In pursuit of passion and inspiration

Selvaraj
Manoharan was born in Madurai in 1967. Being the eldest of five
siblings in the family gave him an opportunity to explore his dreams.
He studied in VMJ School and did Engineering in computers at National
Engineering College. After studies he started his business in IT
sales and services under the brand name of PC WORLD. He got married
in 1995 and has 2 daughters.

Before
enrolling for the engineering course, Manoharan read an article by
erstwhile Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on computers, wherein he
mentioned that computers would be the future growth in India, and
this inspired and motivated him to take Computer Science as a field
of study in engineering. “During my course of study I aimed to
start a business but during those days, in 1989, Indian IT was in a
miserable condition. I was very sure, that none from my batch will
get any white collar job, because there were no big IT companies in
India other than HCL and WIPRO,” said Manoharan. Therefore
Manoharan thought of starting a business of his own. He envisioned
the opportunity and growth, and started business in computers with
his school mate and now his partner O Arunachalam.

Arunachalam
used to worked as a service engineer in a Chennai-based
company-Pragathi Computers. Manoharan divided the responsibilities
and he took up sales and Arunachalam with his expertise handled
services. “Initially the company's focus was onlyon services and
selling spares like printers and hard disks, but today the company is
into retail, sub-distribution, solution providing etc,” snapped
Manoharan while talking about his growth.

CHALLENGES
AND
SURVIVALS

“I faced a
lot of challenges in my career. During the initial stages, only a few
companies or customers gave opportunities to service their computers.
I attribute this to the high cost of PCs at that point of time, which
use to cost nearly Rs 1.5 lakh. At that point, systems were serviced
through suppliers only or under annual maintenance contract (AMC),”
said Manoharan.

But one fine
day, a customer named Thamane, GM, Fenner India visited their place
and asked them to service his computers at his office. Manoharan saw
a silver lining and agreed to do the servicing. “While servicing we
found that the mouse was not working and we rectified the problem by
soldering it,” said Manoharan with a memoir of their steeping stone
of success. The entire staff in the department was very happy and
they asked them to raise the invoice. Manoharan and Co demanded Rs
200. “We said it was a wire cut and did soldering. But Thamane
questioned the worth of the cost. I just replied, it was just Rs 150.
Thamane laughed at us and said that money was not a problem. It would
have costed Thamne more than what we charged. Owing to the factor
that service providers were scant they would have called their
supplier from Chennai and paid to-and-fro flight expenses the entire
bill would have come around 100 times more than ours,” added
Manoharan.

Thamane
realized the potential of the work done and took Manoharan and
Arunachalam to the VP of the company and praised their work. “Since
then Fenner has been my corporate client,” boasts Manoharan.

Slowly they
built their space in Madurai but later realized that service alone
will not help them grow. Then they ventured into dealership and took
dealership for Siva Computers. Manoharan credits this move as their
change in career. “Siva Computers sold like hot cakes and we took
most of the customers including corporates. We use to get minimum 10%
margin before the Siva dealership but after entering into the Siva
dealership, we got a much higher interest.

Infact the
margin was so high that we could even purchase a car in 8 months'
time,” said Manoharan. Then they thought of taking up peripherals
business and took TVS-E company as a distributor. As most of TVS-Es
were in Madurai, it gave them a good entry price for reaching the
corporate space. In 1997, when MNCs were open to Indian market, the
entire scenario changed. Siva came down and MNCs like HP and IBM
emerged. Assembled PCs also captured the market. “We have to change
along with the transformation. Thanks to the Internet, we had a huge
market and entered into retail space in 2001. Gradually we realized
its marketing potential and tracked its strategy. We created our own
brand, POWER PC,” said Manoharan.

SUCCESS
MANTRA

“My major
achievement is that I build the brand PC WORLD in the market and we
are the only dealers to have a good customer base. I got several
awards from The DQ Week, TVS-E, and HP amongst others. I have built
our credibility and am committed to work,” said Manoharan. He
strongly believe that customers bring customers. “I have an
exclusive service setup and implemented our own CRM package that
monitors customers to retain with us for a longer period,” added
Manoharan.

ADVICE TO
YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS

“Market is
young and more innovative products are going to come. The new young
players have definitely good scope provided they keep up their
commitment to customers and be a good pay master to the suppliers.
They should transform with new methodologies; and everything will
come to their door steps,” concluded Manoharan.