| Maximum Power Maximum Power
His company is the first pit stop for any vendor who wants to make
inroads in the northern market, however success was not always a smooth sailing
for Rajesh Agarwal. But it has made him a stronger person
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Power: The ability to drive a hard bargain and get
things done on one's terms |
Way back in 1990 when Rajesh Agarwal got married to Anju, the future looked
uncertain to him as he had just quit his job with Ocean Computers to start his
own venture. Fortunately for him, Anju gave him complete support and in 1991
Micromax Technologies was born with less than Rs 1 lakh in terms of funding. The
name Micromax came from 'micro to maximum products', something that Agarwal
wanted to achieve.
However, the start for Micromax was far from smooth. In the initial years,
Agarwal lost lot of money when he was doing system integration and assembling of
IT products. The biggest loss came from supplying to a customer in Dharamshala
who never paid up. But the signing up with TVS-E in 1994 was the turning point
for him. This was followed with an alliance with HP a year later.
A spike after a flat
Sometime back, Agarwal took a conscious decision to exit from brands where
margins where negligible. In addition, he decided that henceforth Micromax would
not play second fiddle to other distis. As a result, in the last two years,
Micromax showed flat growth. However, having done the hard work, March 2007
should see the company close the financial year with Rs 100 crore revenue as
com-pared to Rs 75 crore in 2005-06.
Apart from the IT distribution business, Agarwal also runs another company
Micromax Informatics, which supplies fixed wireless terminals as well as fixed
wireless phones to the three leading GSM service providers in Delhi-Airtel,
Hutch and Idea. Started in the year 2000, this company clocked Rs 34 crore in
revenue during 2005-06.
Overall, the 42-year old Agarwal today runs an Rs 200 crore powerhouse, which
he hopes to grow consistently for the next couple of years. In this endeavor
Anju, who is also a director in the company and spends time in office everyday,
assists him. Next Page : Destiny's Child Page(s) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
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