Living Up To Commitments

As he knew the

future was in B- and C- class cities. This foresight and commitment has put him

at the helm of affairs of sales for the biggest IT distribution company of

India.

With a clear focus on fulfilling his commitments, SP Rajguru has created a

special place for himself within the IT hardware community as far as

distribution business goes. Born in the holy city of Puri in 1956, he came to

Delhi with his father when he was a kid. It was his father's courage to move

out of a small place like Puri, which saw Rajguru excel in his studies and

perform well.

After having completed his schooling from Mother International School in

Delhi in 1972, Rajguru was already known as a 'studious' person. He

completed his graduation in Commerce from Sri Ram College of commerce, Delhi

University in 1975.

Stepping into the professional world



As he was good in studies Rajguru was picked up by the Shriram Group from

the campus itself, which did not evoke much surprise among his family. "I

was doing pretty well as a student and that prompted the Group to offer me the

post of a trainee in Delhi. I saw this as a good opportunity and worked with

them for five years," remembers Rajguru.

SP Rajguru Director, Sales Ingram Micro “When you are driving a business, people working under you are your responsibility. Therefore I saw that my employees were well placed in other companies when Unicorp was going through a tough time”

After having worked with the Shriram Group for about five years in different

job roles from HR to commercial, Rajguru joined the Sogani Group of Companies

and started Unicorp Computers. It was a time when not many PC brands were

visible in India and selling computers was considered as a major challenge.

"I single handedly started that corporation and created Unicorp

distribution and systems integration business right from the scratch. That's

how I got into the distribution game. This job gave me a lot of personal lessons

and good experiences," he adds.

The global headquarters of Ingram was eyeing India quite keenly in 1998. It

was looking at some quick acquisition around this time and Sogani was one of the

companies it enveloped into its fold.

"There was a point in time when Ingram did consider buying Unicorp but

things didn't work out. We at Unicorp were not having a good time because of

our promoters diverting money into non-PC businesses. Keeping all this in mind,

I spoke to our promoters. Then, about 25 people from Unicorp moved out

simultaneously and we created Ingram Micro in India," he added.

Overcoming challenges effortlessly



As challenges are a part and parcel of anyone's life, Rajguru was no

exception. He too faced a lot of challenges while moving ahead with life at the

professional level. "When you are driving a business, people working under

you are your responsibility. I have always considered people working under me as

my children. So, when we were having a bad time at Unicorp, it was a challenge

for me to make sure that my team was well placed in other companies,"

Rajguru explains.

Bravely facing this challenge to place his team well, once at Ingram, Rajguru

tried his best to take as many people as possible for the company. "It was

a phase that we went through, but now I don't have any regrets. I am happy to

say that all my team members are well placed now and are working at key

positions in multi-nationals over here," he proudly adds.

Another challenge faced by him was to convince Ingram's US-based team in

1998 to open up branches even at the upcountry level. "Today, everybody

talks about the capability of upcountry markets. I started talking about this

way back in 1998—99.

Then we had a lot of resistance from our US-based team and they wanted to

know why we were so keen on opening up 30 branches in India. I knew that

saturation in metros will happen soon and consequently growth in B- and C- class

cities will be more," he remembers.

Targeting upcountry profitable



Incidentally, over the years, this kind of in-depth reach became one of the

biggest strengths for Ingram. As different vendors from segments like mobiles to

PCs looked for expanding market presence, they found a good distribution partner

in the form of Ingram.

"All this makes me feel happy. My aim is to contribute to the IT

hardware fraternity in whatever way that I can. Moving forward, we would always

be looking at ways to add value to distribution, to the second tier and value to

the overall supply chain, so that we do not become redundant. This is our

goal," he explains.

Apart from being passionate about heading the sales team at Ingram, Rajguru

enjoys being with nature equally. He also likes traveling with his wife and

listening to light classical music and keeps fit by playing badminton and

watches cricket and tennis.