Trusting Triumvirate

They were together during childhood. They went to school hand-in-hand. Now
they are together in business too. Mumbai-based Jiten Mehta, Deepak Jhaveri and
Nilesh Kadakia of Magnamious Systems Pvt Ltd have been doing business together
for the last 12 years in mutual trust and transparency.

The other reason for their togetherness is that they never cross each other's
boundary. Jiten concentrates on marketing, while Deepak provides service and
support. And Nilesh's job is to run the show as in-charge of administration and
accounts.

The triumvirate is proud of the fact that Magnamious has brought in maximum
business for Wipro in Mumbai during the last two years. However, it was in Goa
that they first took up the Wipro dealership. Looking at their success in Goa,
Wipro did not hesitate to give the dealership to the three in Mumbai as well.

Besides Wipro, Magnamious has also tied up with Cisco, Citrix, Symantec,
D-Link, Wipro ePeripherals and Microsoft, in an effort to provide comprehensive
solutions to clients. These tie-ups have enabled Magnamious to offer a wide
basket of products and services to its customers.

Corporate clientele

The primary clientele of Magnamious are corporates which bring in 70 percent
of the business. "We are in the business of systems and network
integration," says Jiten. Thus, the focus has been on large enterprises,
especially the MNCs including Voltas, Eureka Forbes and Kodak.

Majority of the Magnamious clients come from the manufacturing segment where
the triumvirate has tried to specialize with its cutting-edge solutions. With
their engineering background, the threesome have proved themselves successful in
understanding the IT needs of manufacturers and developing a strong base there.

The remaining 30 percent of the business comes from the SOHO segment.
"We do see a lot of potential in the home segment. But the level of service
that this segment expects is difficult to fulfill by any one," points out
Deepak.

So, there are no immediate plans to focus on the home segment in a big way.
Instead, Magnamious would like to consolidate itself among its corporate clients
and look for repeat orders.

Service as backbone

Magnamious has made service as the backbone of its operations with 33
engineers on its rolls. In fact, the triumvirate started off with third-party
maintenance and assembling of computers with a company called Hi-Eff in 1989.

In 1994, when they bagged the Wipro dealership in Goa, they changed the name
of the company to Magnamious and moved up the value chain to provide systems and
network solutions to corporates.

After the initial heady 100 pecent year-to-year growth,
Magnamious is currently growing at a pace of 30-40 percent.

"Turnover was never a priority for us," says Nilesh,
"We strive hard to maintain a healthy bottomline."

Perhaps, the turnover may have been much bigger if Magnamious
had concentrated on marketing right from the beginning which was not the case.
The stress was always on service. However, currently marketing is also being
stressed to bring in new corporate clients.

Just like every one else, this trio at Magnamious too has
felt the impact of the market slowdown on their business and growth would be
minimal during this financial year. The consensus is that if the company can
achieve last year's turnover, that would be an achievement in itself.

A DQCI Report