarwal, runs Orbit Corporation, a cept of ready-to-eat meals and packaged frozen Three-year sales CAGR 450-crore real estate developer in Mumbai. vegetables. “The experiment bombed in the mar40 per cent Though people outside the financial capital ket,” says his 38-year-old son. “We were much Average profit margin might have a hard time recalling what Orbit is, ahead of our times for the Indian market. We sur(last three years) residents of the city might recall its reputation as a vived by exporting the products and by selling 27 per cent redeveloper of dilapidated buildings—not to menthem to institutions like the canteens of the armed Market cap (as on tion, the company that most recently hit the headforces.” Luckily, the business scraped through and December 31, 2009) lines for winning the bid to redevelop Kilachand 190 crore was later sold to Hindustan Unilever in 1995.

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PROFILE

High Rise Pujit Aggarwal’s Orbit Corporation has built a reputation for high-quality redevelopment of dilapidated buildings in South Mumbai.

During its moments of struggle with businesses, the family ventured into real estate through co-investments. It didn’t take them long to realise the potential of the industry. So, it gave up other pursuits and dived into real estate full time. The initial years weren’t easy.

The Aggarwals didn’t have the deep pockets to bite into Mumbai’s expensive real estate deals. However, the senior Aggarwal noticed that old, dilapidated buildings standing in posh South Mumbai localities were going at not only cheaper rates, but were also available.

“Landlords of such properties barely got any rental income because of rent control laws. Returns were negative in some cases. So, getting them to sell to us wasn’t that difficult,” explains his son.

Having created a niche in redeveloping old properties into swanky, luxurious residences and offices, the Aggarwals formalised their efforts into a corporate entity called Orbit Corporation in 1999.

“It was an uphill task. We had to constantly fight people’s distrust of builders and convince them that we weren’t out to usurp their properties,” recalls the younger Aggarwal. Over the years, Orbit has single-mindedly focussed on localities within South Mumbai, even raising money on the stock markets to fund its operations.

Along the way, it’s been helped by the management team’s unrelenting focus on delivering value to its customers, and some wise decisions. In 2008-09, as the economy cratered and sales froze for

almost six months, Orbit decided to convert its commercial premium complexes into residential flats. “We were nimble-footed and responded in time to the weakening demand for commercial real estate,” says Aggarwal.

Similarly, five years ago, when competitors were constructing luxury apartments in Lower Parel, Orbit decided to make one-room studio apartments, which later sold like “hot cakes”.

In its 20 years of experience, Orbit has also set high standards for itself. Aggarwal likes to point out that each Orbit building comes with a 20-year warranty against leakage. “We use stainless steel reinforcement bars for construction, so that repairs need to be done much later than is usual for buildings,” explains Aggarwal.

It has taken him time to get here—and to develop this eye for detail and best practices. But the time has been worth it. Today, as father and son comfortably occupy their swank office in upscale Mumbai, Orbit’s looking to raise 1,000 crore in the near future.

It’s working on projects of various sizes. Besides the Khilachand House, which is their most ambitious to date, there’s a cluster development in Malabar Hill and a 200-acre project in posh Alibagh.

It won’t be long before their “teamwork” leads to the realisation of the son’s dream of “ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange”.

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THE WAY I WORK | Karan Chanana, Amira Foods

“Meetings are dynamic and they should stay that way.”

Running a 95-year-old company, whose supply chain straddles five continents, requires an appetite for innovation and growth. Karan A Chanana, group managing director for Amira Foods, India’s largest rice exporter, has displayed that he has a stomach for much of this. Since he took over the reins of The Amira Group, which also has interests in infrastructure, energy and special economic zones, the company has morphed from a family-run business to a professionally-managed unit. A believer in structured approaches and smart people, he has steered the company from a turnover of 367 crore in 2007 to 1,040 crore in 2009 (both calendar years). Along the way, the company has picked up prestigious tags—like ‘Global Growth Company’—and he a handful of accolades for his contributions to business in India. Amira now sells its own label of basmati and nonbasmati rice, which sits on shelves of retail chains across the US, New Zealand and Canada. Here’s a peek at his typical workday.

AS TOLD TO SHREYASI SINGH | PHOTOGRAPH BY SUBHOJIT PAUL

I am always eager to start a new day. Morning means a fresh start, that’s why I look forward

to it. My body clock is pretty much set. I wake up by 7am, without alarm clocks and beeps.

I sleep for six hours. More than that, I feel I am wasting time.

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The Taste of Success Karan Chanana enjoys establishing systems and processes, and watching them hit milestones.

THE WAY I WORK

I like to see my children the first thing in the morning. They are 12 and five years old. That’s the most refreshing dose of the day. Before they leave for school, I spend some time with them. Then, I proceed to my Blackberry. After the mails, I read my newspaper and start getting ready. By 9am, I am prepared to get out of my personal space.

My day is structured to the needs of the company. I let logic drive it. I reach office by 10:30am. I keep the pre-lunch hours for internal discussions, where we recapitulate what has been happening and what needs to be done. It’s a basic review process that helps me remain on top of things. It also allows a certain amount of flexibility to my team because they can plan the rest of their day. I think that doing this at the end of the day won’t have the same impact. I reserve my post-lunch hours for external meetings, if any.

I am very flexible during meetings. I don’t like to define them by time. Sometimes, a 15-minute meeting will flow into four hours.

Other times, a meeting scheduled for four hours will finish in 15 minutes, because it has lost its value by then. Meetings are dynamic and they should stay that way.

My work day has remained much the same since 2005 when I took over managing the company. Before that, when I was heading our manufacturing units, my routine was different. But, life’s like that. It should be dynamic. . I enjoy both roles. I wouldn’t be able to pick a favourite.

Running a business is a continuous process, like riding a bicycle. It can get monotonous, so setting new goals is very important. It allows you to look forward to each day. I don’t do anything I don’t enjoy; as simple as that.

I am completely self-motivated. I run my business in a structured manner. We have a vision, to which we attach milestones, and then we implement it. For instance, right now, the biggest milestone in front of me is to strengthen our own brands of rice. We have traditionally supplied rice to other brands. However, in the recent past, we have worked on creating our own brand, which contributes 10 per cent of our revenue right now. We want that share to go up to 50 per cent within five years. And, we want a global footprint for our brand in the next 36-48 months.

For this, we need the right processes and the best human talent.

I don’t like to micro manage, unless required to—which happens once in a blue moon. My aim is to hire people smarter than me because I am not in the education business.

To grow, you have to surround yourself by good people, and I am always on the lookout. I hold interviews two times a week. Growth, I think, gets limited by the absence of good people, and not by that of business opportunities. In India, especially, there is no lack of opportunities for a business to grow. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of talent and intellectual strength, which are inversely

“I detest the attitude in seeped into proportional to our population. Employability is an issue. Ethics and morals are a very, very big issue. I see a misplaced sense of wealth creation among the young people nowadays. There are glaring gaps between expectations and capabilities. I have seen so many inflated resumes and mismatched expectations; and that worries me.

Y

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ou can’t run a business if you don’t trust your

people. Of course, a certain de-sensitisation happens over years of hiring the wrong people. But, that doesn’t mean I am less trusting. Yes, I definitely trust systems more than people, though. I have inculcated systems into Amira in the past few years. We have revamped the organisation and put processes in place. That’s what I enjoy doing most—establishing systems and seeing them hit milestones. I have a single-minded focus on that.

I have consciously moved to a younger team. There is no substitute for experience.

But, there are functions where experience is at a discount, like in sales. There are so many new methods, ideas, and strategies out there.

I have found the younger people to be more

“with it” on that.

I expect our team leaders to mentor their members. Recently, I was at a popular restaurant, where the service was terrible. I went and met the head of the hotel and told him that the problem lay in his training process. You cannot expect efficiency and good service from your people, if you don’t invest enough in training them.

Training fulfils the gap between performance and expectation.

I have reached 70 per cent of my HR milestones. Now, I spend four hours in a week doing people- related work. Twice a year, we have an off-site for everyone. We have close to 300 full-timers and

THE WAY I WORK

chalta hai India. It has Gen-X, too.” all of them are part of this. This is a great way to interact with them.

Other than my senior management, I also keep in touch with the top and middle-level management, roughly 20 people, on a fairly regular basis.

All said and done, I am a demanding boss. And my employees know that. I detest the “chalta hain” attitude in India. It’s seeped into the new generation, too. The problem is that it doesn’t get you anywhere. Like, if people are late for meetings, I don’t see it as a punctuality issue. For me, they are just not committed enough. The subject matter of the meeting should be important enough for people to be on time. Everybody’s time needs to be respected.

Time is the most precious commodity. You need to value it, otherwise it won’t value you. I do allow myself to indulge in spontaneity during the workweek, but it happens rarely. I never bunk work. You bunk something that you don’t enjoy.

I don’t like eating big lunches; they make me sleepy. I grab a bite, generally a sandwich, while I am talking to somebody. I am usually in the middle of an internal meeting during that time. At the manufacturing unit, we had an elaborate lunch ritual. All of us would get together and eat. Today, if I am not in a meeting, I use the time to think rather than eat. I don’t smoke or drink either—another reason why I don’t have to sleep too much to detoxify my body. I just have two or three foamy espressos a day.

I generally travel once in a month. We take part in a lot of exhibitions since that’s a great way to meet customers. I try and go for some important ones. In July, I went to New York for the Fancy Foods show. Dealing with customers is at the core of our business. Although I meet fewer customers now, I do oversee the function. Even when I am out, my senior team knows they can get me for any meeting they want.

Though the Internet is a great way of keeping in touch with everybody, I still believe a lot more in personal contacts. I have an account on both Twitter and Facebook, but I don’t post update very often. It’s not a priority for me. The Internet has put personal meetings and verbal communication at a premium. Very few people pick up the phone and call you. That effort has to be more appreciated.

The Self-motivated Worker Chanana wants his own brands to bring in 50 per cent of his firm’s revenue within five years.

I am not a slave to my gadgets. I use them; I don’t let them use me.

The iPhone, for example, has great applications and I use it for entertainment when I travel. It’s not part of my daily work kit, though.

I like to exercise after work. It’s part of my evening routine. I walk for an hour and then do yoga. It helps me de-stress and get into that balance of the evening. My exercise routine has pretty much stayed the same for the past 20 years. Once a week, I try and take out time for golf.

I enjoy reading. The Economist is my weekly fix. I have been reading it for years. I also try and go through the Harvard Business Review. I read a lot of business magazines. I don’t read books—I subscribe to audio book summaries, which I listen to in my car, or on my iPod. These are mostly business books.

Four times a year, I take a holiday with my family. It’s usually for a week or 10 days. As a family, we like to go for beach holidays.

These holidays help me unwind and clear a lot of things in the mind. There is nothing better in life than spending quality time with the people you love.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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CEO SURVEY

WHO’S YOUR GURU?

We asked the leaders of the top 500 firms who or what inspires them in life.

Here is what some of them said.

The success and humility of APJ Abdul Kalam and Sachin Tendulkar.

—Vinod Kumar Chaturvedi, managing director, Usher Agro

Dhirubhai Ambani and ‘Think Big’ attitude.

—Rajiv Mittal, managing director, Va Tech Wabag

My mother.

Swami Vivekananda’s words: ‘Take up one idea and make it your life—think of it, dream of it, live on it…this is the way to success’.

—Kamlesh B Patel, chairman, Asian Granito India

JRD Tata.

—RK Somany, chairman and managing director, HSIL

—TT Jagannathan, chairman, TTK Prestige

Intelligent work done by stakeholders.

Good leadership qualities.

—SVS Shetty, CEO, Anjani

—VK Jatia, chairman and managing director, Modern India

Portland Cement

Creativity; and my guru, Yogi Ashwini.

—Gurjeet Singh Johar, chairman, C&C Constructions

My immediate boss, Admiral BR Vasant of the Indian Navy, who believed that one could own a single ship or numerous, if they truly wanted to.

—Harjinder Singh Cheema, managing director, Cheema Boilers

Great people who served the society, such as Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi; and industrialists like the Tatas.

—UK Gupta, chairman and managing director, Holostik India

Every successful man in the field of business, politics, sports or spiritualism.

—NK Bansal, group CFO, IndSwift group of companies

Honesty, integrity and success stories of personalities like Ratan Tata, Narayana Murthy, and Azim Premji.

Books on management, self development and corporate growth; the Bhagvad Gita.

—SV Kabra, chairman and managing director, Kabra Extrusiontechnik

Mahatma Gandhi; biographies of successful global CEOs and business people.

—PA Nair, CEO, Shree Digvijay Cements

—Atul K Nishar, founder and chairman, Hexaware Technologies

JRD Tata and others, who have achieved success in different walks of life.

My grand-dad; People still remember and talk about him 40 years after his death.

—MR Jaishankar, chairman and managing director, Brigade Group

—Partha De Sarkar, CEO, Hinduja Global Solutions

Leading industrialists, like Tata, who have done a marvellous job in their respective fields.

Success stories of entrepreneurs like Sunil Mittal, Narayana Murthy, and others.

—RG Agarwal, group chairman, Dhanuka Agritech

—Manoj Tirodkar, chairman, GTL Infrastructure

Everything you need to know to run your business in today’s economy

: : : : : : : : : : : A MONTHLY GUIDE TO POLICIES, PROCEDURES AND PRACTICES

REMOVE BOOKLET ALONG DOTTED LINE

08

BUY THE RIGHT INSURANCE COVER The recent rains in Delhi brought back memories of the Mumbai deluge few years ago. On that fateful day in June 2005, life at the country’s financial capital had come to a standstill, with some 40,000 businesses taking a hit. The loss was pegged at somewhere around $5 billion by various reports that assessed the damage. That only 15 per cent, or $770 million of those losses were covered by insurance, serves as a grim reminder of the fact that any business owner can be caught off guard.

Looking back at the Mumbai incident, one couldn’t help but ask the inevitable question—those without the insurance, what were they thinking? That bad things don’t happen to good people? Or, that insurance is too expensive? As it turned out, the only thing that they could not afford was not having their businesses insured.

The principles of economics say that small and medium businesses find it more difficult than large organisations to bounce back after suffering irreparable damage to their assets. And flooding is just one of the dangers. There are so many other misfortunes that may hit any time—fire, theft, medical claims by employees or business associates and commercial suits are just some of the unpleasant scenarios that could pop up without any warning. If and when they do, business owners without any insurance could end up losing even the shirts on their backs.

Here are a few tips on buying the right insurance for your business, so that your assets remain safe under all circumstances.—By Charu Bahri VOL. 01 NO. 08 | INC. GUIDEBOOK

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BUY THE RIGHT INSURANCE COVER : : : : : : : : : : : : :

HEDGING AGAINST RISKS 1

Getting Started

Identify key risks: Don’t make the mistake of thinking of insurance as a taxsaving product. Insurance is, and should be treated as, a risk-mitigating tool. “Risk management should be the end objective, not insurance,” says Praveen Vashishta, CEO, Howden India, a firm that provides risk management and insurance solutions.

Adopt a structured approach; start by identifying risks that your business might face, quantify those risks and then take the required decisions to transfer risks from your balance sheet to insurance companies. If the list is long, rank the risks in the order of their probability and severity of occurrence.

Take compulsory insurance: Insurance is also about securing what matters to the government and to others who have an interest in the continuity of your business. Indian law outlines only two mandatory insurance covers: that for businesses manufacturing, transporting, handling or warehousing hazardous substances (as given in a notified government list); and, third party insurance for vehicles. Beyond that, it is up to a business to decide what protection it needs.

Certain kinds of business are commercially (not legally) obliged to buy specific insurance policies. For instance, exporters can mortgage raw material and stocks of finished goods stored at various locations to a bank at special interest rates. “Banks, however, do not offer this facility unless the business has covered its stock under a fire and burglary policy,” points out Vivek INC. GUIDEBOOK | VOL. 01 NO. 08

Tyagi, general manager for exports, Ganpati Exports, whose company avails credit under this scheme.

Risk management should be the end objective, not insurance.

Consult an insurance agent: Most liability insurance policies have no associated rate-card, that is, their premiums are based on detailed client-specific evaluations. “That’s why SMBs that do not employ professionals in their risk and insurance departments should be hand-held by a broker through the process,” says Jayant Tewari, an outsourced CFO who has served a number of technology companies, such as Proteans Software and Tech Unified prior to their acquisition.

Brokers can suggest options based on calculated advice, instead of mere hearsay. “We rate insurance companies on the basis of the coverage offered by the policy in question, price, the insurance companies’ track record in processing claims for the policy in question, their financial standing, and the complexities involved—these relate to policies that may throw up claims across various jurisdictions,” explains Vashishta.

If you decide to consult an agent, consider one who can handle all of your insurance requirements. And, in case you choose to go it alone, follow Tyagi’s advice: “Take extensive feed-

back from people in your industry and then buy insurance.” In short, do some home-work before choosing a provider.

2

Key Covers

Key man insurance: Most SMBs are one-man shows riding on the shoulders of one or, at most, a few decision-makers. That makes it very hard for a business to re-organise itself in the face of the untimely demise of any one or more of these individuals. This is where key man insurance comes in— it’s a kind of life insurance taken to cover the losses that are likely to accrue during the time between the demise of the person and the filling up of his position.

These losses are not easy to estimate. “As a rule of thumb, the value of the insurance will be somewhere between the estimated loss of revenue that the company may incur due to the absence of a key person and the cost of replacing the individual,” says V Philip, a Bengaluru-based insurance advisor.

“The cover will also depend on the company’s financials and how much premium it can afford to pay,” he adds.

Partnership firms also benefit from buying life insurance for each of the partners. That way, should one partner die, the surviving partner can use the life insurance claim to buy out the heirs of the demised partner. Such life insurance policies should ideally increase in value as the business grows.

Business property insurance: Business property is a wide term including an

office building and all it contains, if the office is owned by the business, or just the movable assets, that is, furniture, equipment and office records, if the business operates from leased premises. Property insurance taken for leased offices should ideally cover improvements made to the premises, such as adding room partitions or custom-made furniture.

A broad form of business property coverage, also called an all-risk policy, is recommended to protect the business from a wide variety of losses arising from natural calamities such as earthquakes, floods, and even loss of income from having to temporarily shut down the business due to damage to business property.

Liability insurance: Comprehensive General Liability (CGL) policies are designed to cover third parties for inadvertent injuries arising from your business dealings, such as inappropriate advertising or bodily harm (a guest trips over a loose cable in your office and claims compensation).

Some businesses also need to cover specific liabilities. For instance, Tewari points out that Indian IT firms are often required to take errors-andomissions policies to protect themselves from commercial suits arising from inadvertent errors made in the delivery of services.

For examples, if an IT company has sold air travel companies software to facilitate online bookings, then it

would need to protect itself from claims arising from errors in the working of the software application.

Firms that offer services traditionally associated with a higher degree of care or standards, such as health or consultancy, also need liability insurance. “In addition, start-ups that have been funded by angel investors or venture capital funds may be asked to take coverage for their directors (Directors and Officers Policy) to protect a nominee director from being liable for errors made by the company,� adds Tewari.

No matter which cover you opt for, remember to negotiate the payment schedule for the premium. Ask for a quarterly or half-yearly payment option, in place of annual payment.

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INSURANCE TIPS

Some other insurance policies that your business might benefit from are:

Group life insurance: These can help attract and retain employees.

“Most employees see life insurance paid for by their employer as an attractive perk,” says Tyagi, whose firm has bought insurance for its workers and employees for a cover of 2.5 times an individual’s salary.

Workers’ compensation insurance: Some companies choose to transfer the compensation they may be liable to pay to their workers to an insurance company. The financial benefit is that they have to pay a smaller amount as premium, which is a deductible expense, instead of doling out huge sums as compensation, if and when the need arises.

Health insurance: Tyagi also recommends health insurance plans tailored to the size of your business. “This coverage gives you an edge when recruiting employees,” he adds.

Inland Transit Policy: Ganpati Exports has taken a 5-crore cover for cargo despatched by road from its factory in Delhi to Mumbai port. The sum insured covers the maximum value of shipments lying at Mumbai port or in transit between the port and the factory during the peak season.

NOTES:

MAKING A CLAIM Most commercial insurance policies follow a standard claim procedure.

Step 1: The insured business must submit all original documents, that is, repair or replacement bills in the case of loss of property, medical bills in the case of liability insurance, and so on, to the surveyor.

Step 2: The surveyor calculates the approximate value of the loss incurred and forwards a report to the insurance company.

Step 3: If the insurance company has a query, it will seek clarification from the insured.

Once the queries are sorted out, the insurance company issues a cheque for the value of loss incurred based on the report submitted by the surveyor within one week to three weeks.

Resources

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority site, Visit it for updates on insurance laws and lists of approved insurers, http://

www.irda.gov.in/Defaulthome. aspx?page=H1

LIC of India, Glossary of terms,

http://www.licindia.in/glossary.htm

Know about Life Insurance, http:// www.licindia.in/know_lic.htm

PolicyBazaar, Get free insurance quotes, compare plans based on their premium and features side-byside, http://www.policybazaar.com/

INC. GUIDEBOOK | VOL. 01 NO. 08