| The Weary Traveler The Weary Traveler
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Power: The ability to decide the right time for the
right action |
Last year, Anil Mhaske paid Rs 68 lakh in income tax. And this year too, he
will pay what he legitimately owes the government rather than duck under some
tax saving schemes. He says that for someone who plunged into business with
absolutely nothing in his pocket, he is more than grateful for what he has
earned over the years and wants to repay society its due. And why not? Datacare
Corporation, a sub-distribution house, concentrating solely in Maharashtra,
raked in Rs 125 crore in revenues in 2005-06. This is a long way from the Rs 4
crore revenue it garnered in 1994-95, the year it started its operations.
Mhaske still lives a frugal life and claims that his monthly expenses can be
managed under Rs 40,000. His only luxury has been a Chevrolet Optra, which he
had to buy to keep up appearances.
Humble beginnings
After graduating and completing his MBA in business management in 1992, Mhaske
worked as a computer programmer for Grameen Junta Co-Op Bank for a year. Around
this time, he got an order worth Rs 1 lakh from the Kirloskar Company for
supplying peripherals. Mhaske's father, a bank official, was unable to invest
in his son's business plans and that is when an army man volunteered to do so.
Thus, Datacare Computers was born and Mhaske got another order from the Army
Training Battalion Group for training their personnel in FoxPro and other
software applications. Slowly, Mhaske kept adding educational institutions to
his kitty and today he operates out of an 11,000 sq ft office and has 200
employees on his payroll.
Over the past decade, Mhaske suffered several losses. But the most
significant one was when a dealer who owed him over Rs 35 lakh committed
suicide. This incident made his realize the importance of having a strict credit
control policy. And that is precisely what Mhaske does in Datacare today. He
manages the credit offered to customers and other financial issues, having
delegated other assignments to his team of trusted employees.
Standing apart
Mhaske believes that his success can be attributed to his unstinting support to
his vendors. He never takes on targets that he might not be able to fulfill and
neither does he pressurize his dealers to achieve sales beyond their capacity.
Often he gives over the counter replacement rather than wait for the vendor to
send in the replacement. This is the reason he has a network of over 3,000
dealers in Maharashtra alone.
Currently, Mhaske has deployed SAP in Datacare so that he can monitor which
are the brisk business areas that he needs to focus on strongly. His eyes are
set on a revenue target of Rs 1,000 crore in the next five years and he wants to
go national as well. Next Page : Self-made Guru Page(s) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
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