Sharing a vision is the greatest motivation
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A group of young entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs talk about the encouragement given to them by an institution builder and how they benefited from it.
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THEY HAVE a dream. He has a vision. Their dream is to become successful entrepreneurs. His vision is larger — sowing the seeds of entrepreneurship in students, employment generation, providing quality education etc.
The marriage of the two is helping in the process of nation building. They are students (some former) of the Jain Group of Institutions (JGI). He is the young and dynamic visionary — Chenraj Jain, the Chairman of the JGI.
The EducationPlus team interacted with a batch of young entrepreneurs who have set goals for themselves and are working hard towards achieving them. Arun M. Prabhu runs Intouch Analytics (market intelligence); Rajesh set up Blueman Support Services (providing security and other support services to apartments, corporate sector and other institutions); Jyothi Jain put up Sheetal Interiors (distributorship of veneers and plywoods); and Vineet Agarwal launched Damask (marketing of school uniforms, shoes and other accessories).
Three wannabe entrepreneurs and students of JGI were also present at the discussion and they were Manisha Jain (who wants to supply material to the construction industry, starting with interiors); Punit Solanki (whose brother who had been incubated at JGI and had started Petal Shades, retailing artificial flowers) and Girish (has plans of getting into the textile business). Bhawana Tamang wants to start a school on the lines of the Jain Group.
Here, they talk about their dreams and businesses and how they are going to use management principles in their ventures.
Arun Prabhu
I WORKED with Alsthom, a French engineering company, and later I started a dotcom which went bust. It was around that time I met Mr. Chenraj Jain as I handled a couple of classes at MATS (Mahaveer Academy of Technological Sciences). The meeting with him lasted all of two minutes and he put the idea of starting a market research company. Mr. Jain was keen on investing and that's how Intouch Analytics came into being. We have done some path-breaking work. We have done feasibility studies (site location, demand etc.) for all the IBP outlets in Karnataka. For CoffeeDay, we run a loyalty programme across 340 outlets. We have a lot of transactions going on and we give them sales and purchase patterns. We have worked on segmentation of the coffee consumer market. We have built enough expertise and are adding to the intellectual capital. For all this, we have the support of the JGI. We also have Saint Gobain as our client and we have mapped the construction projects for them in Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. For us, CoffeeDay programme is the most successful and it contributes 20 per cent of the revenue. It is a scalable service model we have built.
Intouch began two years ago with Rs. 5 lakhs, all invested by Mr. Jain. Now, the investment is about Rs. 25 lakhs. We have presence in Chennai and Hyderabad and we are planning to move to Mumbai and also overseas. The turnover will reach Rs. 1crore this year. It is an idea which will click big time soon.
Mr. Jain takes about five to 10 minutes to approve a project, but for us to analyse whether a project is viable or not is a gruelling process. In fact, we had gone to venture capitalists who mentioned huge figures and asked whether our project would be worth it. I don't think financiers should talk like that. Whereas Mr. Jain asked me how big the business was going to be and I felt that we were sharing the vision at the beginning itself. Vision sharing is the greatest motivation.
I would rate the interaction that we had with Mr. Jain as the primary motivating factor. The ideas are there, you feel confident you can do it, after you see somebody who is "been there, done that". You see an enormously successful person like Mr. Jain and there cannot be any greater motivation than that.
Intouch, in the next five years, is planning to become a global company in the niche area of data analytics, an area which is just taking off in India. We are looking at 20 million dollars in the next few years.
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Vineet Agarwal
Before joining MATS, I was working with HLL in their shoe division in Pondicherry. I came to MATS for a course in Marketing, but Sir talked to me about entrepreneurship.
I did a study of Namaste Exports and I mentioned to them about the incubation programme of JGI. They encouraged me over there and I had one and a half years to go in MATS.
I thought why not take a chance and start something. Whether it is going to work or not I had to test it out. If it did not, then I had thought of taking up a job. My parents could not afford to finance me. Sir told me not to worry about it. He said don't worry about profit or loss. I had nothing to risk. I had someone to finance. It was a big a help.
With the encouragement of Mr. Jain, I ventured into entrepreneurship and started Damask.
I started with selling shoes to schools and now we are on the way to providing one-stop solution for all school needs. Banks have come forward to help, too. Similarly, school managements have helped me. It is 18 months since I started the company and the turnover is Rs. 35 lakhs, but the saving has been negligible.
I am confident that I can take it forward. I have started making profits. Two months ago, we got our balance sheet done and found that we had made a profit of Rs. 5 lakhs.
Until we get substantial profits, we will not put it in charity. I want to plough back the profits in the business. I started with eight schools and now have 37 schools and I am approaching more schools. We start our marketing now and the marketing team is seven strong. During March, I employ about 35 to 40 college students on a temporary basis.
Even when I go to JGI, they treat me like any other marketing guy as Mr. Jain believes that we should not get complacent with orders from JGI.
Next year, Sir has set a target of Rs. 5 crores and I believe it is possible once the networking is good and the service excellent.
In January, I will be doing some recruitment and we will require 75 to 80 students to work on a temporary basis.
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Rajesh
I WAS working as an account executive for Euro RSCG, an advertising firm. I was handling the JGI account and I used to have interaction with Mr. Chenraj Jain. It was then the seed of entrepreneurship was sown. It was Sir (Mr. Jain) who motivated me. And when there is a big group backing you, the fear is taken out of you and all you have to do is work.
I thought of corporate support services. We started working on a software. It became a reality last year, it is called Blueman Services.
We have a vision of growing big. We were not given any Jain group sites as Mr. Jain believed that we had to fight for our share in the market. It was perseverance that got us big clients such as Salarpuria, Mantri etc. We started with an investment of Rs. 7 lakhs and now we have a turnover of Rs. 5 crores.
The profits are minimal, but we are looking at volumes. We have eight clients now and to keep pace with the growth, we have built the CRM (customer relationship management) and online system of redressal of issues. There is a huge competition in this business.
Our business has a strong foundation as we believe in ethical practices and it is based on the vision shared by our chairman. If I look back, had I not interacted with Mr. Jain, I would have been working somewhere. It has been beneficial being an entrepreneur and I have the satisfaction of providing employment to 150 people. It is a wonderful feeling having started the company.
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Jyothi Jain
I studied in Mount Carmel and joined MATS. I realised that I had wasted a lot of time during my degree days. And when I met Mr. Jain, he guided me and told me that I could do something worthwhile. The idea of becoming an entrepreneur struck when one of my friends was renovating their house. I wanted to bring in aesthetics in house construction and with a lot of horizontal and vertical expansion taking place, the opportunities were plenty. After graduation, I would have been married or would have got into a job, but with Sir egging me on to take to business, it has been challenging and exciting. We took up distributorship of Century veneers. We started backward integration and we see ourselves scaling new heights. Starting two years ago, we had a turnover of Rs. 4 crores in the first year itself, though it was tough meeting architects, dealers, etc. Sheetal Interiors started with an investment of Rs. 5 lakhs made by Mr. Jain and my contribution financially has been zero. Finance, I believe is secondary, you should have the drive to do something. Finance falls in place.
Now we are a team of almost 15 and plan to expand soon as we are spread out in Karnataka. We are both into retailing and B2B, being the sole distributors for Century products.
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Manisha Jain
Manisha Jain: I always had the feeling of creating something new. With infrastructure growing in Bangalore, I realised that I should be in this field. When I joined MATS, I thought about entrepreneurship. I was keen on construction industry and so I interned at Sobha Developers and found that most of them were marketing guys and not many had entrepreneurial skills. When I spoke to Mr. Jain, he asked me to start an organisation of my own with backward integration. We are now in that process but as my studies are going on, I will have to wait.
Bhawana Tamang
Bhawana Tamang: We have a school back home, but the way Mr. Jain is running the schools has inspired me. I am planning to bring in the same kind of concept here. We have a kindergarten there, but I want to start one over here.
Girish
Girish: Though my father is in textile business, I had no idea of what entrepreneurship was all about. I approached the Chairman and he told me about the textile business. I want to set up handloom and powerloom plants in my native place, to offset transportation costs. I am from Andhra Pradesh, but we source material from Tamil Nadu. I am keen on becoming an entrepreneur.
Punit Solanki
Punit Solanki: My brother who passed out of MATS started Petal Shades, retailing artificial flowers. He was incubated here and I find the concept very encouraging.
I will also take to entrepreneurship, once my course is complete. There is no compromise on education whatsoever.
Photos: K. Murali Kumar
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