Ketan Patel: A true gentleman

Gearing up his career

A complete ‘aamchi Mumbaikar' at heart, Ketan Patel, CEO of Creative Peripherals & Distributions, would have been practicing medicine today if destiny had not chosen any plan for him. Failed to get an admission in a Medical college and compelled to take up engineering, today Patel is one of the leading IT re-distributors in the country.

After completing his education from IIM Bengaluru in 1989, Patel's first job was with Xpress Computers as a service engineer, after which, he worked with HS Computers for a year, assembling PCs. "Chetan Shah, the owner of Xpress Computers was a very good friend of my brother and I decided to start my career from his company. Customers mostly bought assembled PC's in those days as there were very few PC brands. The components market was highly unorganized and there was no proper warranty available. Hence providing post-sales services was lucrative," recalls Patel.

Starting off with Xpress Computers in 1989, Patel secretly nurtured a dream of being an entrepreneur. From a small rented office in Lamington Road, Patel started Creative Peripherals & Distributions (CPD) in 1992 providing post-sales support services.

The sweet taste of success

In 1997, Patel decided to expand the business and move to sub-distribution, partnering with Epson.

It signed up with Microsoft for distributing their products in Mumbai and Gujarat, which Patel regards as one of the milestones achieved in his life for CPD in 2000. "We felt that there wasn't any value addition to the product that we sold and I didn't want to be a typical box pusher. I wanted to get into IT. Thus we took up Microsoft distribution in 2000 and we dropped the products we were trading.

Roadblocks

Unable to make any large profit with the Microsoft hardware business, as India operation wasn't interested in the hardware business because it was small in terms of revenue, Patel noticed that large distributors were not interested in distributing the rand, as the pricing was really high. To overcome this hurdle, Patel decided to concentrate on the small and new resellers to sell Microsoft products. By taking this step, CPD became one of the the first re-distributors, to have realized the potential of small cities and build a strong network in them. "We are really proud to say that the hard work we put in initially to develop new markets and channels, has really paid off well," added Patel.

Wanting to create name and value for him in the western market it was clear that Patel wanted to remain focused and elusive. "Regional distribution model worked well in our favor and western market became the centric distribution for us. Also we have always maintained exclusivity in terms of our vendors. We also took up the AOC mobiles in 2010," said Patel. Today, the distributor has a diverse product range consisting of monitors, hardwares, memories and printers and is associated with brands like Microsoft, AOC, Twinmos and others.

"Our valuable service has helped us to gain over 500 SOHO, SME and corporate customers who have complete faith in our capabilities. Our list of corporate clients speaks for itself," proudly avers Patel.

But Patel also admits that the biggest challenge he faced was to revise himself from a trading mindset to a distribution mindset. This requires a lot of work such as increasing the market size, the brands, to get people upgraded, to skills for distribution and to make them think in their way.

Post the election for the period of 2009-10, held in September, Mumbai-based Trade Association of Information Technology (TAIT) announced Patel as their President.

The TAIT effect

"My role as a president with TAIT was really satisfying. The biggest thing I learned in this part was to be clear in our communication, reaching out to people is not that easy as it shows and having lots of patience. The members were very supportive and I can rate my satisfaction level at 9.5 out of 10," said Patel.

The future holds bright

CPD's focused business strategy has translated into exponential growth all these years. From a turnover of Rs 13 crore in FY'02-03, the company closed FY'09-10 at Rs 120 crore and aims to cross the 240 crore mark in the coming FY.

"Partnership with AOC has indeed helped us in achieving the profits and is going great for the LCD monitors. Last year we also began pushing their TVs and this has contributed significantly to reach the topline," added Patel.

Bapuji: Role model

Talking about the inspiration that Patel has found all these years, he considers Mahatma Gandhi as his role model.

"Mahatma Gandhi was an incredible individual. His non-violence policy affects every sphere of our life. The whole world needs to learn a lot from him. I personally believe that a good role model should have certain qualities, and he should have a good personality, be humble, be respectable and be ambitious in his life. I have always followed his thought, 'Find the purpose, the means will follow'," concluded Patel.