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GEMINI COMMUNICATION: “We want to create owners than wealth”

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DQC Bureau
New Update

Ramkumar, CEO, Gemini Communication believes in the mantra 'Failure is a

stepping stone to success'. Gemini was his father's dream and he left no

stone unturned to fulfill this dream. Ramkumar's main focus now is to achieve

two things mainly-positioning Gemini Communication as a product company in the

global arena and creating several leaders within the organization who can drive

and make Gemini a business conglomerate.

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The company recently acquired US-based PointRed Technologies, to get into

broadband wireless and venture into the global market. In another development,

the company claims to have created world-class products in the RFID space in

which the company has been involved since 2001. It is all set to inaugurate Rs

25 crore RFID tag manufacturing facility at Sriperumbudur SEZ, in the next

couple of weeks, which Ramkumar claims will be the first such project in South

Asia. Meanwhile, Gemini is ramping-up its business in the existing space and has

won some prestigious orders from a few state governments. It is also investing

on SNOC (Security and Network Operating Center) to get into remote

infrastructure management services and has joined hands with Sanat Technologies,

an Intel associate company, to roll out NAS and SAN solutions, mainly for SMB

markets.

PROFILE
CEO: R Ramkumar



Academics: BE in Computer Science (Venkateswara Engineering
College)



Interest: Sports, skits, mimicry


Business Focus: System integration, network integration, product
development, and infrastructure services



Address: #1, Dr Ranga Road, Alwarpet, Chennai — 600018


Tel: 044-24996422


Website: www.gcl.in




“With so many developments happening, we are looking at creating several

owners within the organization to run the various businesses,” explained

Ramkumar about his vision for the company in the next five years. He added, “We

get satisfaction only when we create world-class products and leaders, who can

take Gemini name beyond the horizons. Mere numbers (turnover targets) are not

our aspiration.”

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Today, Gemini Communica­tion has got about 30 key people in the

organization, who are driving the business at various levels. “Gemini has

shaped them to be leaders and we want to create 300 such owners within the

organization. We never believe in the American system of management-the hire

and fire mode. We are emotionally engaged people.”

Like some of the leading companies, Gemini's story also started in a

garage. Ramkumar's father R Ramamurthy started Gemini Hi-Tech computer company

in 1991 to deal with monitors. He quit Sterling Computers to start his own

business, while Ramkumar joined him as soon as he passed out of the college. “My

father's friend was into manufacturing monitors, as a sub-contractor to HCL.

So, they decided to get into business on their own and we tied-up with them as a

marketing partner. However, within two months, they quit from manufacturing and

we were pushed to take up their entire engineering team and continue with

manufacturing on our own,” said Ramkumar. Gemini started with an initial

investment of just Rs 65,000.

From a small outfit, Gemini became a popular company by 1995 with a turnover

of Rs 18 lakh. However, things did not go well from thereon as the government

policies changed and hardware manufacturing did not get any boost from them. “India's

manufacturing business went through a rough patch and because of global

competition, many local brands died out. We clearly envisaged the situation and

diversified our business from monitor manufacturing to networking services. Thus

was born Gemini Communication Ltd in 1995,” he reminisces.

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Ramkumar came to the helm of the business as he is a computer science

graduate and his brother Vijaykumar joined him, with a strong financial

background. Gemini launched its operations as a public listed company and raised

a capital of Rs 1.8 crore from the open market. “We brought in our own

investment of Rs 1.5 crore, while Rs 70 lakh was raised through private

placements. Overall, we had Rs 4 crore for the project,” informed Ramkumar.

Gemini tied-up with the brands like Motorola, Lucent, Intel, 3Com and Pcom,

as their resellers.

Being a cash-rich company, it went on an expansion spree by opening offices

across the country. “Soon, we bit the dust as we expanded business without

fundamentals. By 1997, we closed our branch offices and gave up monitor

manufacturing business and for the next two years, we slogged out to prove

ourselves. Things started to change from 1999 and in 2000, Gemini resurrected

and again started with its expansion program, but now with a more matured

business model. From thereon, there has been no stopping for us,” claimed

Ramkumar.

The company, which registered a turnover of only Rs 4 crore in 1998, is today

standing strong with Rs 138 crore revenue in 2005-06. Gemini offers wide range

of services from simple LAN to high-end wireless broadband services, being both

a system and network integrator. Now, it is waiting for a big-leap in business

with own product launches and global expansion program.

S Gopikrishna

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