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.