Bharat Entrepreneurs

Can you imagine a man with absolutely no money whatsoever going on to establish an empire worth over $525 million?

Well that is exactly what Mr. Raunaq Singh did. This is the true story of a man who came to India as a refugee after the Partition of India and started selling steel tubes, first on a bicycle and later from a small shop in Kolkata. Mr. Singh was an industrialist who took an early lead and built an empire from scratch.

That was a time when he could afford only a single paise a day for his meals, yet 40 years later he would go on to employ over 9,000 candidates directly and another 20,000 indirectly.

Mr. Raunaq Singh laid the foundation of his tyre manufacturing empire about 40 years ago and set the stage for India to become a major tyre producer. As a doyen of the business community in northern India as well as due to his expertise in the automotive sector, the Government decided to appoint him as the first chairman of Maruti Limited. He has also held senior positions in the Exim Bank, Export Credit Guarantee Corporation and the Indo-German Consultative Group.

Raunaq Singh’s corporate journey from Lahore to New Delhi, first as a steel tube merchant, then as a steel tubes manufacturer and finally as the founder of Apollo Tyres, has been the stuff of corporate folklore.

He started his corporate journey without a pedigree, higher education or money, essential ingredients for success in corporate India, making it possible for ordinary folks to dream big. He was among the first post-partition breed of businessmen who came to India after the creation of Pakistan with nothing to fall on.

Born on August 16,1922, at Daska in Pakistan, Raunaq Singh learnt the elementary lessons of business skills while being employed as a salesman of a steel pipes merchant in Lahore earning Rs 8 a month — a princely amount in those times. The seeds of entrepreneurship were planted when Raunaq Singh cashed in on an opportunity thrown up by the dearth of waterpipes in the areas around Lahore. The profits he, thus , earned were ploughed back in the form of setting up his own business in steel pipes.

ACHIEVEMENTS:

• He was president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), Punjab and Haryana Chamber, Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association and the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO).
• He was chairman of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, Engineering Export Promotion Council and various joint business councils.
• He was also a member of the executive board of the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce for three years.
• The Apollo group of companies includes Bharat Gears, Raunaq International, Raunaq Automotive Components and Menarini Raunaq Pharma and has over 9,000 employees.

His son Kanwar Onkar Singh took over as the chairman of the Apollo Tyres when Mr. Raunaq Singh became chairman emeritus of the group.

Raunaq Singh died on September 30, 2002.

On that day, India lost a charismatic first generation entrepreneur.

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” When I thought of starting a company, I felt India needed 100 people like Narayana Murthy and Ambani. If 100 such people support 2 lakh people each, imagine how many Indians get supported. Entrepreneurship is needed to uplift the poor. It is not easy to be an entrepreneur, especially a first generation entrepreneur. There will be lots of challenges in the beginning but you should learn to look for the light at the end of the tunnel. Never give up even if there are hurdles. There are many who give up within a week. You need determination and a tough mind to cross the initial hurdles.” E.Sarathbabu

E. SarathBabu is not the typical IIM Ahmedabad student you read about in the newspapers. He did not take the easy path to earn mega bucks in spite of being offered plum jobs from top companies. Instead he chose, like a true entrepreneur, to carve out his own path to success. So he started FOODKING.

His mother worked as an ayah in an Anganvadi to educate him and his siblings. Later he went on to complete his higher education in the prestigious BITS Pilani and IIM Ahmedabad.

In the beginning, he took a loan of Rs 20 lakh and started Foodking in August 2006. Initially the losses were poised at Rs 2000 a day. The cafeteria’s he set up initially did not work according to plan and he soon came to the conviction that only by selling in large volumes that any profit could be made.

In 2006 IIM A alumni meet, he hoped to bag a contract but could not.

In march 2007 he got an offer to start a unit at BITS, Pilani. This contract proved profitable. Spurred with this initial profit and with the money that he borrowed from his IIM A friends, he wanted to move ahead. He got BITS Goa contract which was to be his biggest break. He had to cater to over 1300 students and the sales peaked at 65,000 Rs per day.

Then he got an opportunity to serve at SRM deemed college which boasts of over 17,000 students!

Right now he has a turn around of Rs 3.5 crore per annum. By next year he hope to increase it to Rs 20 crores.

At present he has BITS hyderabad in his hands and it all set to be operational by July 2008. So the future does look rosy to this Foodking.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/aug/31spec.htm

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