Bharat Entrepreneurs

The fundamental axiom for success in any business endeavor is the mantra, ” Find a need and Fill it!”. This was exactly what Brian Scudamore did. In countries like Canada and the United States where labor is hard to find, it becomes cumbersome to remove all the junk that gets accumulated in the house over a span of years. And this is where Brian Scudamore stepped in. He wanted to make money removing JUNK!

In 1989, while Brian was a student in the University of British Columbia in Canada, he started with just one truck  the junk hauling business named the Rubbish Boys. He started this as a means to pay his way through the college. Half way through the college, he decided to call it quits and focus soley on his junk hauling business. His father who was a liver transplant surgeon wasn’t particularly impressed with Brian’s career choice. But Brian trusted his guts and that proved to be correct.

After continuing this way for the next few years, Brian wanted to grow his business through out cities in Canada and also throughout the United States. The solution to him seemed to start a franchise and so he started franchising his business. In 1998 the company’s operating name was changed to 1800-GOT-JUNK? This easy to remember brandable name soon generated profits for his company.

In fact,  1800-GOT-JUNK? is one of the fastest growing franchises and it was also named the best employer in Canada. Brian was featured in Oprah Winfrey Show and is currently a well respected entrepreneur in the media as well as the business community. He frequently tours and lectures to students of business school giving advice on how to run a successful business.

Scudamore was named entrepreneur of year by IFA International Franchise Association 2008. At present there are well over 200 franchises throughout the US and Canada.

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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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