Champakraj Gurjar: Why Honesty Matters

What one can learn from Champakraj Gurjar, director, MAXTONE Elec-tronics, is how to realize ones dreams. A commerce graduate from Mumbai University, Gurjar had nurtured a dream to be a successful businessman from childhood. For Gurjar, success does not mean setting up large and successful business empires. The word ‘success', perhaps, has more meaning to it.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

Striving for perfection and delivering quality service is what keeps this successful entre­preneur going. Increasing revenue figures or aiming for higher turnovers is not the only priority for Gurjar. On the contrary, work is a means of setting up a precedent for others and improving on his shortfalls. Thus, his customers have always received services that they were looking for. Gurjar, in turn, derived satisfaction from the services offered by his company. Born and brought up in Mumbai, Gurjar had decided in his teens that he wanted to be in the IT domain. In spite of his father's jewelry business, he opted to foray into the technology domain. Gurjar began his profe­ssional career in 1984 by importing TVs, washing machines and VCRs in the name of Gurjar Electronics. "I was never inclined towards my father's business and thus, started my venture. We used to import PC components and motherboards. Realizing that we couldn't import the entire VCR, we used to import its parts which helped us in deriving knowledge of all the components. Slowly we shifted to motherboards and we had add-ons like VGA cards in 1987," points out Gurjar. This start gave Gurjar the knowledge of the complete IT solutions which continues to rule his field of business now as well.

THE BIRTH OF A COMPANY

MAXTONE, founded in 1985 has brands-HIS & MAXFORCE in the market for PCs, mother­boards, graphic cards, and add-on cards which have created a niche in the IT business all over the Asia Pacific region. MAXTONE has been a loyalist to Microsoft for the last 2 years. Due to its strong and trustworthy channel partners across the country, the company has made a mark in the IT business in India. MAXTONE strives to offer its customers the best value and service. It has products which have caught the imagination of customers and lived up to the performance standards that the market demands. Beginning with a mere set of 10-15 partners, the company has now more than

400 partners. It has had a strong partnership with Intel since 1994 and Sony VAIO since 2008. They have also recently tied up with NEC monitors. The company is cited as the the #1 player in the Intel processor and motherboard business. MAXTONE also distributes DFI's products in India.

In order to grab the eyeballs of customers around the world, MAXTONE recently launched a unique keyboard, which does the work of a CPU and can be directly connected to the monitor. "We are happy to launch MAXTONE KPC-HD keyboard PC, which is a portable machine and works as a CPU as

well. It comes with a powerful HD 1080P experience and high 3D games performance. This keyboard completes the features of a

CPU and the memory is upgraded to 2GB and hard disk memory up to 320GB. Weighing 0.91Kg, it costs Rs 12,490 and doesn't make a hole in the consumers' pocket. It supports Windows XP, Vista 7, and Linux and has high-definition audio with two in-built speakers," says Gurjar.

CHALLENGES

Talking about the challenges, Gurjar said, "The road to success is never smooth. The biggest challenge is to have the right kind of people and money at the right time. Luckily, we have had all the resources at the right time." Elaborating about the future plans, Gurjar said that expansion is on the cards. "A changing market scenario requires new strategies. Some day, communication, IT and consumer elec­tronics will merge and will be known as a single category. We intend to add more gears to our existing categories. We are also planning to enter into the communication and security space. PC business will never die, even though new technologies are making their mark in the market. Today, people still prefer to work on a desktop. New products will take time to dwell in sectors like education, government, and SOHO," adds Gurjar.

ENGAGEMENTS

Apart from MAXTONE, Gurjar is equally involved with TAIT (Traders Association of Information Technology) and has been its member since its inception. TAIT was founded in March, 1996 to represent the interests of the computer industry in Mumbai. Today, it represents over 300 IT companies comprising distributors, resellers, system integrators, software and networking companies. "We make sure to solve the problems of our members as and when required," says Gurjar.

SUCcESs MANTRA

He has ambitious plans for the company. He is not interested just in building up volumes but would rather perform the right way to do business and grow rapidly. He is also coming up with 3 major products under his own brand. Sharing his mantra, Gurjar says, "Honesty is the best policy by which one can achieve growth even in the time of slowdown." For Gurjar, his family, team members and friends have played a major role in his life to achieve this successful business role.