The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Ambition made him an entrepreneur

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Monday, Sep 29, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Ambition made him an entrepreneur

Staff Reporter

The success story of Mahadevan of Hot Breads

— Photo: R. Ragu

WORDS OF A WINNER: M. Mahadevan, Director, Oriental Cuisines, at a function organised by Indo-American Chamber of Commerce on Saturday. Hiren Shah (left), chairman, IACC (Tamil Nadu), is in the picture.

CHENNAI: This entrepreneur quit his job as lecturer decades ago knowing he had a different calling. M. Mahadevan, director of Oriental Cuisines, says ambition made him an entrepreneur.

Speaking at the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) ‘Meet success first hand’ series, the 53-year-old entrepreneur said: “My mother blessed me and sent me with Rs.400 to Chennai in 1980. The investment of Rs.60,000 with just 4 workers has grown to Rs.120 crore with more than 3,000 people.”

“I decided to stand out for people to take notice. In 1989, I put up a glass wall and showed the customers of my Hot Breads how clean the bread-making machine was,” he recalled. Today, there are 12 units of Hot Breads in the U.S. alone.

His advice for budding entrepreneurs is, “Do your homework right.”

Claiming to be just an average student in his schooldays, he said, “We do not need to have very high skill to become an entrepreneur. All we need is a formula.” He also pointed out the role played by the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation in providing seed capital without collateral for some of his initiatives.

Explaining his obsessive reluctance to take defeat, he mentioned the development of a new unit in Ras Al Khaima, a virgin market, after the unit in Dubai was closed in 1995 for want of parking space.

“The unit has now emerged as the bestselling one in the Emirates.”

Mr. Mahadevan has started giving training at institutes of catering for underprivileged youth.

His initiative has made 800 convicts of the prison in Puzhal get training in breadmaking.

“The focus area of the IACC this year will be small and medium enterprises. The export of processed food is set to improve with subsidy from the government,” said S.K.Jain, President of IACC. “Indian engineering companies and service suppliers will gain a lot by bilateral initiatives such as the Indo-US nuclear deal,” he added.

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