the fastest growing mid-sized companies in india

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5th Annual Ranking The Magazine for Growing Companies THE FASTEST GROWING MID-SIZED COMPANIES IN INDIA A 9.9 Media Publication | inc.com Facebook.com/Inc @inc SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 | 150 | Volume 04 | Issue 09 2013 SPECIAL DOUBLE ISSUE

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Inc India September/October 2013 Vol 04 Issue 09

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Page 1: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

5th Annual Ranking

The MA

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The Magazine for Growing Companies

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THE FASTESTGROWING

MID-SIZEDCOMPANIES

IN INDIAA 9.9 Media Publication | inc.com Facebook.com/Inc @incSEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 | 150 | Volume 04 | Issue 09

2013SPECIALDOUBLE

ISSUE

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2 | INC. | september/october 2013

Cover design by PeTerson PJ.

this edition of inc. magazine is published under license from mansueto Ventures LLc, new York, new York. editorial items appearing on pages 8,18, 28-33 were all originally published in the United states edition of inc. magazine and are the copyright property of mansueto Ventures, LLc, which reserves all rights. copyright © 2009 and 2010 mansueto Ventures, LLc. the following are trademarks of mansueto Ventures, LLc: inc., inc. 500.

Fortune Swinger How Orient Bell’s Madhur Daga, No. 134 on

the list, made his company a pan-India player overnight. Read his story on page 70.

34THe 5TH

ANNuAl INc. INDIA 500Presenting India’s fastest growing mid-sized companies

3THe clAss Of 2013 The complete list

5HAll Of fAMe A quick glance at the winners of the past and the present lists, and how our ranking methodology has evolved over the years

62By THe NuMBeRs some insights into the Inc. India 500 companies using revenue categories

64TOP 10 cITIes A look at the cities where most Inc. India 500 companies are based

66TOP 5 secTORs Delving deep into the top 5 sectors of the Inc. India 500 and the companies that make them that

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september/October 2013contentS

THe TOP 10A closer look at our top of the heap. Here are the 10 fastest-growing companies among the Inc. India 500.

48 The Other Iron ManPuneet Arya, Arya Iron & steel company

54 The Growth Chaser Prashant Puri, Adlift Marketing

wOMeN eNTRePReNeuRsThe most accomplished Inc. India 500 companies run by women

80 The Glow of Ambition Vandana luthra, Vlcc Healthcare

PeOPle AT wORk A photo portfolio of Inc. India 500 employees at their workplaces

78 KL Rathi Steels106 Bharat Serums & Vaccines

94 fAN fIcTIONwe asked some of our Inc. India 500 ceOs to tell us which fictional character they would love to go into business with, and why. Here’s who they picked.

108 OffIce quIRksAn Inc. India 500 ceO survey on office items that never fail to catch visitors’ attention

THe kIcksTARTeRscompanies that are less than 10 years old and are growing faster than the average Inc. India 500 honouree

84 A Versatile Businessman Anuj Saxena, Elder Health Care

90 the travel RangersRikant and Nishant Pitti, Easy Trip Planners

THe DePeNDABlesMeet some of the habitual winners on the list. These companies have made it to the list more than once.

96 on top of the WorldVinod Saraf, Vinati Organics

102 A Fit BusinessPrashant Talwalkar, Talwalkars Better Value Fitness

cOMPANIes we fIND excITINgOur research team’s pick of the most exciting companies on the list. Thanks to our jury, we found some great names

70 The Right SwingMadhur Daga, Orient Bell

74 The Maverick Restaurateur Amit Burman, lite Bite foods

4 | INC. | september/october 2013

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09 editor’s letter

11 Launch india and the gender global entrepreneurship and development index: not a very healthy relationship Why humans and robots should swap jobs reflections of a mentor on guiding entrepreneurs through daily business dilemmas

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28 The Priceno one said entrepreneurship was easy. but it’s time to be honest about the real psychological cost. By Jessica Bruder

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14 All Things People By Hari TNorganisational structures, by definition, appear rigid. but they don’t have to be. here’s how to find the right one for your company.

18 Get RealBy Jason Friedgetting to know—really know—your customers

20 Innovationsolving the energy crisis through this waste to energy reactor

september/october 2013

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CoNTeNTs

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23 What Makes a Brand Name Five brands. Two experts. a battle-off on what works and what doesn’t when you’re naming your brandBy Ira Swasti

6 | INC. | september/october 2013

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Contentsinc.com

inC.Com/sales and marketing

Three Reasons most Presentations FailA great product won’t go far if the sales pitch is lackluster—and most pitches are, says Inc.com columnist Geoffrey James. Here are three common mistakes to avoid.

1Too much inFoRmaTion Don’t describe every one of your products in painstaking detail. No one cares. Prospective customers want to know what your solution can mean to their lives. So try to make an emotional impact.

2The wRong PoinT oF view If your pitch consists of a story about how long you have been in business and a laundry list of clients, you’re coming at it all wrong. Instead, make a connection by taking the customer’s point of view.

3The same old, same old If you can’t articulate the difference between you and your competitors, why should a prospective customer pick you? Talk about what you do better than anyone else—and have examples to prove it.

Leading expert Dave Kerpen explains the most common content marketing mis-takes he’s observed people make. Here they are:1. They have no subscription strategy2. They fail to inspire brand evangelists.3. They still keep their content creators in silos.4. They place traditional marketers in content roles.5. They overlook internal marketing goals.6. They miss out on opportunities to partner with traditional media.

content marketing mistakes

MANAGING DIRECTOR: Dr PramaTh raj SINhaPRINTER & PublIshER: aNuraDha DaS maThur

ediToRialMANAGING EDITOR: ShreyaSI SINghAssIsTANT EDITOR: SoNal KheTarPalfEATuRE wRITER: Ira SwaSTI

ReseaRchhEAD: johN KhIaNgTe MANAGER: amaN ShuKla

designsR. CREATIvE DIRECTOR: jayaN K NarayaNaNsR. ART DIRECTOR: aNIl VKAssOCIATE ART DIRECTOR: aNIl TsR. vIsuAlIsERs: maNaV SachDeVShoKeeN SaIfI & SrISTI mauryavIsuAlIsER: NV BaIjusR. DEsIGNERs: ShIgIl NarayaNaNharIDaS BalaN & maNoj Kumar VPDEsIGNERs: charu DwIVeDI, PeTerSoN Pj PraDeeP g NaIr, DINeSh DeVgaN & VIKaS Sharma

maRcomDEsIGNER: rahul BaBu

sTudioChIEf PhOTOGRAPhER: SuBhojIT PaulsR. PhOTOGRAPhER: jITeN gaNDhI

communiTy TeamAssIsTANT PRODuCT MANAGER: rajaT guPTa

sales & maRkeTingsENIOR vICE PREsIDENT:KrIShNa Kumar (+91 98102 06034)busINEss DEvElOPMENT MANAGER: arjuN SawhNey (+91 95822 20507)sENIOR MANAGER (sOuTh): aNShu Kumar (+91 95914 55661)sENIOR MANAGER (wEsT):DeePaK PaTel (+91 98207 33448)AssIsTANT REGIONAl MANAGER (sOuTh & wEsT):rajeSh KaNDarI (+91 98111 40424)

PRoducTion & logisTicssR. GENERAl MANAGER (OPERATIONs):ShIVShaNKar m hIremaThMANAGER OPERATIONs: raKeSh uPaDhyay AssIsTANT MANAGER (lOGIsTICs): VIjay meNoN ExECuTIvE lOGIsTICs: NIleSh ShIraVaDeKarPRODuCTION ExECuTIvE: VIlaS mhaTre

logisTicsmP SINgh, mohD. aNSarI

oFFice addRessNINe DoT NINe meDIaworx PVT lTDa-262, DefeNce coloNy, New DelhI–110 024

for aNy querIeS, PleaSe coNTacT uS aT [email protected]

PuBlISheD, PrINTeD aND owNeD ByNINe DoT NINe meDIaworx PrIVaTe lImITeD.PuBlISheD aND PrINTeD oN TheIr Behalf By aNuraDha DaS maThur. PuBlISheD aT a-262, DefeNce coloNy, New DelhI–110 024. PrINTeD aT Tara arT PrINTerS PVT lTD.a-46-47, SecTor-5, NoIDa (u.P.) 201301EDITOR: aNuraDha DaS maThur

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Shreyasi [email protected]

editor’S letter

Battle-scarred, War-ready

that this cocktail of extremes—precariously balanced between failure and success, jubilation and despair—often within a matter of days (or, even minutes!) has changed them as people, and left deep gashes on their psyche. In her absolutely must-read article on Page 28, Jessica Bruder calls this impact the psychological price of entrepre-neurship—“a price so many founders secretly pay”—even as they bravely put on their positive, raring-to-go faces at client pitches, industry conferences and employee meets.

At a panel discussion on profitable growth for founder-managers that I moderated recently in Vododara, I saw this brave face slip away. Just as we were about to conclude the event, the founder of a manufacturing company who so for had listened quietly, lashed out at our panel speakers. He felt their presentations on benchmark efficiency, supply chain metrics and employee motivation were far removed from an entrepreneur’s every day fires—longer credit cycles, clients who refused to pay up and bankers who continued to seek collateral to extend loans or credit limits. His anger was laced with anguish and frustration. While he spoke though, it was incredible to see 80 other heads (all entrepreneurs also) in the audience nod in complete agreement, and applaud his ability to articulate what each of them felt, but never said.

Bruder’s moving article, and the incident in Vadodara were mulling in my head as I read the stories Sonal Khetarpal and Ira Swasti filed for this special issue—our annual ranking of India’s fastest growing mid-sized enterprises. At several points,

I couldn’t help but wonder what our winning entrepreneurs weren’t telling us when they talked about setting up a new plant, bringing in a private equity investor, or handling a factory lock-out. Had they merely forgotten the pain, or was it just too personal to lay it out for everybody to see?

Thanks to my entrepreneur husband, these experiences are part of my everyday life. Over the past few years, I’ve seen his battles grow more challenging—investor expectations, demanding clients, and the sense of responsibility to his talented team. His journey hasn’t been easy, like it wasn’t for the gentleman in Vadodara, or undoubtedly for any of our Inc. India 500 honouress.

Awards and recognition are the happy by-products of this bruising course though. So, congratulations to all our Inc. India 500 winners. Needless to say, your growth and ambitions impress us, especially in an economic environment as tough as this. But, more importantly, we recognise the price you (and your families) might have paid to get here. For that, we salute you. May you all win your many wars!

Entrepreneurs tell us all the time that the journey of build-ing a business is charged with emotions—the highs are highs, but the lows are much lower. Yet, most won’t confess

september/october 2013 | iNC. | 9

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We cannot create water But Yes! Surely we can save water

You can also save water.......

in your homes, schools, factories, institutions & villages

For more information, please email to

[email protected]

Page 13: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

launch News, Ideas & Trends in Brief

september/october 2013 | Inc. | 11

Gender Blues India scores low on female entrepreneurship index

It isn’t surprising that India comes in at 16th place in a ranking of 17 nations for providing a healthy female entrepreneur-ship ecosystem in the country, according to The Gender Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI), pro-duced by Washington, D.C.–based non-profit research and consulting organisation Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute. The preliminary results of the ranking were announced at the annual Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network event in Istanbul in June.

The Gender-GEDI Index is made up of

30 indicators and ranks 17 countries. The index is based on individual aspirations, business environments and entrepreneur-ial ecosystems, and measures high-poten-tial women entrepreneurs who are defined as innovative, market expanding and export-oriented.

At number 16, India trailed behind other developing economies such as Mex-ico (No. 5), Morocco (No. 13), Brazil (No. 14) and Egypt (No. 15), while coming just ahead of last-placed Uganda. The No. 1 country was the US. Other top-ranking countries included Australia (No. 2), Ger-

many (No. 3) and France (No. 4). Ruta Aidis, project director, Gender-

GEDI, said that one of the reasons why India ranked so far behind was that the index did not cover the informal sector—where so many Indian women entrepre-neurs are engaged in small and medium scale businesses. Here are the key findings of the report. Economic development is not enough: The report suggests that even if the coun-try is economically developed with a strong foothold in areas such as legal

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launch

research corNer

humans and Robots Should SwapYou'll never understand your robot until you walk a mile in his screws. a new MIT study reveals that when co-working humans and robots cross-train, productivity improves.robots already perform rote tasks and heavy lifting along-side humans in the manufac-turing world. But increasingly, robots are partnering with peo-ple in places as complex and critical as the operating room and outer space, says stefanos Nikolaidis, a Ph.D. student who co-authored the study with Julie shah, head of MIT's Inter-active robotics Group.In the study, a human and a robot (a big orange mechanical arm) had to work together on a task. The human placed screws in holes, and the robot drilled them in. Then, the pair swapped roles, via a computer simulation. afterward, the pair returned to their original real-world tasks.The scientists designed an algorithm that let robots per-ceive human preferences (for example, whether screws should be drilled immediately or whether they should be done in batches).The cross-trained teams were 71 per cent more productive than teams that used other training strategies. cross-trained humans also reported a higher level of trust in their wired partner."Whether we are talking about human teammates or human-robot teams," says Nikolaidis, "jobs are done better when there is understanding and trust between teammates."—Reshma Menon Yaqub

12 | Inc. | september/october 2013

rights, education and access to finance, it might not necessarily result in a healthy ecosystem for women. Sometimes social and cultural norms make it less conducive for women to become entrepreneurs. Both India and Malaysia impose additional gendered restrictions on women, in terms of limited freedom of movement outside the home, restrictions to working hours, and working in certain industries which lowers the score of these countries.

no single determinant of success: India scored relatively high for opportu-nity recognition, suggesting that the female population recognises good opportunities for businesses where they live. However, it received low scores relat-ing to institutional foundations—that is, insufficient training and skill set—which limit women’s ability to act on those per-ceived opportunities.

access to finance is crucial: Few women have bank accounts in low-performing countries. India has only 26 per cent of women who have bank accounts com-pared to almost 100 per cent access to finance in the top-performing countries, other than Mexico (22 per cent).

Effective networking can open doors: Networking with other entrepreneurs and having access to the internet helps create opportunities for female entrepreneurs. Internet provides new ways of networking that eliminate temporal and geographic, as well as gendered social constraints, that can limit women’s access to information and resources. In the UK, 78 per cent of internet users are women, compared with less than 7 per cent in India and Uganda.

Gender-GEDI research demonstrates that the determinants of success for female entrepreneurship are not just personal strengths and aspirations, but a result of the environment in which they operate.

“The research clearly supports the assertion that key things need to be fixed in order for female entrepreneurship to survive and flourish,” said Karen Quintos, chief marketing officer (CMO) and senior vice president, Dell. “Increased access to knowledge, networks, capital and technol-ogy are critical if countries are to empower female entrepreneurship and create a cul-ture of success.”

GENDER-GEDI Rankings1 USA 10 Russia

2 Australia 11 Turkey

3 Germany 12 Japan

4 France 13 Morocco

5 Mexico 14 Brazil

6 UK 15 Egypt

7 South Africa 16 India

8 China 17 Uganda

9 Malaysia

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Gender-GeDI

environment

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aspiration

Gender-GEDI Overall country Scores and Sub index Scores

source: Gender-GeDI Index (2013)

Page 15: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

september/october 2013 | INC. | 13

Q: A leader’s every word and action is deeply scrutinised. In that context, how should a CEO make sure her ability to take tough decisions is not hampered by her fear of being judged? A: Leadership expert Warren G. Bennis once said—managers are people who do things right; leaders are people who do the right thing. By virtue of their position at the top of the totem pole, CEOs are easy targets for judgment, irrespective of what they do. But a leader’s goal should only be to chalk out a sustainable path for the organisation and align her thoughts,

words and decisions with it. A good leader has the internal strength to understand that she cannot control people’s perceptions of her. Only 10 out of 100 CEOs really understand leadership, in my experience. I call it the leadership deficit—the difference between the quality of leadership that needs to be delivered and the actual quality of leadership delivered. In most organisations, there is a huge gap between the two.

Q: How much does the right attitude to making mistakes determine what kind of a leader one is? A: Mistakes are an inevitable step towards the growth of any individual but most CEOs are not able to handle it well when a colleague makes a mistake. The first thing a CEO needs to do is separate the person from the behaviour. In other words, it’s important to say—“I love you. But I won’t tolerate you coming late again.” Secondly, when a mistake happens, don’t question the integrity or competence of the person who has made the mistake. If you do that, you will completely demoralise the person and rob her of all initiative and creativity because she may never try anything new again, for the fear of making a mistake. Thirdly, when a mistake is made, instead of asking who made the mistake, ask what happened, how it happened and how to prevent it in the future.

Q: Every organisation suffers from the dilemma that when you are at the top, people only tell you what you want to hear. How does a good leader bridge that gap?A: Most leaders are not aware of this dilemma. They go with what people tell them as the gospel truth because they are not really listening. A good leader understands that everyone who is telling her something is coming from a different angle and has different concerns and interests. Also, to understand their perspectives, you have to learn to listen very carefully. I have yet to come across a CEO who is a fine practitioner of the art of listening. The more you succeed, the less you tend to listen. Like everything else, the less you use this faculty, the more you lose it. I call it the Talk-Listen Ratio. This ratio could be a powerful metric to help one become a good listener. It refers to the amount of time that you talk in a conversation relative to the amount of time you listen. Ideally, I would recommend a Talk-Listen Ratio of around 0.25 i.e. spend about 25 per cent of the time you spend listening on talking.

Leadership DilemmasA mentor’s guide to personal growthAccording to management expert and mentor V.K. Madhav Mohan, a leader is always treading the subtle boundary between what is right, expedient, necessary and sustainable. His book Lonely at the Top: Reflections of a Mentor provides valuable insights into dealing with the common dilemmas entrepreneurs face every day. Deeply rooted in Indian philoso-phy, the book lays down tips and tools to build an environ-ment of trust and collaboration at the workplace. Here are some excerpts from our conversation with the author. —Ira Swasti

Executive coach VK Madhav Mohan reflects on his experiences of mentoring over 100 entrepreneurs.

Page 16: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

All Things PeoPleBY hARi TnHari TN is the global head of human resources at Amba Research, a Bangalore-based investment research outsourcing firm.

One of the questions that has bothered senior managers in most high-growth, scale-up firms is—what is the right way to structure the firm? Debates around organ-isation structure often go around in circles because other parameters that play a role in organisational effectiveness such as strat-egy, quality of people and processes and incentive plans are brought into these debates without a sufficient understanding of the interplay between these parameters and “structure”.

For one, organisational structures are not cast in stone. They need to be dynamic and reflect the current situation and the problems the company is grappling with. For instance, structuring for growth is very different from structuring for efficiency or innovation. Whatever the imperative, it is helpful to have a working knowledge of the principles of organisation design. In my experience with working with a range of organisations, four dimensions of organ-isation structure come up most frequently:

Span refers to the number of direct reports that any role holder or individual can manage effectively. So, what is an appropriate span? Is there a number that one should aim for or does it, as most things in management science, depend upon a host of other factors? The span depends primarily upon how a team is

A sound structureAmbitious Ceos must be supported by right-fit organisational structures

expected to be managed (hands-on versus delegation) and the quality and capabilities of the direct reports. If the approach to managing the team is hands-on, involving intense supervision and review, the span should be small. If the team comprises

individuals who need constant coaching and decision support, the span should be small. On the contrary, if the team com-prises people who are competent, require and ask for a lot of head room and inde-pendence, but need support on an excep-

14 | INC. | september/october 2013 illustration by manav sachdev

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ALL THINGS PEOPLE

tion basis, the span could be very large. It also depends upon what a company is try-ing to accomplish. If efficiency and profit-ability is a key goal, the trade-off is in favor of a larger span. If the goal is rapid growth, then the bias should be to keep smaller spans, hire direct reports who are indepen-dent and thus force the senior managers to get out of day to day management to find the time to think and execute strategically.

Secondly, all companies start small with simple structures which invariably get larger and more complex. Dual report-ing is very common, as are the issues that surround it—for instance, should a regional finance manager have a firm line to the regional business head with a dotted line to the country finance manager, or vice-versa? Questions like these get more importance than they deserve simply because most people involved in designing organisation structures would like to believe that of the two alternatives, one is right and the other is wrong, and therefore, if you can figure out the right one, then all problems would disappear. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that one of the two alternatives may be superior to the other in a particular situation, but even this superior alternative calls for getting a lot of other things right for it to work. In fact, the less superior alternative is likely to work better if one can get the other things right. What really happens in most compa-nies when it comes to dual reporting rela-tionships is that the two managers (in the above case, the country finance head and the regional business head) often don’t seri-ously stay in touch with each other on their common reportee. So, each is likely to have a view (at times divergent) and they will carry their respective views without both-ering to actually verify or compare notes with their colleague. In reality, the manager to whom there is a firm line of reporting ends up appraising her reportee’s perfor-mance without seeking serious inputs from the other manager. No structure will obvi-ate the need for regular feedback to the individual by the two managers and cali-bration between them on all important issues relating to their direct report. If this is addressed, the firm line versus dotted

line reporting becomes relatively insignifi-cant. If these issues are not addressed, no amount of tinkering between the firm line and dotted line will solve the problems because the problem does not lie in the structure at all.

Another key decision when it comes to structuring is whether to structure by capa-bilities, or client segments. Companies in the services space especially face this situa-tion. There is no right or wrong answer which is why I will just lay out the different philosophies and the subsequent trade-offs involved. What kind of companies should structure according to capabilities? As a broad guideline, organisations that rely on deep expertise or specialisation in different capabilities (such as hospitals divided on different departments, or consulting organisations structured around practices) to deliver customer satisfaction are better off structuring around practice or capabil-ity. On the contrary, when customer satis-faction is driven by an integrated response and an overall point of accountability for their problems rather than the depth of expertise, the company is better off struc-turing primarily around clients and adding an overlay of expertise at the back-end that may not be visible to the client. Whichever structure one might choose, as organisa-tions scale up, they may not have a choice between capability focus and client focus. Therefore, there is a primary dimension of organisation and a secondary dimension; if the primary dimension of organisation is capability the secondary dimension is cli-ent segment and vice-versa.

Finally, as a firm scales up, one of the key choices as far as structure goes is often about sharing of resources. Should you go

the business unit way, where each unit is fairly autonomous and usually does not share resources? If the firm is focused on growth, and has already achieved a certain scale, a structure centered round autono-mous business units is a smart choice. When it comes to organising around busi-ness units, scale is crucial because without the advantage of scale, a company is unlikely to have the management calibre that can navigate a business independently. It’s always good to remember that auton-omy supports growth only when your business units have the right leaders. There are several advantages to having business units, including faster decision making and a more vigorous entrepreneurial culture. On the flipside, cost inefficiencies owing to excess capacity in one unit, and shortage in another do crop up in this organisation design. So, if you’re redesigning to improve profitability, this is not the right structure and it is helpful to move to a functional structure where resources are shared as much as possible.

In summary, keep the structure simple wherever possible. Introduce complexity only when you can’t do without it. Under-stand that a sub-optimal structure with the right commitment to making the other parts work smoothly (feedback loop, communication between the two reporting managers wherever dual report-ing is involved etc) is more likely to suc-ceed than an optimal structure without an understanding of what it takes for a struc-ture to succeed.

16 | INC. | september/october 2013

A sub-optimal structure with the right commitment to making the other parts work is more likely to succeed than an optimal structure without this understanding.

Contact Hari TN at [email protected].

Page 19: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

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The STellar Gymkhana: r- 1, knowledge Park II, Greater noida.Corporate Office: C-56/9 Sector 62, Noida

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Page 20: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

I do most of my grocery shopping at a place called Olivia’s Mar-ket, a small grocer in my neighbourhood. In fact, I stop in at least three times a week, so I’ve gotten to know the owner, Bill Mah-eras, fairly well.

Now, I’m not saying we’re best friends, but over the years we’ve traded a bunch of emails and had coffee down the street, and he’s even offered me some choice Bulls tickets. Good guy, this Bill.

We also enjoy talking shop. To say that the grocery business is cut-throat would be a major understatement. Every day, Bill has to contend with slim margins, lots of competitors, scores of suppliers, and high inventory costs. No surprise, then, that Bill always tells me how lucky I am to run a software company. With high margins, no spoilage, and no inventory, our businesses are polar opposites.

But I always remind Bill how in at least one respect, he is far luckier than I: He actually knows his customers.

In today’s hundred-data-points-on-your-customer world of online business, Bill has one data point that really matters: He can recognise a customer if he sees her walking down the street. Can you say that about your company? I know I can’t.

We owners of web-based businesses love to gloat about how many customers (make that users) we have. But do we really know any of them? Sure, we can calculate their lifetime value and figure out how many times they’ve logged in over the past 90 days, what brand of mobile phone they use, and how much they spend a month. But we wouldn’t know who they were if they walked in our front doors.

The owners of such locally based businesses as Olivia’s don’t get glossy magazine covers, and industry websites never claim that they are changing the world. But I am more convinced than ever that we can learn a lot from the Bill Maherases out there.

Why don’t I know my customers the way Bill does? Obviously,

Do You Really Know Your Customers?I don’t know mine. But now I’m determined to get up close and personal

scale is one reason: We have tens of thousands of individual pay-ing customers. Another is geography; we have users in more than 50 countries, and it’s not so easy to strike up individual relation-ships with them.

But the main reason is that our business is built on self-service. Customers buy Basecamp without ever having to interact with us. If they do have a question, we handle everything via email. We’ve been in the business of automation. We’ve never really valued full service.

There is nothing wrong with this. Our customers love our product. And they love that they don’t have to talk to sales people, make any phone calls, or wait for someone to approve their purchase to sign up.

But what if we tried to run our business more as Bill does? Is it possible to create a model in which we get to see—or at least hear—our customers on a regular basis; in which we know their names, their businesses, their stories; in which we might even rec-ognise them if we bumped into them on the street?

I want to see if we can do this kind of thing at 37signals. How much better can we be if we know our customers for real, not just as data points?

So that’s what we’re going to do with our next product. It won’t be self-service; it’ll be full service. Rather than no touch, it’ll be high touch. If you want to buy it, I want to get to know you a little first. A phone call, a videoconference, whatever—I just want to know who my customers are so I can really understand why they want to buy. I want to know if I can really help them.

What’s this product? Well, that’ll have to wait for my next col-umn. Until then, go meet your local grocer, dry cleaner, and shop owner. Really talk to them. And let them inspire you.

Follow Jason Fried on Twitter: @jasonfried.

18 | INC. | september/october 2013 illustration by manav sachdev

Get Real BY Jason FRIeDJason Fried is co-founder of 37signals, a Chicago-based software company. He is a man, not a machine.

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Corporate Office: C-56/9, Sector-62, Noidawww.stellarprojects.in

3 BHK/ 4 BHK Premium ApartmentsSector Zeta-1,Greater Noida S t e l l a r M I

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StellarBusiness Park

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The Stellar Group has business interests in Real Estate and Construction,

Hospitality, Banking, Information Technology and Edutainment. The organisation

is renowned for developing quality projects with strict adherence to time bound

delivery and completion schedules. The Group has developed and constructed

over 2 million sq. ft. across residential, commercial and industrial projects and

has projects in hand to construct about 7 million sq.ft in the coming 3 years.

2/3/4 BHK Apartments,GH-03, Sector-1, Greater Noida (West)

8130327771,8130327773,8130187772

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2 0 | INC. | september/october 2013

INNovatIoN Companies on the Cutting Edge

“We aim to solve the problem of

waste segregation in India by

handling waste at its source.”

—Sreekrishna Sankar, co-founder, GPS Renewables

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From waste to energyAs Sreekrishna Sankar and Mainak Chakraborty were scouting for ideas to start a clean energy business after graduating from IIM Bangalore, they learnt that more than 60 per cent of all waste-to-energy plants in India are defunct. There is just no provider with the biotechnology know-how to run these systems efficiently, says Sankar. It was then that they stumbled upon the high-temperature biogas plants at Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. Based on that model, the duo built BioOrja, a waste-to-energy reactor fit for Indian conditions. It took the duo over one and a half years to come up with the patented heating system that makes BioOrja 40 per cent more efficient than conventional biogas plants (at room tem-perature). Also, BioOrja requires absolutely no water to run, unlike conventional plants which are water guzzlers. This has drastically reduced the reactor’s opera-tional cost and size. It offers other advantages too—easy on-site assembly; portabil-ity and zero-odour which makes installation viable in apartment complexes, hospitals, corporates and restaurants. BioOrja can be customised to handle 100 kg to 5,000 kg of biowaste. Since its commercialisation in September 2012, BioOrja has been deployed in five locations. Price: ̀ 6-40 lakh, depending on its size.

Recognitions received 50 Most Promising

Start-ups, Kauffman Foundation

Winner, Cleantech Category 2013, Sankalp Award

Top Innovators India (under the age of 35), MIT Technology Review

advantages Allows customisation 2.5 times faster waste

digestion Requires an area of 10

to 20 sq metres No civil work required

Gps renewablesBioorja

REPoRTEd by SoNal KhetaRpal PhoTogRAPh by pauloumI

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e frameERPbizwww.essindia.com

Business grows

with

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Two branding experTs break iT down for usby Ira SwaStI

Name?

what makeS a

sepTember/ocTober 2013 | INC. | 2 3

most brand names of traditional businesses in India can be broken down into three categories: the owner’s family name, some combination of her son’s, daughter’s or spouse’s name

and a God or Goddess’ name. More often than not, these names are followed by more uninspiring and cumbersome words such as “con-struction equipmens”, “textiles and industries” or “banquets and hotels”. Names that leave no scope for imagination or innovative brand communication. Then, there is a new breed of e-commerce and young tech entrepreneurs who usually rely on friends and family to come up with a name that is “catchy”, “sounds” nice and has a domain name available. But there’s no clear method to this brand naming pro-cess and even less thought goes into how the name may be perceived by potential customers. So how does one go about naming a brand?

While parameters for good brand names vary across categories, there are some qualities that are common to all good brand names. “A name with freshness, communication possibilities, evocativeness and ease of pronunciation can work wonders,” says PC Muralidharan, co-founder of the Chennai-based naming consultancy Albert Dali. “It may or may not cue the service or the product. If a fashion brand can be named Diesel, a tech company be named Yahoo and both work so P

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What makes a Brand name?

well, we have something to learn from that,” he says. His brand naming philosophy is clearly visible in his company’s name itself. Albert Dali comes from the combination of the names of Albert Einstein and Salva-dor Dali, to highlight a perfect blend of the left and the right brain. It is complemented with a logo of Dali’s iconic moustache and Einstein’s pulled-out tongue.

But, just as names are subjective; so is the approach to naming. K Pradeep, founder of the brand identity consultancy Niyati believes that it is better to have a name that refers to the product or service. “If the brand name could convey what the product or service does or at least convey the values of the company, it becomes eas-ier for people to catch on to it,” he says. The brand naming business of his company is called Nameow!; a pretty straight forward name with a logo of a cat next to it.

Typically, for agencies such as these, the brand naming process begins with a client brief, which can be as short as a one-line e-mail saying “We need a name. We’re starting a company” to one with a more detailed description that outlines the spe-cifics of the company, its products, and even what letter the name should start with (for those into numerology).

Yet, most entrepreneurs underestimate what all needs to be considered before coming up with a suitable name, Muralid-haran and Pradeep say. So they send their clients questionnaires containing up to 50 questions such as why the company is dif-ferent from its competition, what the com-petition is, what the company’s core values are, whether the business is offline or online and whether the owner aims to take it global or keep it local.

After this detailed interrogation, names are legally vetted for trademarks and avail-able domain names and this entire process may take up to 10-15 days for small com-panies or a few months for bigger ones.

At the end of the day, while the approach to naming brands may differ (there could be 600 styles of naming, if the Dali founders were to believed), a memo-rable brand name is one that evokes emo-tion and has a story to tell.

brand: Ira thINgThe producT: it’s a budget educa-tion tablet that supports course mate-rials for cbse, icse and iiT Jee in english, hindi and other regional dia-lects of the country.

FouNder’S take Milind Shah, founder, Wishtel (makers of tablet Ira Thing): ira is another name for goddess saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, in sanskrit. as we were building a knowledge product, we wanted a name that symbolised that. we also needed a name that was short, sounded trendy, was easy to identify and could be associated to an iT prod-uct. once ira was identified, we wanted a suitable brand extension for our entry level product as it was targeted towards the youth. The word “thing” is a slang used by youngsters these days, so we thought it made a good brand extension. we wanted people to talk about that new ira Thing in the market.

expert takeK Pradeep, founder, Niyati: ira is great. but the ‘’Thing’’ doesn’t really go well for a brand name. i did like their rationale to connect with the in-thing of today’s gen-eration. may be a hyphenated name ira-Thing would have helped, although i

would still prefer something more jazzy. moreover, ira works when it is small let-ters or mixed case, but not when it is in all caps, as ira abbreviates to a lot of institutions and organisations that are misleading (about 67 crore matches for ira on google and goddess saraswati is not on the top of those matches). a nice fusion of mythology (ira for goddess saraswati), and modernity (Tab, social, connect etc) could have worked, some-thing like Tabira comes to mind.

easy to remember conveys brand value hints at the service/product innovative  pC muralidharan, founder, albert dali: an ethnic name such as ‘ira’ works rea-sonably well here as it clearly targets the indian market. while ira seems to be pretty fresh, the addition of Thing, how-ever much they try to portray it as a youth lingo, somehow brings the uniqueness level down a tad bit. but overall, the name is fairly decent to evoke curiosity.

freshness communication possibilities evocative easy to pronounce

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We decided to put these wordsmiths to work by getting them to evaluate five “live” brand names. To be fair, we gave the owners of these brands an opportunity to tell their stories too. The stand-off is ready. We’ll leave it up to you to judge:

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What makes a Brand name?

brand: JoogNuThe service: it’s an online plat-form where parents can save memories of their child from the time she is born till she grows up—in the form of photos, videos, diary entries and more. parents can then share the password as a gift on the child’s 18th birthday.

FouNder’S take Anirvan Dam, founder, Joognu: Joognu means a firefly in hindi. it is the only bioluminescent known to mankind, the one which glows within. we believe that when par-ents share the child’s memories with her as she grows up, they spread the glow of happiness in their child, thus becom-ing Joognu themselves in the child’s life. we think the name is catchy. since it’s a single word, brand recall is good and it communicates the essence of the idea, even if not in the literal sense.

expert takeK Pradeep: Jugnu sounds better than Joognu, but probably the domain name wasn’t available. Their analogy to a firefly and its sci-entific properties seems to be a force fit to the rationale. i believe

there are more creative names to call this unique photo memory timeline service. The plus that i saw was the firefly character sitting somewhere in the footer of the web page. i wonder why this mascot was not taken seriously into the branding. The name and the mas-cot together could be a cartoon blockbuster, but definitely not an online photo album service.

easy to remember hints at the service/product conveys brand value innovative PC Muralidharan: for starters, the name is fresh. it’s interesting enough for people to connect to the service they provide. The pitfall is that it’s a vernacular name. vernac-ular names may not be the best bet, especially if one’s business model is to operate out of the world wide web. The name needs to have a global appeal. for that matter, even in india, it will resonate only with the hindi-speaking audience.

freshness communication possibilities evocative easy to pronounce

brand: V reSortSThe service: a chain of budget resorts that pro-vides elegant but limited services to its guests such as no service after 10pm, only buffet-style dining and no promise of an intercom or wifi.

FouNder’S take Vaibhav Dayal, founder, V Resorts: The resorts are not named after my initials. The brand name stands for three things that describe the resorts. view: all our properties promise a great view from each room. value for money: These are budget category resorts. vacation: all our properties are in offbeat locations that prom-ise a unique vacation with various adventurous activities.  expert take: K Pradeep: The name can’t get any shorter. what works is that it’s simple and straight to the point. The rationale of the three vs (view, value, vacation) also goes well. The logo could have been better. in all, it adds to another v for victory. The flipside however is that there is competition and copycats in all sizes. v holidays, v Travels, and v for virgin (the big daddy of branding in airlines, travel).

easy to remember  conveys brand value hints at the service/product innovative

PC Muralidharan: i’ll call this a bland name, not a brand name. it achieves nothing. it’s not memora-ble. it neither has communication possibilities nor does it evoke a feeling inside you. The fact that a letter ‘v’ can convey all these multiple things is just in the minds of the founders. moreover, the possi-bilities of coming up with absolutely splendid names is high in the category of leisure and travel. They should have taken advantage of that.

freshness communication possibilities evocative easy to pronounce

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What makes a Brand name?

brand: VooNIk The service: an online personal stylist service that hand-picks the best clothes for customers, based on their body type and style preferences. it provides instant recommen-dations from stylists on what kind of clothes, jewellery and accessories will suit the buyer, how to wear them, and what to pair them with.

FouNder’S take: Sujayath Ali, co-founder, Voonik: we got “voonik” as a play on the word “unique” and quite liked it. we wanted a name that was a single word, unique, memorable, had a domain name available, preferably not a dictionary word, had a bit of coolness when pronounced and the ability to become a verb (like google). we had a few fashion related names such as shopmirchi.com but we rejected them because they did not allow us to pivot if our initial business model doesn’t work out. expert take K Pradeep: good thinking! The name matches the require-ments laid out by the team to the T. it also has a global appeal. it is a good idea to bring the name into the function-ality of the website—as in vooniked by customer name. what would work is if their products and delivery culture is as voonik as its online service.  

easy to remember conveys brand value hints at the service/product innovative

PC Muralidharan: how is voonik reminiscent of unique, even if it is a laborious play on the word? in any case, the popular Japanese apparel brand uniqlo does the job tad better. They promise unique clothing. in fact, voonik offers much more as a business idea. They appear almost as a bespoke stylist offering their services online. with voonik, it’s a fabulous idea clogged inside a tenuous brand name.

freshness communication possibilities evocative easy to pronounce

FouNder’S takeChaitali Bajaj, owner, Gelitalia: gelitalia sells gelatos—ice creams with little or no air—and italian gelatos. so if you break down the name, gel comes from gelatos and italia comes from italy. gelato in italian also means ice creams. so it’s an apt name for our ice cream parlour which has an exten-sive variety of gelato flavours. 

expert take K Pradeep: no amount of ratio-nale can actually con-vince (forget justifying) that it is not genitalia, but gelitalia unless the client intentionally wanted to bring a sex-ual connotation to their brand. even then, it is unacceptable. if they did want to pur-

sue the story about fine italian gelatos, they should have tried better word-matching than zero in on this one. something like an igel or gely, or an abridged version gelita would have been better, if available.

easy to remember conveys brand value hints at the service/product innovative   PC Muralidharan: my suspicion is that the owners have come up

with this coinage knowing fully well that it would rake up some issues. There are cer-tain categories where such play-on-word names can make sense and would work well. but food is not one of them. one

always needs to check the conno-tation of a name from every possi-ble angle before finalising it. else, it may backfire badly and affect the brand’s long term growth or vision.

freshness communication pos-sibilities evocative easy to pronounce

google: it’s common knowl-edge that the name google evolved from “googol”. but not many people know that even before that, the search engine ran as ‘backrub’ for a year until the founders changed the name in 1997.

St george umbrella: The famous umbrella brand founded over five decades ago in kerala changed its name after the family busi-ness of umbrellas split among the founder’s two sons. one son changed the brand name to popy and the other to John’s.

oracle: earlier known as

relational software, the company officially switched names to oracle systems in 1982. The change was prompted because the com-pany’s most successful prod-uct, the oracle database, had become more popular than the actual company.

pepsi-Cola: in 1893, caleb bradham, the young phar-macist from north carolina began experimenting with a variety of soft drink recipes—one of them made of carbon-ated water, sugar, vanilla, rare oils and cola nuts. he called it brad’s drink. in 1898, brad’s drink was renamed “pepsi-cola.

Some FamouS braNdS that ChaNged NameS

brand: gelItalIa The service: a popular ice cream parlour in mumbai that sells gelatos.

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No one said building a company was easy. But it’s time to be honest about how psychologically brutal it really is—and about the price so many founders secretly payBy Jessica Bruderillustrations By sHiGil narayanan

tHe Price

By all counts and measures, Bradley Smith is an unequivocal business success. He’s CEO of Rescue One Financial, an Irvine, Califor-nia–based financial services company that had sales of nearly $32 million last year. Smith’s company has grown some 1,400 per cent in the last three years, landing it at No. 310 on this year’s Inc. 500. So you might never guess that just five years ago, Smith was on the brink of financial ruin—and mental collapse. Back in 2008, Smith was working long hours counseling nervous clients about getting out of debt. But his calm demeanor masked a secret: He shared their fears. Like them, Smith was sinking deeper and deeper

into debt. He had driven himself far into the red starting—of all things—a debt-settlement company. “I was hearing how depressed and strung out my clients were, but in the back of my mind I was thinking to myself, I’ve got twice as much debt as you do,” Smith recalls.

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He had cashed in his 401(k) and maxed out a $60,000 line of credit. He had sold the Rolex he bought with his first-ever paycheck during an earlier career as a stockbroker. And he had humbled himself before his father—the man who raised him on maxims such as “money doesn’t grow on trees” and “never do business with family”—by asking for $10,000, which he received at 5 per cent interest after signing a promissory note. Smith projected opti-mism to his co-founders and 10 employees, but his nerves were shot. “My wife and I would share a bottle of $5 wine for dinner and just kind of look at each other,” Smith says. “We knew we were close to the edge.” Then the pres-sure got worse: The couple learned they were expecting their first child. “There were sleepless nights, staring at the ceil-ing,” Smith recalls. “I’d wake up at 4 in the morning with my mind racing, thinking about this and that, not being able to shut it off, wondering, When is this thing going to turn?” After eight months of constant anxiety, Smith’s company finally began making money.

Successful entrepreneurs achieve hero status in our culture. We idolize the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Elon Musks. And we celebrate the blazingly fast growth of the Inc. 500 companies. But many of those entrepreneurs, like Smith, harbor secret demons: Before they made it big, they struggled through moments of near-debili-tating anxiety and despair—times when it seemed everything might crumble.

Until recently, admitting such senti-ments was taboo. Rather than showing vul-nerability, business leaders have practiced

what social psychiatrists call impression management—also known as “fake it till you make it.” Toby Thomas, CEO of EnSite Solutions (No. 188 on the Inc. 500), explains the phenomenon with his favor-ite analogy: a man riding a lion. “People look at him and think, This guy’s really got it together! He’s brave!” says Thomas. “And the man riding the lion is thinking, How the hell did I get on a lion, and how do I keep from getting eaten?”

Not everyone who walks through darkness makes it out. In January, well-known founder Jody Sherman, 47, of the

e-commerce site Ecomom took his own life. His death shook the start-up community. It also reignited a discussion about entrepre-neurship and mental health that began two years earlier after the

suicide of Ilya Zhitomirskiy, the 22-year-old co-founder of Dias-pora, a social networking site.

Lately, more entrepreneurs have begun speaking out about their internal struggles in an attempt to combat the stigma on depression and anxiety that makes it hard for sufferers to seek help. In a deeply personal post called “When Death Feels Like a Good Option,” Ben Huh, the CEO of the Cheezburger Network humor websites, wrote about his suicidal thoughts following a failed start-up in 2001. Sean Percival, a former MySpace vice president and co-founder of the children’s clothing start-up Wittlebee, penned a piece called “When It’s Not All Good, Ask for Help” on his website. “I was to the edge and back a few times this past year with my business and own depres-sion,” he wrote. “If you’re about to lose it, please contact me.”

Brad Feld, a managing director of the Foundry Group, started blogging in October about his latest episode of depression. The problem wasn’t new—the prominent venture capitalist had strug-gled with mood disorders throughout his adult life—and he didn’t expect much of a response. But then came the emails. Hundreds of them. Many were from entrepreneurs who had also wrestled with anxiety and despair. “If you saw the list of names, it would surprise

“It’s like a man riding a lion. People think, ‘This guy’s brave.’ And he’s thinking, ‘How the hell did I get on a lion, and how do I keep from getting eaten?’ ”

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you a great deal,” says Feld. “They are very successful people, very visible, very charismatic—yet they’ve struggled with this silently. There’s a sense that they can’t talk about it, that it’s a weakness or a shame or something. They feel like they’re hiding, which makes the whole thing worse.”

If you run a business, that probably all sounds familiar. It’s a stress-ful job that can create emotional turbulence. For starters, there’s the high risk of failure. Three out of four venture-backed start-ups fail, according to research by Shikhar Ghosh, a Harvard Business School lecturer. Ghosh also found that more than 95 per cent of start-ups fall short of their initial projections.

Entrepreneurs often juggle many roles and face countless set-backs—lost customers, disputes with partners, increased competi-tion, staffing problems—all while struggling to make payroll. “There are traumatic events all the way along the line,” says psychiatrist and former entrepreneur Michael A. Freeman, who is researching men-tal health and entrepreneurship. Complicating matters, new entre-preneurs often make themselves less resilient by neglecting their health. They eat too much or too little. They don’t get enough sleep. They fail to exercise. “You can get into a start-up mode, where you push yourself and abuse your body,” Freeman says. “That can trigger mood vulnerability.”

So it should come as little surprise that entrepreneurs experience more anxiety than employees. In the latest Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, 34 per cent of entrepreneurs—4 percentage points more than other workers—reported they were worried. And 45 percent of entrepreneurs said they were stressed, 3 percentage points more than other workers.

But it may be more than a stressful job that pushes some founders over the edge. According to researchers, many entrepreneurs share innate character traits that make them more vulnerable to mood swings. “People who are on the energetic, motivated, and creative side are both more likely to be entrepreneurial and more likely to have strong emotional states,” says Freeman. Those states may include depression, despair, hopelessness, worthlessness, loss of motivation, and suicidal thinking.

Call it the downside of being up. The same passionate disposi-tions that drive founders heedlessly toward success can sometimes consume them. Business owners are “vulnerable to the dark side of obsession,” suggest researchers from the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. They conducted interviews with founders for a study about entrepreneurial passion. The researchers found that many subjects displayed signs of clinical obsession, including strong feelings of distress and anxiety, which have “the potential to lead to impaired functioning,” they wrote in a paper published in the Entrepreneurship Research Journal in April.

Reinforcing that message is John Gartner, a practicing psycholo-gist who teaches at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. In his book The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a Lot of) Success in America, Gartner argues that an often-over-looked temperament—hypomania—may be responsible for some entrepreneurs’ strengths as well as their flaws. A milder version of mania, hypomania often occurs in the relatives of manic-depressives

out of tHe darkness Inc. 500 CEOs share some of their most emotionally trying moments—and their advice for getting through tough times.

CINdy TySINger GsAti (No. 170 on the Inc. 500)When cash got tight, Tysinger’s son invested $250,000 in her company. “That was the hardest thing ever, going to my son to borrow money,” she says. “Humbling yourself to that point is difficult. I just want to take care of everybody, you know?” Around that time, anxiety made it hard to sleep and blunted her appetite. She lost 30 pounds. Her family tried to make her take breaks by unplugging the home internet connection.What she’s learned: Get outside. “I love to walk,” she says. “Even if I was thinking about things I needed to do, I was in fresh air, nature.”

Toby ThomaS ensite solutions (No. 188)Thomas started his company with two partners who, he claims, did not do their share of the workload. Six months later, he bought them out. “That was a very scary point,” he recalls. “When you go into a business with partners, you’re spreading the risk out. But when you suddenly don’t have that support system, it’s like you’re in a black hole.”What he’s learned: Find a CEO support group. Thomas is a member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization, a global nonprofit founders’ network. “It’s very Skull and Bones,” he says. “People completely open up. You have to sign a constitution that says you can’t even tell your wife about what you talk about.”

grIer alleN boomtown (No. 433)A publicly traded company bought Allen’s main competitor and rebranded its entire business around that company’s technology. Allen tried to stay calm and focus on the market segment where BoomTown was strongest, a strategy that later paid off. But the stress was getting to him and shorten-ing his temper.What he’s learned: Jog it off. “Running releases a lot of stress,” he says. “It clears my mind and lets me detach from the digital world for a little while. If I don’t get out and run at least twice or three times a week, I just start feeling crazy.”

yISroel bruCe KrINSKy renegade Furniture Group (No. 127)Krinsky’s first venture, at 21, was importing dried-fruit energy bars from South Africa. He got the product into 200 stores, but there were no repeat orders, and the company flopped. “It was heartbreaking,” he says. “Every time I went to check on the product with a big smile on my face, it was all still sitting on the shelf. I was really upset, and I felt kind of like a loser.”What he’s learned: Play the long game. “If you can think of any problem you have today, picture your reaction in seven years,” he suggests. “Will it be affecting you then?”

aNdrew laffooN mixbook (No. 177)Mixbook nearly ran out of cash three times before getting venture capital funding. “We were pitching VCs day in and day out,” Laffoon recalls. “We got a lot of soft nos. I was sick to my stomach for weeks.”What he’s learned: Remember that you’re not the business. “If your identity is all wrapped up in this company you’ve built,” says Laffoon, “when someone rejects it, they’re rejecting you.”

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and affects an estimated 5 per cent to 10 per cent of Americans. “If you’re manic, you think you’re Jesus,” says Gartner. “If you’re hypo-manic, you think you’re God’s gift to technology investing. We’re talking about different levels of grandiosity but the same symptoms.”

Gartner theorises that there are so many hypomanics—and so many entrepreneurs—in the US because our country’s national character rose on waves of immi-gration. “We’re a self-selected pop-ulation,” he says. “Immigrants have unusual ambition, energy, drive, and risk tolerance, which lets them take a chance on moving for a bet-ter opportunity. These are biologi-cally based temperament traits. If you seed an entire continent with them, you’re going to get a nation of entrepreneurs.”

Though driven and innovative, hypomanics are at much higher risk for depression than the general population, notes Gartner. Failure can spark these depressive epi-sodes, of course, but so can any-thing that slows a hypomanic’s momentum. “They’re like border collies—they have to run,” says Gartner. “If you keep them inside, they chew up the furniture. They go crazy; they just pace around. That’s what hypomanics do. They need to be busy, active, overworking.”

Woeppel stopped leaving his house. Anxious and low on self-esteem, he started eating too much—and put on 50 pounds. Some-times he sought temporary relief in an old addiction: playing the guitar. Locked in a room, he practiced solos by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Chet Atkins. “It was something I could do just for the love of doing it,” he recalls. “Then there was nothing but me, the guitar, and the peace.”

Through it all, he kept working to develop new services. He just hoped his company would hang on long enough to sell them. In 2010, customers started to return. Pinnacle scored its biggest-ever contract, with an aerospace manufacturer, on the basis of a white paper Woeppel had written during the downturn. Last year, Pin-nacle’s revenue hit $7 million. Sales are up more than 5,000 per cent since 2009, earning the company a spot at No. 57 on 2013 Inc. 500.

Woeppel says he’s more resilient now, tempered by tough times.

“Entrepreneurs have struggled silently. There’s a sense that they can’t talk about it, that it’s a weakness.”

o matter what your psychological makeup, big setbacks in your business can knock you flat. Even experienced entrepreneurs have had the rug pulled out from under them. Mark Woep-pel launched Pinnacle Strategies, a management consulting firm, in 1992. In 2009, his phone stopped ringing. Caught in the global financial crisis, his customers were suddenly more con-cerned with survival than with boosting their output. Sales plummeted 75 per cent. Woeppel laid off his half-dozen employees. Before long,

he had exhausted his assets: cars, jewelry, anything that could go. His supply of confidence was dwindling, too. “As CEO, you have this self-image—you’re the master of the universe,” he says. “Then all of a sudden, you are not.”

3 2 | INC. | september/october 2013

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the price

“I used to be like, ‘My work is me,’ ” he says. “Then you fail. And you find out that your kids still love you. Your wife still loves you. Your dog still loves you.”

but for many entrepreneurs, the battle wounds never fully heal. That was the case for John Pope, CEO of WellDog, a Laramie, Wyoming–based energy technology firm. On Dec. 11, 2002, Pope had exactly $8.42 in the bank. He was 90 days late on his car pay-ment. He was 75 days behind on the mortgage. The IRS had filed a lien against him. His home phone, cell phone, and cable TV had all been turned off. In less than a week, the natural-gas company was scheduled to suspend service to the house he shared with his wife and daughters. Then there would be no heat. His company was expecting a wire transfer from the oil company Shell, a strategic investor, after months of negotiations had ended with a signed 380-page contract. So Pope waited.

The wire arrived the next day. Pope—along with his company—was saved. Afterward, he made a list of all the ways in which he had financially overreached. “I’m going to remember this,” he recalls thinking. “It’s the farthest I’m willing to go.”

Since then, WellDog has taken off: In the past three years, sales grew more than 3,700 per cent, to $8 million, making the company No. 89 on the Inc. 500. But emotional residue from the years of tumult still lingers. “There’s always that feeling of being overex-tended, of never being able to relax,” says Pope. “You end up with a serious confidence problem. You feel like every time you build up security, something happens to take it away.”

Pope sometimes catches himself emotionally overreacting to small things. It’s a behavior pattern that reminds him of posttrau-matic stress disorder. “Something happens, and you freak out about it,” he says. “But the scale of the problem is a lot less than the scale of your emotional reaction. That just comes with the scar tissue of going through these things.”

Though launching a company will always be a wild ride, full of ups and downs, there are things entrepreneurs can do to help keep their lives from spiraling out of control, say experts. Most impor-tant, make time for your loved ones, sug-gests Freeman. “Don’t let your business squeeze out your connections with human beings,” he says. When it comes to fighting off depression, relationships with friends and family can be powerful weap-ons. And don’t be afraid to ask for help—see a mental health professional if you are experiencing symptoms of significant

anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, or depression.Freeman also advises that entrepreneurs limit their financial

exposure. When it comes to assessing risk, entrepreneurs’ blind spots are often big enough to drive a Mack truck through, he says. The consequences can rock not only your bank account but also your

stress levels. So set a limit for how much of your own money you’re prepared to invest. And don’t let friends and family kick in more than they can afford to lose.

Cardiovascular exercise, a healthful diet, and adequate sleep all help, too. So does cultivating an identity apart from your company. “Build a life centered on the belief that self-worth is not the same as net worth,” says Freeman. “Other dimensions of your life should be part of your identity.” Whether you’re raising a family, sitting on the board of a local charity, building model rockets in the backyard, or going swing dancing on weekends, it’s important to feel successful in areas unrelated to work.

The ability to reframe failure and loss can also help leaders main-tain good mental health. “Instead of telling yourself, ‘I failed, the business failed, I’m a loser,’ ” says Freeman, “look at the data from a different perspective: Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Life is a constant process of trial and error. Don’t exaggerate the experience.”

Last, be open about your feelings—don’t mask your emotions, even at the office, suggests Brad Feld. When you are willing to be emotionally honest, he says, you can connect more deeply with the people around you. “When you deny yourself and you deny what you’re about, people can see through that,” says Feld. “Willingness to be vulnerable is very powerful for a leader.”

“ If you’re manic, you think you’re Jesus. If you’re hypomanic, you think you’re God’s gift to technology investing.”

september/october 2013 | INC. | 3 3

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3 4 | INC. | september/october 2013

Slow, but Steady

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september/october 2013 | INC. | 3 5

In the gloomy din of today’s economic environment, our 2013 batch of honourees offer a ray of hope. The average growth might have been conservative this year, but these companies know battling on is half the war won.

3-D 500 anD ImaGInG bY peterson pj

Page 38: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

of Celebrating EntrepreneurshipAt 37.55 per cent, our 2013 winners have registered the slowest rate of growth among all five Inc. India 500 rankings. That might not seem a great peg for an anniversary celebration but the resilience and robustness of these companies still make for a great source of inspiration.

3 6 | INC. | september/october 2013

Yea rs5

ranking campaign is that it provides a vivid snapshot of the rela-tionship between individual company growth, and the economy at large. Each year, our list mirrors the country’s economic cli-mate, and equips us with a deeper understanding of it. Expect-edly, an important observation in this year’s ranking is the slowdown in the average growth rate of our Inc India 500. From 41 per cent in 2012, the average growth rate has fallen to 37.55 per cent this year. This is the lowest growth rate from the five years, and a huge mark down from the high of 2010 when the average growth rate was an impressive 143.66 per cent.

Consequently, the share of real estate and other sectors that flourished during the high growth years has dropped in conse-quence. Steel & Ferrous Metal has maintained its place though, and the Textiles sector continues to do even better. In this year’s ranking, the Textiles & Garment sector tops with a total of 59 companies. Interestingly, almost half (43 per cent) of the Inc.

e are proud to present our fifth annual ranking of India’s fastest growing mid-size enterprises. When we launched the ranking in 2009, we had no idea how our entrepreneur readers, or the larger community

would respond. But, our past winners have shown us that the rankings have slowly grown to be an industry benchmark that entrepreneurs aspire to be a part of. As our two-time winner Vijay Shekhar Sharma, chairman and MD of One97 Communications puts it, “The Inc. India 500 is to high growth mid-size companies what the Fortune 500 is for large enterprises.”

As a researcher, though, what is most fascinating about our

sLOW, buT sTEADY

Page 39: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

september/october 2013 | INC. | 3 7

Yea rs

India 500 fall under the Top 5 performing sectors—Textiles & Garment, Food & Beverage, Steel & Ferrous Metal, Chemicals, and IT&ITeS. These sectors also contribute 42 per cent of the total sales of the Inc. India 500 honourees.

Pincon Spirit, a Kolkata-based liquor manufacturer, and our No. 1 company this year trumps some of the moderation that the 2013 edition of our ranking stands for. Pincon has a whopping 2,200 per cent CAGR over the past three years. Interestingly, the No. 1 company has belonged to a different sector in each of our five lists so far.

As always, this year’s ranking also represents the dynamism prevalent in India’s mid-size segment. So, even while as many as 158 companies from last year’s ranking continue to be on the 2013 list, the list has witnessed some substantial changes. For instance, the number of companies in the lowest revenue bracket (between `50 crore and `100 crore) has gone down by

20 per cent when compared to our 2012 ranking. This offers a glimmer of good news, and suggests that several of these companies have grown bigger and moved up the revenue category. In keeping with the good news, the number of companies in the `501 to `1,000 crore category has upped by 13 per cent from last year.

The fifth anniversary of the ranking also prompted us to look at the loyalty factor. We weren’t disappointed. An incredible 126 companies have appeared on our list three times, 47 companies four times, and there are 23 companies that have made an outing in each of our five rankings.

As each year, we try to bring forth a new insight into the rank-ings, this year we have a special category for women-led busi-nesses. There are only five such companies on the list this year (see page 80) but we hope to see more of these hidden gems in the years to come. —Aman Shukla

Average Growth Rate (%) Over Five Years

Growth rate of Top 5 sectors compared Growth rate in % 2012 2013

62.45

143.66

52.741 37.55

4222

2679

3340

4545

3233

Textiles & Garment

Food & beverage

steel & Ferrous Metal

IT & ITEs

Chemicals

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

150

90

60

30

120

sLOW, buT sTEADY

Page 40: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

1 Pincon Spirit 2204.09

2 Techno Electric & Engineering Company 556.07

3 Urja Global 507.74

4 4G Identity Solutions 379.14

5 VMS Industries 332.37

6 Ashok Alco-Chem 271.11

7 Nouveau Global Ventures 244.01

8 AdLift Marketing 200.00

9 Arya Iron & Steel Company 185.45

10 VKS Projects 141.42

11 Easy Trip Planners 122.60

12 Edserv Softsystems 116.22

13 Lite Bite Foods 110.86

14 Mohan Steels 107.51

15 Southern Ispat & Energy 102.98

16 Tree House Education & Accessories 95.90

17 Rishiroop Rubber (International) 90.96

18 Shree Surgovind Tradelink 87.21

19 Harvel Agua India 80.53

20 DSMAX Properties 76.83

21 Oberoi Realty 76.73

22 Arcotech 76.15

23 Hythro Power Corporation 75.32

24 Sumeet Industries 73.53

25 Taksheel Solutions 73.08

26 Bhanot Construction & Housing 72.11

27 AISECT 70.52

28 CE Info Systems 68.78

29 Aarey Drugs & Pharmaceuticals 67.98

30 Veritas (India) 66.90

31 Vakrangee Softwares 66.24

32 Vikas GlobalOne 66.11

33 Pentokey Organy (India) 65.81

NO. COMPANY CAGR (%)

31per cent is the

average growth rate of Inc. India 500

companies in the `50 to `100 crore revenue

category.

3 8 | INC. | september/october 2013

The Class of 2013The Honourees500 reasons to be optimistic about India’s growth story

1

The class of 2013

Page 41: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

34 Kothari Industrial Corporation 65.76

35 Ontrack Systems 62.23

36 Commercial Engineers & Body Builders Company 61.12

37 Shelter Infra Projects 60.89

38 Vijay Shanthi Builders 60.76

39 India Steel Works 60.73

40 SRL 57.18

41 Linkson International 54.99

42 Walsons Services 53.79

43 Surin Automotive 53.34

44 Texmo Pipes & Products 53.23

45 Eastern Gases 52.96

46 Enaltec Labs 52.96

47 Hariyana Ship Breakers 52.29

48 Oswal Green Tech 52.12

49 Veer Energy & Infrastructure 51.75

50 BS Ltd 50.72

51 Unique Organics 50.17

52 Gravita India 49.94

53 Synergy Property Development Services 49.60

54 Coastal Corporation 48.95

55 Parekh Aluminex 48.15

56 Cameo Corporate Services 48.14

57 Shree Global Tradefin 47.82

58 Vikas Granaries 47.69

59 Enzen Global Solutions 47.61

60 Tirupati Inks 46.94

61 Sharp Industries 46.88

62 Stovekraft 46.85

63 Sequent Scientific 46.35

64 Ganesh Housing Corporation 45.92

65 Elder Heath Care 44.96

66 New Delhi Centre for Sight 44.95

67 Kaveri Seed Company 44.61

68 Kejriwal Bee Care India 44.53

69 Astral Poly Technik 44.22

70 Himadri Chemicals & Industries 44.14

71 Winsome Yarns 43.57

72 Omnitech InfoSolutions 43.28

73 Marsons 43.12

74 V-Guard Industries 42.99

75 Vidhi Dyestuffs Manufacturing 42.85

76 Vikas Wsp 42.82

77 Net 4 India 42.41

78 NILE 42.26

79 MakeMyTrip India 42.08

80 Ganesha Ecosphere 41.74

81 Globus Spirits 41.61

82 Adi Finechem 41.55

83 Indag Rubber 41.52

84 b4S Solutions 41.44

85 Smruthi Organics 41.38

86 SOM Distilleries & Breweries 41.14

87 Pondy Oxides & Chemicals 41.07

88 Gayatri Bio Organics 40.79

89 Mayur Uniquoters 40.27

90 Spectacle Infotek 40.05

91 First Winner Industries 39.94

92 Sankalp Engineering & Services 39.76

93 Supreme Tex Mart 39.61

94 Shekhawati Poly-Yarn 39.35

95 Karma Industries 39.21

96 Ozone Overseas 39.06

97 Aurionpro Solutions 38.89

98 Infinite Computer Solutions India 38.84

99 Neha International 38.61

100 Tirupati Sarjan 38.32

101 Bafna Pharmaceuticals 38.23

102 Dr Lal Pathlabs 37.71

103 Shri Jagdamba Polymers 37.68

104 Nitin Fire Protection Industries 37.67

105 Kanani Industries 37.24

106 Emmbi Polyarns 37.03

107 Sarthak Industries 36.85

108 Rainbow Papers 36.76

109 Bothra Metals & Alloys 36.71

110 Prakash Constrowell 36.68

111 Atul Auto 36.50

112 Shree Ajit Pulp & Paper 36.41

113 Keerthi Industries 36.37

114 CORE Education & Technologies 36.33

115 Real Ispat And Power 36.26

116 Vivimed Labs 36.22

“In my whole journey of setting up Arya, land acquisition in Orissa was definitely the hardest thing I had to do.”— Puneet Arya, Arya Iron and Steel Company

See full story on page 48

september/october 2013 | INC. | 3 9

“People find it strange but it’s true. So far, we’ve never had a sales team in our company.”— Prashant Puri, Adlift Marketing

See full story on page 54

The class of 2013

Page 42: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

117 Technofab Engineering 36.21

118 Apcotex Industries 36.13

119 Manjushree Technopack 36.09

120 Vishnu Chemicals 36.04

121 Sakuma Exports 35.91

122 Kemrock Industries & Exports 35.87

123 Camlin Fine Sciences 35.87

124 Responsive Industries 35.85

125 Narayana Hrudayalaya 35.69

126 India Techs 35.68

127 Tirumala Milk Products 35.51

128 Texplast Industries 35.36

129 MBL Infrastructures 35.25

130 Gateway Rail Freight 35.22

131 Real Strips 35.21

132 Kamadgiri Fashion 35.13

133 Tera Software 34.90

134 Orient Bell 34.57

135 Modern Denim 34.44

136 Catwalk Worldwide 34.20

137 Orbit Exports 34.02

138 eClerx Services 33.91

139 Mittal Corp 33.79

140 Bhagwati Banquets & Hotels 33.71

141 Flexituff International 33.55

142 Elitecore Technologies 33.28

143 Tulsi Extrusions 33.25

144 Vinati Organics 32.93

145 Regency Hospital 32.93

146 Parabolic Drugs 32.77

147 Setco Automotive 32.53

148 Suprajit Engineering 32.31

149 Rungta Irrigation 32.28

150 Southern Online Bio Technologies 32.22

151 Arshiya International 32.15

152 Galaxy Surfactants 32.03

153 Shaily Engineering Plastics 31.95

154 Annik Technology Services 31.93

155 Anjani Portland Cement 31.85

156 J Kumar Infraprojects 31.85

157 Interport Global Logistics 31.57

158 Camson Bio Technologies 31.45

159 Mantri Developers 31.10

160 Diamines & Chemicals 30.68

161 Radhakrishna Foodland 30.50

162 Neo Corp International 30.49

163 Inani Marbles & Industries 30.48

164 DFM Foods 30.34

165 Rishabhdev Technocable 30.19

166 KIC Metaliks 30.06

167 Phoenix Mills 30.00

168 HSIL 29.93

169 Ramkrishna Forgings 29.82

170 Tab Marketing Services 29.69

171 Anil Ltd. 29.65

172 Jaihind Projects 29.50

173 Raj Rayon Industries 29.48

174 Future Focus Infotech 29.29

175 Syncom Formulations (India) 29.23

176 Sicagen India 29.06

177 Wim Plast 28.97

178 Aseem Global 28.70

179 Eastern Treads 28.55

180 Relaxo Footwears 28.51

181 Mandhana Industries 28.32

182 Shilpa Medicare 28.29

183 Indian Wood Products Co 28.25

184 Modison Metals 28.17

185 Universal Starch Chem Allied 28.12

186 Lotus Chocolate Company 28.08

187 AcroPetal Technologies 28.05

188 Arch Pharmalabs 27.94

189 Midfield Industries 27.89

190 Nissan Copper 27.87

191 Kewal Kiran Clothing 27.82

192 T & I Global 27.79

193 Asahi Songwon Colors 27.55

194 Seed Infotech 27.51

195 Aarvee Denims & Exports 27.44

196 Premier Ltd. 27.36

No. COMPANY CAGR (%)

“Acting in movies and TV

shows has taught me

patience, which is very useful in

running a business.”

— Anuj Saxena, Elder Health Care

See full story on page 84

4 0 | INC. | september/october 2013

44per cent is the average

growth rate of Inc. India 500 companies in the `101 to `500 revenue category.

The class of 2013

Page 43: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

197 Donear Industries 26.92

198 Richa Industries 26.90

199 Stylam Industries 26.58

200 Paladion Networks 26.50

201 Jocil Ltd. 26.49

202 Kovai Medical Center & Hospital 26.31

203 Symphony 26.28

204 Samkrg Pistons & Rings 26.22

205 Samrat Pharmachem 26.15

206 Jyoti Ltd. 26.12

207 Bliss GVS Pharma 26.11

208 Arvind Remedies 26.07

209 Cera Sanitaryware 25.98

210 Easun Reyrolle 25.98

211 Action Construction Equipments 25.92

212 Satra Properties (India) 25.91

213 North Eastern Carrying Corporation 25.70

214 V-Mart Retail 25.58

215 Micro Technologies (India) 25.46

216 Twilight Litaka Pharma 25.38

217 Beekay Steel Industries 25.32

218 GPT Infraprojects 25.06

219 Nila Infrastructures 25.00

220 Siddhartha Tubes 25.00

221 Century Extrusions 24.99

222 GTN Industries 24.90

223 Banco Products (India) 24.80

224 Ajanta Pharma 24.72

225 Sterling Tools 24.69

226 JSL Industries 24.64

227 Damodar Threads 24.61

228 Tasty Bite Eatables 24.58

229 Advanced Enzyme Technologies 24.56

230 Marvel Vinyls 24.40

231 JMT Auto 24.40

232 Cerebra Integrated Technologies 24.34

233 KL Rathi Steels 24.33

234 Lovable Lingerie 24.30

235 Kisan Mouldings 24.26

236 Eka Software Solutions 24.19

237 San Engineering & Locomotive Company 23.99

238 Kalptaru Papers 23.98

239 Sah Petroleums 23.91

240 ARSS Infrastructure Projects 23.91

241 Total Logistics (India) 23.80

242 Gandhi Special Tubes 23.77

243 Sangam (India) 23.73

244 Chartered Logistics 23.71

245 Frick India 23.70

246 TPL Plastech 23.68

247 Milton Cycle Industries 23.66

248 Taparia Tools 23.63

249 Tilaknagar Industries 23.61

250 Insecticides (India) 23.52

251 Aparajitha Corporate Services 23.51

252 Himalya International 23.47

253 Modern India 23.40

254 Kanpur Plastipack 23.38

255 Ecoplast 23.36

256 Anuh Pharma 23.36

257 Hexaware Technologies 23.34

258 Associated Soaptone Dist Co 23.33

259 Lux Industries 23.32

260 Sharon Bio-Medicine 23.20

261 Talwalkars Better value Fitness 23.13

262 Bharat Serums and Vaccines 23.11

263 Poly Medicure 23.07

264 CCL Products (India) 22.86

265 Empire Industries 22.85

266 Steelcast 22.85

267 PI Industries 22.83

268 Shiv-Vani Oil & Gas Exploration Services 22.78

269 Kavveri Telecom Products 22.76

270 Ram Ratna Wires 22.67

271 Autocomp Corporation Panse 22.56

272 Jindal Cotex 22.55

273 Triton Valves 22.46

274 Vadilal Enterprises 22.40

275 IRM Offshore and Marine Engineers 22.34

276 Amar Remedies 22.24

31per cent is the average growth rate of Inc. India 500 companies in the `501 to `1,000 revenue category.

“Over the past year and a half, this is the first time I have had an executive assistant who calls me by my first name. Now there are 10 people in the company who do that. I love it.”— Madhur Daga, Orient Bell

See full story on page 70

september/october 2013 | INC. | 41

The class of 2013

Page 44: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

277 Gloster 22.19

278 Tara Jewels 22.16

279 DTDC Courier & Cargo 21.93

280 Shakti Pumps (India) 21.84

281 Nectar Lifescience 21.73

282 Ashoka Buildcon 21.70

283 TCPL Packaging 21.69

284 Hindustan Hardy Spicer 21.56

285 Tulsyan NEC 21.52

286 Sri Chamundeswari Sugars 21.51

287 Balaji Amines 21.32

288 L G Balakrishnan & Bros 21.26

289 Gyscoal Alloys 21.25

290 Career Point 21.14

291 Polson 21.13

292 Jyothy Laboratories 21.11

293 Control Print 21.04

294 Sanghvi Forging & Engineering 20.93

295 Ruchira Papers 20.87

296 Plastene India 20.82

297 Time Technoplast 20.79

298 CHD Developers 20.78

299 Aries Agro 20.77

300 Geodesic 20.75

301 Veto Switchgears & Cables 20.74

302 Lakshmi Energy & Foods 20.52

303 Rajasthan Tube Manufacturing Co 20.49

304 Rushil Decor 20.44

305 VRL Logistics 20.42

306 Mold-Tek Packaging 20.39

307 Sukhjit Starch & Chemicals 20.38

308 K G Denim 20.35

309 Bheema Cements 20.32

310 Venkys (India) 20.27

311 Precision Wires India 20.22

312 Apollo Sindoori Hotel 20.14

313 Hitech Plast 19.87

314 MSP Steel & Power 19.76

315 Siyaram Silk Mills 19.74

316 Solar Industries India 19.73

317 Walchandnagar Industries 19.68

318 Raunaq Automotive Components 19.54

319 Josts Engineering Company 19.37

320 Cords Cable Industries 19.35

321 Hi-Tech Gears 19.31

322 Rupa & Co 19.27

323 Soma Textiles & Industries 19.22

324 T T Textiles 19.13

325 Haldyn Glass 19.11

326 Pioneer Embroideries 19.10

327 Dynemic Products 19.08

328 Suryavanshi Spinning Mills 19.05

329 Patton International 19.03

330 EMI Transmission 18.93

331 Signet Industries 18.90

332 Supertex Industries 18.82

333 VIP Industries 18.81

334 Eros International Media 18.76

335 Everest Industries 18.76

336 Ugar Sugar Works 18.66

337 KPR Mill 18.60

338 Anu’s Laboratories 18.57

339 Vamshi Rubber 18.53

340 Transasia Bio-Medicals 18.52

341 Sarda Plywood Industries 18.48

342 Ludlow Jute & Specialities 18.39

343 Sudarshan Chemical Industries 18.26

344 R S Software (India) 18.22

345 Sharda Motor Industries 18.19

346 COSCO (India) 18.12

347 Vaswani Industries 18.05

348 NCL Industries 18.05

349 Jai Corp 18.05

350 Autolite (India) 18.04

351 Commtel Networks 17.94

352 Shriram Pistons & Rings 17.93

353 Ginni International 17.89

354 Goldiam International 17.86

355 Nitin Spinners 17.77

356 Ganga Papers India 17.73

No. COMPANY CAGR (%)

4 2 | INC. | september/october 2013

“I get involved in the most

trivial problems at our

restaurants, even if it is a leaking tap.”

— Amit Burman, Lite Bite Foods

See full story on page 74

“Our biggest challenge in starting the

business was that travel

agents did not take us

seriously. Nishant was 19

and I was 17. They were

hesistant about signing up with

two kids.”—Rikant Pitti, Easy

Trip Planners

See full story on 90

The class of 2013

Page 45: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

357 CavinKare 17.72

358 Piccadily Agro Industries 17.66

359 Shankar Packagings 17.64

360 Spark Technolgies 17.61

361 Manali Petrochemicals 17.57

362 Gufic BioSciences 17.46

363 Confidence Petroleum India 17.40

364 Keltech Energies 17.38

365 Zen Technologies 17.31

366 Indofil Industries 17.31

367 Sudal Industries 17.28

368 Associated Pigments 17.28

369 Shasun Pharmaceuticals 17.13

370 Dutron Polymers 17.10

371 Jullundur Motor Agency (Delhi) 17.08

372 Indoco Remedies 17.01

373 PBM Polytex 17.00

374 Akar Tools 16.89

375 Bilcare 16.88

376 Liberty Phosphate 16.86

377 Suryalata Spinning Mills 16.82

378 I G Petrochemicals 16.77

379 Salona Cotspin 16.69

380 Glory Polyfilms 16.54

381 Ess Dee Aluminium 16.43

382 Lambodhara Textiles 16.39

383 TalentPro India HR 16.30

384 Maris Spinners 16.23

385 Pennar Industries 16.18

386 Choksi Imaging 16.07

387 Sambandam Spinning Mills 16.03

388 Carnation Industries 16.01

389 Manjeera Constructions 16.01

390 Srinivasa Hatcheries 15.96

391 Wires & Fabriks (SA) 15.92

392 Samrat Forgings 15.89

393 VLCC Healthcare 15.86

394 Cheviot Company 15.83

395 Rungta Projects 15.78

396 Dankuni Steels 15.72

397 KSE 15.70

398 Acknit Industries 15.70

399 Raychem RPG P 15.63

400 Simplex Projects 15.63

401 Hindustan Composites 15.60

402 Premier Explosives 15.55

403 Accel Frontline 15.51

404 Info Edge (India) 15.43

405 Venus Remedies 15.34

406 C & C Constructions 15.25

407 Lincoln Pharmaceuticals 15.17

408 Dynamatic Technologies 15.15

409 Direct Logistics India 15.14

410 Shilp Gravures 15.09

411 Hawkins Cooker 15.03

412 Terai Tea Co 15.01

413 Jasch Industries 14.97

414 Dhanuka Agritech 14.87

415 Suraj Products 14.85

416 Dwarikesh Sugar Industries 14.79

417 Avon Corporation 14.78

418 Kohinoor Foods 14.77

419 Jagran Prakashan 14.76

420 Kalpena Industries 14.72

421 Jotindra Steel & Tubes 14.70

422 Nesco 14.62

423 Camphor & Allied Products 14.52

424 Pricol 14.50

425 Polyspin Exports 14.45

426 Sarla Performance Fibers 14.39

427 Sunshield Chemicals 14.36

428 Petron Engineering Construction 14.21

429 KDDL 14.13

430 Imperial Life Sciences 14.06

431 Bodal Chemicals 14.03

432 Go Go International 14.02

433 Rai Saheb Rekhchand Mohota Spinning & Weaving Mills 13.99

434 IMP Powers 13.97

435 Bartronics India 13.95

436 Facor Alloys 13.90

437 UP Twiga Fiber glass 13.74

september/october 2013 | INC. | 4 3

“My late grandfather Vishnu Talwalkar imposed a strict rule—not to take any managerial role until I learnt the art and science of the fitness business.”— Prashant Talwalkar, Talwalkars Better Value Fitness

See full story on page 102

The class of 2013

Page 46: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

438 Visesh Infotecnics 13.69

439 Khoday India 13.65

440 H P Cotton Textile Mills 13.63

441 B&A Ltd. 13.63

442 Spentex Industries 13.54

443 Roto Pumps 13.49

444 Manipal Acunova 13.44

445 Spanco 13.34

446 Sanjivani Paranteral 13.33

447 Aqua Logistics 13.30

448 A2Z Maintenance & Engineering Services 13.28

449 Archies 13.23

450 Uniply Industries 13.23

451 Cotmac Electronics 13.20

452 Precision Pipes & Profiles Company 13.16

453 Kandagiri Spinning Mills 13.14

454 Mahamaya Steel Industries 13.05

455 Sree Sakthi Paper Mills 13.04

456 Garware Polyester 12.95

457 Merino Industries 12.91

458 Sunil Agro Foods 12.72

459 Zenith Fibres 12.71

460 D P S C 12.61

461 Chamanlal Setia Exports 12.47

462 Dr Agarwal's Eye Hospital 12.46

463 Mohindra Fasteners 12.46

464 Bedmutha Industries 12.46

465 Amira Pure Foods 12.44

466 GEE Ltd. 12.39

467 Coastal Roadways 12.38

468 Brandhouse Retails 12.36

469 LT Foods 12.35

470 Syncom Healthcare 12.33

471 Konark Synthetic 12.33

472 Indus Fila 12.31

473 Revathi Equipment 12.29

474 Kolte-Patil developers 12.26

475 International Conveyors 12.19

476 Sangal Papers 12.15

477 Aarvi Encon 12.15

478 Impex Ferro Tech 12.12

479 Goodluck Steel Tubes 12.11

480 Nitco 12.06

481 Super Sales India 12.03

482 Valson Industries 12.01

483 Lakshmi Mills Company 11.94

484 Pearl Polymers 11.74

485 Rajapalayam Mills 11.70

486 Tantia Constructions 11.69

487 HIL Ltd 11.50

488 KLRF 11.49

489 Shakti Met-dor 11.47

490 Gulshan Polyols 11.47

491 AIA Engineering 11.35

492 Deepak Nitrite 11.34

493 Bharati Shipyard 11.33

494 Sita Shree Food Products 11.32

495 Maveric Systems 11.22

496 Scotts Garments 11.19

497 Indian Acrylics 11.18

498 Prima Plastics 11.18

499 Accutest Research Laboratories (India) 10.81

500 South India Paper Mills 10.60

No. COMPANY CAGR (%)

4 4 | INC. | september/october 2013

27per cent is the

average growth rate of Inc. India 500

companies in the `1001 to `1500

revenue category.

Over these five years of the Inc. India 500 rankings, we have come across several companies that have showcased consistent performance. Sample this: 23 companies have made it to the list five times, about 47 companies four times and another 126 companies three times!Go to page 96 to meet some of them

The class of 2013

Page 47: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

or any medium to large organization, managing IT risks involves significant time, e�ort and cost. Automation of this is going to be the key in evaluating how smart an organization is in evolving its security & IT risk practices Paladion’s award winning RiskDefense product suite is an easy way for organizations to manage IT risks and compliances with a

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• Risk assessments with excel sheets and manual input for threats, vulnerabilities, likelihood and impact• Monitoring and tracking risk closure status with spreadsheets, emails and telephone calls• Conducting system audit and configuration review through manual reviews• Auditor and auditee coordination, communication and resolution over several meetings and calls • Report preparation for audits, risk assessment, current status or management updates through word or excel or Power Point templates• Manual process for collecting, storing and analyzing security data for higher level metrics

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RiskDefense is highly modular and organizations can implement individual modules to begin and transition to full suite over time for maximum benefit. Today it is being used by over 2000 users spread across multiple organizations in financial sector, IT & ITES and large conglomerates globally. Over last 3 years, the product has received several awards for its technology innovation

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1. Business Context a. Asset and process inventory b. Business valuation c. Business objectives

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Cate orisinsuCCess

4 6 | INC. | september/october 2013

Our six-month long research campaign to bring out this annual issue has lead to a wealth of information and insights. We’ve taken the help of these categories to help you get acquainted with the high potential companies that have made it to this year’s list.

The Top 10 Which are the top 10 companies from our list of 500 bright stars this year? What do they do? How have they grown in the past three years? Here’s a closer look at the fastest of the fast-growing Inc. India 500 companies. Page 48—57

Women Entrepreneurs India ranks quite low on the Gender Entrepreneurship and Development Index globally (see report on page 11). And our Inc. India 500 list goes on to prove that further. From our list of 500 companies, we found only five companies that were led by women entrepreneurs. These outliers surely deserve special mention. Page 80—83

The Kickstarters Meet our crop of trailblazers. They have breached the formidable walls of the Inc. India 500 with both speed and confidence. Not only have these young and restless companies grown more than the average growth rate of the Inc. India 500 honourees (37.55 per cent), they’re also less than 10 years old. Page 84—93

The Dependables These companies have been an epitome of consistency and performance over the past five years of the rankings. Our research reveals that about 23 companies have featured on our list five times, 47 companies have featured four times, and 126 companies have featured three times. Take a look at what keeps these businesses going.Page 96—105

Categorising suCCess

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Cate orisinsuCCess

september/october 2013 | INC. | 47

Page48

Page54

Page70

Page80

Page90

Page96

Page74

Page84

Page 102

Companies We Find Exciting We asked our research team to pick their favourites from the Inc. India 500 companies. Whether it was unconventional company policies such as the anti-bribery policy for Orient Bell employees or how Lite Bite Foods keeps its rental costs lower than half of the industry average (20 per cent), our team found these 10 unique gems that show immense potential for growth. Page 70—77

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the unstinting support and valuable insights of our eminent jury. We’d like to thank Narayan Seshadri, chairman, Tranzmute Capital & Management, Kavil Ramachandran, Thomas Schmidheiny chair professor of family business and wealth management at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and Giri Giridhar, senior director, finance, at Merck, Sharpe & Dohme for their time and guidance.

Categorising suCCess

Page 50: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

The Other Iron Man

4 8 | INC. | september/october 2013

Top 10

Arya Iron and Steel Company Sector: Steel & Ferrous Metal Location: Mumbai CAGR: 185.45% 2012 Revenue: `612 crore

nO.9

the top 10

No. CoMpANy CAGR (%)

1 Pincon Spirit 2204.09

2 Techno Electric & Engineering Company 556.07

3 Urja Global 507.74

4 4G Identity Solutions 379.14

5 VMS Industries 332.37

6 Ashok Alco-Chem 271.11

7 Nouveau Global Ventures 244.01

8 AdLift Marketing 200

9 Arya Iron & Steel Company 185.45

10 VKS Projects 141.42

Page 51: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

september/october 2013 | INC. | 49

As TOld TO IRA SwAStI | PhOTOgrAPh by jIteN GANdhI

Like most business scions, Puneet Arya always had the urge to create his own mark as an entrepreneur, even as he worked to expand his inheritance. Keen to start something different from the family’s ship breaking business, Arya founded the group’s manufacturing arm—the Arya Iron and Steel Company—in 2004. Within 10 years, this iron ore pellet maker has grown from one to 250 people with a production capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of pellets per year. This rapid growth has propelled them to become one of the Top 10 companies in this year’s Inc. India 500 ranking.

Man of Steel Running the family business wasn’t enough for Puneet

Arya. He had to build his own company, even if it meant working in

the remote regions of Orissa for years.

Page 52: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

fter completing my bachelors in business management from Rochester Institute of Tech-nology, USA in 2002, I joined my family busi-ness of ship breaking. While it was an exciting business I couldn’t see myself doing it all my life.

I was more inclined towards manufacturing and after working with my father for two years, I was constantly on the lookout for related industries to start a manufacturing business in.

5 0 | INC. | september/october 2013

India had huge reserves of iron ore at the time, as it does today. But there weren’t many companies producing iron ore pel-lets in the country. There were three major players—JSW, Essar and Kudremukh—who either produced the pellets for con-sumption in their own steel plants or exported it to China, Japan or Korea. I realised that iron pellets would be the future of the steel industry and decided to bridge this gap in the market.

It was the first time our group was get-ting into manufacturing so it felt like a big risk. I was ready to prove myself by taking up a project that was different from our tra-ditional family business. That is how Arya Iron and Steel was incorporated in 2004.

The region around Barbil in Orissa, has the fifth largest deposit of iron ore in the world. We wanted to be the closest possible to our raw material. I was just 24 years old when I went to Barbil to scout out the best location for our plant. During that time, our family business employed only 25-30 people because ship breaking is a contract based industry and nobody in our team was experienced in manufacturing. So I had to take the help of some Jindal Steel officials working in Orissa to guide me.

It was the early 2000s but this area was very remote almost as if it was another country. In fact, there was no railway plat-form at Barbil, and we had to jump off the train at the station! Also, there was no cell phone network in that region then, and I had no way to communicate with either office or home for days. We spent three days driving around for hours on roads that were almost non-existent to identify the land. It was backbreaking work.

But, that was just the beginning. Once

we had identified the land, it took us another year to get the approval from the government, and build buy-in with the area’s tribal population. Arya wasn’t a well-know business group then. Plus, the grate kiln technology we were planning to install hadn’t been used in India before. We had our task with the government cut out—to convince them that the technology risk would be completely borne by the com-pany and we only needed support for land, power and water. Things became a little easier when we made the government offi-cials realise that India was exporting more than 40 million tonnes of iron ore fine when we could have used that for our domestic economy. In contrast, Arya’s aim was to produce iron ore pellets only for domestic producers.

The government finally allotted us the land in 2005 but our next challenge was to work with local villagers to convince them to vacate the land. We would sit down with the villagers telling them that the plant would also benefit their families through employment. We hired a lot of local people to work on the plant. But in my whole jour-ney of setting up Arya, land acquisition in Orissa was definitely the hardest thing I had to do.

Unless I had the land, nothing would have moved forward. At last in 2006, we got the site cleared and the production work started. Physically standing at the site and seeing the pellets roll out was probably one of the most exciting days of my life. But soon after, I had the task of educating the domestic market to use iron ore pellets. As I mentioned earlier, pellets were not being sold in the domestic market until we came onto the scene. Indian DRI (direct reduced

nO.1pincon Spirit

Sector: Food and Beverage Location: Kolkata CAGR: 2204.09% 2012 Revenue: `244 crore

Incorporated in 1978, Pincon Spirit is engaged in the blending, bottling and wholesale distribution of alcoholic beverages. The company also has an FMCG products wing that manufactures pickles, edible oil, jams and spices.

Top 10

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september/october 2013 | INC. | 5 3

iron) manufacturers had read about them and theoretically studied its benefits but they had never used them. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do much of the convincing because I didn’t have the right technical expertise in that area. My father always says—let the experts handle the situation. So I found the best talent in the industry to do the convincing. I just sold the pellets at a cheaper rate than we should have to get people to use it in the beginning. And once they saw its benefits, they would come back for more. Commissioning and stabilising the plant in those first few years of business took us longer than we had expected but things at Arya have become rather smooth since then. Till 2010, I used to travel to Barbil every alternate week but now I need to be there only once a month. The processes have been streamlined and pro-fessional management has been running the show. I am mostly involved in sales and purchases now.

Arya still sells pellets to the domestic market only, even after nine years of start-ing the company. We don’t export iron ore pellets at all. That has always been our underlying philosophy at Arya. When the domestic steel industry is suffering for want of cheap and good quality iron ore pellets, why should we focus on exports? The government is contemplating to reduce the export duty on iron ore. But that will only encourage domestic iron ore pellet makers to export instead of sell in the domestic market, even as Indian man-ufacturers bear the brunt. The government should seriously look into this.

I believe the reason why Arya has grown so fast in under 10 years is the pre-cedence given to quality over quantity. Not just in manufacturing pellets but also in real life. Before I ask how much production has taken place in a day, I ask my people about the housekeeping and hygiene con-ditions at the plant. I have always focused on the work environment first and then the production. I started this company with only one employee and today I have 250-plus employees and more than 500 con-tract workers. I see my company taking shape every single day and I strive to only make it better in the coming years.

nO.44G Identity Solutions

Sector: It & IteS Location: hyderabad CAGR: 379.14% 2012 Revenue: `110 crore

Incorporated in 2001, it provides large scale identity management solutions for government, corporate, banking and defence sectors through their smart cards and biometric technologies.

nO.3 Urja Global

Sector: power and energy Location: delhi CAGR: 507.74% 2012 Revenue: `106 crore

Started in 1992, it provides solar and renewable energy products such as solar street lights, solar panels, solar inverters etc for commercial, government and residential purposes.

nO.2techno electric and engineering Company

Sector: electrical equipment Location: Kolkata CAGR: 556.07% 2012 Revenue: `726 crore

Founded in 1983, it provides engineering, procurement and construction services for the power sector. It has also set up over 50 per cent of India’s thermal power generating capacity and a major portion of the national power grid.

Top 10

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5 4 | INC. | september/october 2013

THE TOP 10

AdLift Marketing

Sector: Services Location: Gurgaon CAGR: 200% 2012 Revenue: `54 crore

The Growth Chaser

nO.

As Told To ShreyASi SinGh | PhoToGrAPh by AnubhAv DAS

Thanks to the explosion of internet, companies in the digital media and search engine optimisation space have almost become commodities. But, AdLift, a Gurgaon and Palo Alto, California-based SEO agency seems to have broken through the clutter. Prashant Puri, the company’s co-founder & CEO admits the company’s current annual turnover of `54 crore has “exceeded” the expectations they began with in April 2009. Puri was certainly well-equipped to power this growth with his experience of growing websites such as Shopping.com and Yahoo! But, he quickly demystifies the Keep It Simple, Silly philosophy—dogged monitoring of margins, a strict focus on the task at hand, and not having a sales team (yes, you heard that right, no sales team!).

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september/october 2013 | INC. | 5 5

racing Ahead Prashant Puri realised his “sky-high dream” of making $12

million in revenue by focusing on bootstrapping, instead of

investments.

Page 56: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

eople find it strange but it’s true—so far, we’ve never invested in a sales force. When my co-founder Vivek Pahwa and I began AdLift in 2009, we believed that if you say what you do, you deliver what you’ve put down on paper, and you do good work, you should

be able to scale existing clients, and grow by word of mouth. The inspiration for that really was the Google story. Look at them, they’ve been in business for nearly 15 years, but it’s only in the last year, or

nO.5vMS industries Sector: Services Location: Ahmedabad CAGR: 332.37% 2012 Revenue: `116.3 crore

When the company started in 1991, it only provided consultancy and IT services. But in 2006-07, it diversified its business into dealership of Honda’s two-wheelers, and later entered into the business of shipbreaking and export of ship items in 2009.

5 6 | INC. | september/october 2013

year and a half, that they have spent money on advertising. Otherwise, although they were at the centre of the advertising ecosys-tem, they themselves never advertised. So, even though we are not a B2C company like them, that philosophy can still work. See, search marketing is a pretty small world. In the industry, people will find out if you’re doing good work. And, if your name comes up in a conversation, that’s way more valuable than 35 people pound-ing the phone with cold calls.

So, even today, we’ve got one person who is the VP, sales. Otherwise, our account management team is at the fore-front interacting with the client. We have a 90 per cent client retention rate, and the top reason for actually losing a client would be that a client’s budget has been squeezed. We internally don’t have much control over that. Needless to say, not having a bigger business development team isn’t something that is going to be a reality forever. It’s been the reality so far. But, we are toying with the idea of expanding our business develop-ment team now. That should happen at the end of this year because we’re looking at several strategic partnerships in 2014, and also want to scale up across multiple geog-raphies simultaneously.

When we started out though, we kept things real. I think entrepreneurs can get lost in all the big talk about valuations and investments. I’ve seen that in the many years I spent in the Silicon Valley ecosys-tem. But, that is not the approach we took. We bootstrapped AdLift, we built it on profitability. In fact, we were profitable from the second month itself. The only negative month we’ve had in four years was our first month.

Margin has been a key focus for us throughout. We hired people as we brought in clients. Actually, just-in-time hiring really worked for us—it allowed us to hire the right people for the right clients.

Up until now, we haven’t really worried about growth rates, although growth has been pretty astounding at 185 to 200 per cent CAGR, year on year. But, till 2011, we didn’t even put in business projections in place, however when we were starting out, it was our sky-high, almost unreal dream to see if we could grow a search marketing firm to $10-12 million in revenue in a short period of time. But, that wasn’t our focus. We were hands down in getting the work done. Thankfully, we managed to sign on great clients—companies such as eBay, Barnes & Noble, Maclaren and PayPal.

When we began AdLift in 2009, there was also an option of doing business in India, and expanding here. But, when we started speaking to various companies in India, we realised there was a price dis-connect. We were data-driven, and confi-dent of the ROI from our services. But, at that time, the understanding and market for search marketing wasn’t very mature in India. The next agency would be offer-ing seemingly same service at 1/10th the price. We didn’t want to be in that zone. The potential clients we were pitching to would ask—why are you asking for 5x more, when you’re offering the same thing? In fact, that pricing war has led many e-commerce companies and sites in India to burn their fingers. Slowly, they realised why a premium service comes at a premium cost.

Around 2011, we got back into the Indian market again. Today, we work with

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We kept things simple by focussing on getting work, doing it well, and keeping a close eye on margins.

nO.7nouveau Global ventures

Sector: Trading Location: Mumbai CAGR: 244.01% 2012 Revenue: `198 crore

Founded in 1988, the company is engaged in trading activities in the following verticals—automation, multimedia, real estate and infrastructure, electronics and agriculture.

nO.6Ashok Alco-Chem

Sector: Chemicals Location: Mumbai CAGR: 271.11% 2012 Revenue: `321 crore

Founded in 1992, the company manufactures and markets industrial alcohol, acetic acid and ethyl acetate for inks, paints, resins and flexi-packaging. It also started trading in mineral products for exports in 2009.

nO.10vKS Projects

Sector: Construction Location: Mumbai CAGR: 141.42% 2012 Revenue: `144 crore

Started in 1998 , it is a civil engineering construction company that also manufacturers chemical equipment and commissions chemical plants in the fields of chemicals, oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals among others.

september/october 2013 | INC. | 5 7

companies such as Nestle and the entire InfoEdge group. We see a lot of potential here now. Over the next two years, we might even have an equal distribution of revenue between US and India. Working with Indian clients has meant a certain level of cultural acclimatisation for our teams. For example, when I started spend-ing more time pitching to clients here, I realised that a “no” in India doesn’t really mean a “no”. In the US, if somebody has said no, they’ve pretty much thought it through, and there’s no going back. But, in India, you don’t know for sure—maybe it’s a price negotiation tactic, or there’s some-thing else going on!

It’s also interesting to see if we can bring the strengths of our US team to India, and vice versa. We have 40 people in India, and 15 in the US. Actually, what helps us stand apart is our training and experience in the US market. Based on our experience abroad, we’ve brought to India a lot of proj-ect management tools popular in the US but are rarely used here. Another thing I’d like to transport from the US to here is the sense of accountability—of timelines and deliverables—that our team there has. Everybody feels such ownership to what they do. Our Indian team, on the other hand, constantly surprises me by how fast they catch on to something. From an effi-ciency point of view, the team in India sometimes manages to achieve a lot in a shorter span of time. We are trying to examine how they do that here, and take it to Palo Alto. That will be hugely helpful to power our ambitions now—to become a 200-300 people firm, and target a turnover growth of five to ten times over the next three years.

THE TOP 10

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YEARS,TOPERS

OuR HAll Of fAmE

5 8 | INC. | september/october 2013

As we mark the fifth anniversary of our annual Inc. India 500 rankings, we decided to look back at the winners of the past. Although our goal of discovering the country’s most promising midsize companies has always remained constant, this journey is a good showcase of how our rankings and methodology have evolved over the years. Read on to know more about the No. 1 companies on our five Inc. India 500 lists so far.

5 YEARS, 5 TOPPERS

Page 59: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

YEARS,TOPERS

september/october 2013 | INC. | 5 9

2009 WinnerSun TV Network Sector: Media & Entertainment Location: Chennai CAGR: 64% 2008 Revenue: `861 crore

Sun TV Network was the No. 1 company on our first Inc. India 500 ranking in 2009. Founded in 1993 by Kalanithi Maran, Sun TV is the flagship property of the Chennai-based media group Sun Network. The business has come a long way from television, newspapers and magazines. Today, it also runs a radio station (Red FM), a movie production house (Sun Pictures), a budget airlines (SpiceJet) and an IPL franchise (Sunrisers Hyderabad).

Methodology for the 2009 Inc. India 500 ranking: We assessed the performance of high growth companies with net sales between `50 and `1,500 crore that closed their financials in 2008 on the following parameters:

Size—Calculated by taking the simple average of net sales and total assets of the company

Top line growth and bottom line growth—Calculated by the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of net sales and net profits for 2005 through 2008

Profitability—Calculated by taking a simple average of net profit margins and operating profit margins

Returns—It is an average of return on capital employed and return on equity.

The ranking model gave equal weight to each of these parameters.

5 YEARS, 5 TOPPERS

Page 60: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

6 0 | INC. | september/october 2013

PH

OTO

S.C

OM

2011 Winner Vikas Global One

Sector: Oil & Gas Location: New Delhi CAGR: 631% 2010 Revenue: `63 crore

This was the year when we changed our ranking methodology significantly to showcase unlisted and privately held businesses. And the company that took home the Inc. India 500 No. 1 company position that year was the Delhi-based Vikas Global One. Founded by Nand Kishore Garg in 1984, this petrochemical products company is run by his son Vikas Garg. Started as a trading business, the company has since entered manufacturing of high end products used in plastic, rubber, footwear and packaging industries.

Methodology for the 2011 Inc. India 500 ranking:While there are more than 8.5 lakh registered companies in the country we only get to hear about the 7,000-odd listed ones. So to allow a wider coverage of unlisted and privately held businesses, we changed our approach to the following. We created three master lists—one for each public listed companies, public unlisted companies and privately held businesses which had sales between `50 to `1,500 crore. These companies were then assessed on the following parameters:

Digital presence—Each company was assessed on a scale of 1 to 5 on its ability to use digital platforms such as the internet to showcase information about the company and its leadership

Year of incorporation and the line of business

Compound annual growth rate of net sales of the last four financial years

2010 WinnerNava Bharat Ventures

Sector: Diversified Location: Hyderabad CAGR: 23% 2009 Revenue: `1,161 crore

The No. 1 company on our second Inc. India 500 ranking has a diversity similar to its predecessor. Nava Bharat Ventures has several business interests that span across power generation, ferrous alloys, mining and agri-business with multinational operations in India, South East Asia and Africa. Founded in 1972 by Dr D. SubbaRao, Sri P. Punnaiah and Sri A.S. Chowdhri, the firm is run by Ashok Devineni today. Methodology for the 2010 Inc. India 500 ranking: The methodology remained the same as in 2009 except the following changes:

Each parameter was converted to a scale of 0 to 100 for comparison purposes using the following equation: ith company’s score on jth parameter = 50 * parameter j/parameter j’s universe average.

Instead of equal weightage as earlier, the ranking used weighted average to calculate scores for each parameter.

5 YEARS, 5 TOPPERS

Page 61: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

september/october 2013 | INC. | 61

2012 WinnerArunjyoti Enterprises

Sector: Retail Location: Hyderabad CAGR: 1,231% 2011 Revenue: `71 crore

Arunjyoti Enterprises runs the Taaza brand of convenient stores in south India. It was bought over by P. Ravinder Rao with his own personal savings and a loan from his family in 2008. Back then, it was a finance company dealing in investments but Rao turned the business into trading of agri-based products. The company showed an impressive growth path of 1,231% per cent for the next three years (FY 2008-09 to FY 10-11) and was ranked as the No. 1 company on our fourth Inc. India 500 list.

Methodology for the 2012 Inc. India 500 ranking:

For the first time ever, we introduced a four people jury to help us find our Inc. India 500.

We strengthened our online media campaign to invite nominations from companies, industry associations and PE firms to send in their nominations for the Inc. India 500 rankings.

These nominated companies along with the companies from our internal database, with sales turnover between `50 crore and `1500 crore, were assessed on the same parameters as the 2011 rankings, namely: the company’s line of business, its year of incorporation and leadership and CAGR of the last four financial years. However, we had dropped the digital presence parameter from last year.

2013 WinnerPincon Spirit

Sector: Food & Beverage Location: Kolkata CAGR: 2,204% 2012 Revenue: `244 crore

Incorporated in 1978, the company is engaged in the blending, bottling and distribution of Indian made foreign liquor. Led by Manoranjan Roy, the company is listed on the Calcutta stock exchange.

Methodology for the 2013 Inc. India 500 Ranking:This year’s methodology mostly remains the same as the previous year’s. However, given the volatile market conditions and a recessionary economy, we realised that growth in such times is a significant enough parameter.

We primarily focused on the growth rate of the company’s net sales in the last four financial years.

We had a three-member jury to help us pick the best of the best. Know more about them on page 47.

—Compiled by Ira Swasti

Note: In all our five rankings, we have excluded BFSIs and PSUs, as it’s difficult to define revenue for the former, and PSUs can hardly be considered independent entities with commercial objectives.

5 YEARS, 5 TOPPERS

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6 2 | INC. | september/october 2013

BY THENUMBERSWe divided the Inc. India 500 into four revenue categories. Here’s how the share of companies in each category has fared over the years.

top 10 CoMpANies (`50-100 Cr CAtegory)

No. CoMpANy CAgr (%)

8 AdLift Marketing 200.00

12 Edserv Softsystems 116.22

13 Lite Bite Foods 110.86

16 Tree House Education and Accessories 95.90

17 Rishiroop Rubber (International) 90.96

18 Shree Surgovind Tradelink 87.21

19 Harvel Agua India 80.53

20 DSMAX Properties 76.83

28 CE Info Systems 68.78

33 Pentokey Organy (India) 65.81

No. of companies in the `50 to ̀ 100 crore revenue category

48 2010

76 2009

140 2011

115 2012

96 2013

3

Average growth rate of Inc. India 500 companies

31.03per cent is the average growth rate of companies in the `50 to `100 crore revenue category

43.50per cent is the average growth rate of companies in the `101 to `500 crore revenue category

30.89per cent is the average growth rate of companies in the `501 to `1,000 crore revenue category

27.03per cent is the average growth rate of companies in the `1,001 to `1,500 crore revenue category

Page 63: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

The Top 10 companies of each category are for

the FY 2011-12.

by the NUMbeRS

top 10 CoMpANies (`501-1000 Cr CAtegory)

No. CoMpANy CAgr (%)

2Techno Electric &

Engineering 556.07

9 Arya Iron & Steel 185.45

24 Sumeet Industries 73.53

39 India Steel Works 60.73

40 SRL 57.18

47 Hariyana Ship Breakers 52.29

57 Shree Global Tradefin 47.82

62 Stovekraft 46.85

69 Astral Poly Technik 44.22

72 Omnitech InfoSolutions 43.28

top 10 CoMpANies (`1001-1500 Cr CAtegory)

No. CoMpANy CAgr (%)

31 Vakrangee Softwares 66.24

50 BS Ltd 50.72

55 Parekh Aluminex 48.15

70Himadri Chemicals and

Industries44.14

76 Vikas Wsp 42.82

79 MakeMyTrip India 42.08

124 Responsive Industries 35.85

127 Tirumala Milk Products 35.51

129 MBL Infrastructures 35.25

152 Galaxy Surfactants 32.03

top 10 CoMpANies (`101-500 Cr CAtegory)

No. CoMpANy CAgr (%)

1 Pincon Spirit 2204.09

3 Urja Global 507.74

4 4G Identity Solutions 379.14

5 VMS Industries 332.37

6 Ashok Alco-Chem 271.11

7 Nouveau Global Ventures 244.01

10 VKS Projects 141.42

11 Easy Trip Planners 122.60

14 Mohan Steels 107.51

15 Southern Ispat & Energy 102.98

No of companies in `101 to ̀ 500 crore category

No of companies in `1,001 to ̀ 1,500 crore category

65 2010

56 2009

42 2011

342012

30 2013

No of companies in `501 to ̀ 1,000 crore category

143 2010

129 2009

94 2011

922012

104 2013

244 2010

239 2009

224 2011

2592012

270 2013

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Top 10 CitiesTravel through the the top business hubs in the country. They corner much of the action. And, Mumbai continues to dominate India Inc. with Delhi NCR following close behind.

Revenue Share (%)

No. of Companies

6 4 | INC. | september/october 2013

TOP 10 CITIES

Mumbai

140Hyderabad

27

Delhi NCR

5Chennai

20

Kolkata

36Pune

12

Bangalore

31Chandigarh

Ahmedabad

2Coimbatore

Coimbatore

2

Mumbai

30

Delhi NCR

21Kolkata

7

Bangalore

5

Ahmedabad

5

Hyderabad

5Chennai

4

Pune

3

Chandigarh

3

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6 6 | INC. | september/october 2013

TOP5SecTOrS

Percentage of companies in the Inc. India 500

7%

7.6%

8%

8.6%

11.8%Textiles

Food & Beverage

Steel & Ferrous Metal

Chemicals

IT & ITEs

Average growth rate of top 5 sectors (FY 2011-12)

Textiles

Food & Beverage

Steel & Ferrous Metal

Chemicals

IT & ITEs

45%

33%

40%

79%

22%

TEXTILES FOOD & BEVERAGE STEEL & FERROUS METAL IT & ITeS CHEMICALS

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september/october 2013 | INC. | 67

TOP 5 SECTORS

Textiles

Number of companies & sectoral growth rate

43of the companies fall in top 5 sectors

42Contribution of Top 5 sectors to the total sales of Inc. India 500, 2013

1, 7,235 crTotal sales of Inc. India 500 (FY 2011-12)

7 ,552 crTotal sales of Top 5 sectors (FY 2011-12)

No. of Companies 59 Total Revenue `22,292 crore CAGR 22.14%Average Turnover `378 croreTop Player Sumeet Industries Ltd

TOp 10 COMpAnIES In TEXTILES

no. Company CAGR (%)

24 Sumeet Industries 73.53

71 Winsome Yarns 43.57

80 Ganesha Ecosphere 41.74

91 First Winner Industries 39.94

93 Supreme Tex Mart 39.61

94 Shekhawati Poly-Yarn 39.35

132 Kamadgiri Fashion 35.13

135 Modern Denim 34.44

137 Orbit Exports 34.02

173 Raj Rayon Industries 29.48

2009

14

57

20

3429

42 41 42

59

22

2010 2011 2012 2013

No of Companies Growth Rate %

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6 8 | INC. | september/october 2013

Steel & Ferrous Metal

Number of companies & sectoral growth rate

No of Companies 40 Total Revenue `16,026 crore CAGR 30.31%Average Turnover `401 croreTop Player Arya Iron & Steel Company

2009

5449

29

130

47 47 4233

4030

2010 2011 2012 2013

No of Companies Growth Rate %

Food & Beverage

Number of companies & sectoral growth rate

No of Companies 43Total Revenue `14,684 croreCAGR 79.31% Average Turnover `341 croreTop Player pincon Spirit

TOp 10 COMpAnIES In FOOD & BEVERAGE

no. Company CAGR (%)

1 Pincon Spirit 2204.09

17 Rishiroop Rubber (International) 90.96

51 Unique Organics 50.17

54 Costal Corporation 48.95

58 Vikas Granaries 47.69

67 Kaveri Seed Company 44.61

68 Kejriwal Bee Care India 44.53

76 Vikas Wsp 42.82

81 Globus Spirits 41.61

86 SOM Distilleries & Breweries 41.14

2009

13

49

19

37

19

35

55

26

37

84

2010 2011 2012 2013

No of Companies Growth Rate %

TOp 10 COMpAnIES In STEEL & FERROUS METAL

no. Company CAGR (%)

9 Arya Iron & Steel Company 185.45

14 Mohan Steels 107.51

15 Southern Ispat & Energy 102.98

39 India Steel Works 60.73

107 Sarthak Industries 36.85

115 Real Ispat And Power 36.26

131 Real Strips 35.21

139 Mittal Corp 33.79

166 KIC Metaliks 30.06

169 Ramkrishna Forgings 29.82

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september/october 2013 | INC. | 69

TOP 5 SECTORS

Number of companies & sectoral growth rate

ChemicalsNo of Companies 38 Total Revenue `14,851 croreCAGR 33.49% Average Turnover `391 croreTop Player Ashok Alco-Chem

2009

18

77

30 24

4632 33

2010 2011 2012 2013

No of Companies Growth Rate %

IT & ITeS

Number of companies & sectoral growth rate

No of Companies 35 Total Revenue `10,700 crore CAGR 45.17%Average Turnover `306 crore Top Player 4G Identity Solutions

2009

48

58

49

32

5763

4745

35

45

2010 2011 2012 2013

No of Companies Growth Rate %

TOp 10 COMpAnIES In CHEMICALS

no. Company CAGR (%)

6 Ashok Alco-Chem 271.11

33 Pentokey Organy (India) 65.81

34 Kothari Industrial Corporation 65.76

60 Tirupati Inks 46.94

70 Himadri Chemicals and Industries 44.14

75 Vidhi Dyestuffs Manufacturing 42.85

82 Adi Finechem 41.55

87 Pondy Oxides & Chemicals 41.07

88 Gayatri Bio Organics 40.79

116 Vivimed Labs 36.22

TOp 10 COMpAnIES In IT & ITES

no. Company CAGR (%)

4 4G Identity Solutions 379.14

12 Edserv Softsystems 116.22

25 Taksheel Solutions 73.08

27 AISECT 70.52

28 CE Info Systems 68.78

31 Vakrangee Softwares 66.24

35 Ontrack Systems 62.23

72 Omnitech InfoSolutions 43.28

77 Net 4 India 42.41

84 b4S Solutions 41.44

32 3138

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7 0 | INC. | september/october 2013

Companies We Find exCiting

Orient Bell Sector: Cement & Ceramic Products Location: Delhi CAGR: 34.57% 2012 Revenue: `546 crore

nO.134

The Right Swing

No. COMPANY CAGR (%)

13 Lite Bite Foods 110.86

19 Harvel Agua 80.53

25 Taksheel Solutions 73.08

37 Shelter Infra Projects 60.89

89 Mayur Uniquoters

40.27

95 Karma Industries 39.21

102 Dr Lal Pathlabs 37.71

134 Orient Bell 34.57

139 Mittal Corp 33.79

228 Tasty Bite Eatables 24.58

Companies We Find Exciting

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september/october 2013 | INC. | 71

AS TOLD TO ShREYASi SiNGh | PHOTOgRAPH By SuBhOjit PAul

it’s easy to spot Madhur Daga’s passion. Articulate and spirited, the executive director of Orient Bell Limited (OBL) is a great interview subject in any case. But, it’s when talking innovations and patents that he gets most animated. Little surprise then that Orient Bell, has four patent-pending tile products, the uniqueness of which Daga is wont to explain in vivid details. Much like OBL’s tiles have laid out floors in buildings such as the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the company seems to be patterning its rich 40-year old history with bold strokes of growth with acquisitions, contract manufacturing and a pipeline of imaginative products. OBL also stands out for its well-articulated anti-bribery and whistle blower policies. In a conversation at his company’s Greater Kailash showroom in New Delhi, Daga talks freeely on much of this.

Doing Right Daga believes in always taking a justifiable

action towards people. It sets a good precedent, he says.

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7 2 | INC. | september/october 2013

three manufacturing bases in Hoskote, Secunderabad and Dora. Anyone who knows about the tile business will tell you that since tiles are so heavy, no one has been able to figure out a cheaper way (other than incurring a huge amount of freight charges) to send tiles from Point A to Point B. You have no choice but to be close to your consuming geography. The south and the west of the country are both deep, rich consumers of tiles, and buying Bell Ceramics gave us a way to tap this demand with the lowest time to market, and lowest freight costs.

Needless to say, the integration was a challenge. Human beings are generally resistant towards change. But, I’ve figured out that education is what beats that anxi-ety. To educate the people about what the future has in store for them, it’s important to talk to them, to engage with them. We did exactly that.

Also, one of the things that really helped, I think, was that apart from our management teams going to the plants, I would make it a point to visit them once a month. I still do. For the Bell team, that was a surprise. The earlier promoter family wasn’t involved in the plant. They had sev-eral other business interests, including run-ning the Hyatt hotels, and the Four Seasons in Goa. Their energies were focused on that business, and Bell was actually on auto-pilot; it wasn’t a priority. The employees never saw the promoters.

You know, it’s great to be completely professionally managed but with that if the promoter demonstrates interest in the business, it creates an instant and abiding engagement. Because the people at the plants saw me every month, and knew I

took the time out to visit them even though I lived in Delhi, not only did it cre-ate the bonding we wanted, they also realised how central their efforts were to the company. Through this integration, I’ve learnt a key business lesson—commu-nication can change businesses and trans-form companies.

Because we communicated clearly, and often, we could articulate that we weren’t going to lay people off. We didn’t want to eliminate or eradicate jobs. Instead, the company was bought because we believed in the synergies there were, and the com-petence of the team at Bell. When you are transparent and let people know what lies in store for them, they respond positively. At the same time, within a few months, people understood we were not very tol-erant to those people who became stum-bling blocks to a smooth integration. Those people were let go off. When you take action towards people justifiably, it sets a good precedent.

Another thing that worked in the inte-gration process was the company being renamed Orient Bell. The Bell brand had a lot of goodwill in areas where Orient wasn’t strong. So, we had a choice, either we could invest money in making the Ori-ent brand stronger in our new markets, or we could invest a little bit of money in making sure the Bell brand sustains and strengthens. We decided to name the com-pany Orient Bell. It demonstrated our respect for Bell, and the company became a permanent part.

Fortunately, our strategy and our plans worked. Within the first year after the acquisition, Bell and OBL consolidation was in the black. Also, Bell which was in

nO.9

Mayur uniquoters

Sector: Plastic Products Location: jaipur CAGR: 40.27% 2012 Revenue: `317 crore

“If you want something done, be after its execution as if it was supposed to be finished yesterday. you are already late because time is money and you cannot buy it once it’s lost.”— SuRESh KuMAR PODDAR, CMD

Founded in 1994, this manufacturer of artificial leather has an installed capacity of 1.9 million linear meters per month.

he past three years have been very signifi-cant for us. To begin with, we made our first acquisition in December 2010 when we bought over Bell Ceramics, a tile player with a strong base in the West, and a network in the

South for `120 crore. Orient Ceramics, which is what we were called then, was primarily a North India company. It’s why the Bell deal was so compelling for us—overnight, we became a pan India player with

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september/october 2013 | INC. | 7 3

the red turned a corner. I think that was a tremendous achievement for us.

But, the excitement at Orient Bell isn’t limited to merged balanced sheets, and positive numbers. I am a product develop-ment guy at heart. For me, no matter how good our balance sheet is, or how many cool write ups we get in the media, the most important bit is how you touch us through our product when you come to our showroom. Our customers don’t care who Madhur Daga is. They don’t care about our anti-bribery and whistleblower policy, all they care about is—do I want this product in my bathroom and bedroom?

That’s my role at the company—to make sure our products are current and we stay with the time. So, we very proudly claim that we have four patent-pending tile tech-nologies such as our Forever Tiles (our highly abrasive resistant, stain resistant and long-lasting), Germ Free Tiles (anti-micro-bial), Cool Tiles (invented to reflect back solar heat, and reduce a building’s cooling requirements), and Life Tiles (that removes noxious gases from inside a building). That is the excitement for me—this marriage of creative technology and creative design from our partnerships with design studios in Europe, and our local engineering.

I’m glad that over the past few years, I’ve been able to focus more and more on products. Our CEO, Vijay Shankar Sharma, focuses on the strategy, and the operations. And, because I have him and his great team to do that, I can sit back and look at what we should develop next. Ulti-mately, you have to play to your strengths, and R&D is mine. That strength can differ from MD to MD, CEO to CEO. You have to know yours.

Beyond that, what gives me most satis-faction are the reinforcements we’ve made in the values we believe in. On the context of corporate governance, I can tell you unequivocally that we would be the best in the industry. I believe that. My father, who founded the company, brought us up to believe that no matter how much money you make or don’t make, you need a good night’s sleep. You cannot be going to bed thinking that regulators, or press reporters

will be at your doorstep next morning. In the market and an environment like

India, slipping up on corporate governance can very easily happen. You get tempted because apparently everyone does it. We have a simple acronym for the set of values we believe in—IQCAPP, which stands for integrity, quality, customers, agility, part-ners and performance.

Our anti-bribery and whistleblower policies are a continuation of our focus on integrity. I don’t want people to think that someone in the company read something cool online, and we said, let’s do it. No, this is something that began in 1970 without a policy, then refined itself when we articu-lated our core values of IQCAPP, and then we felt a policy that puts forth our beliefs was important.

See, in every company in any industry, especially in manufactur-ing, the purchase depart-ment has the most dirt thrown on it. We wanted to address that. Of course, I’m not saying that just because we have an anti-bribery policy, no one in our company will ever take a bribe. That’s impos-sible to claim—just because you have a lock at home doesn’t mean some-one is not going to break it. But, laying the policy out has told everybody about the consequences of slipping up. Real disincentives are very valuable.

So, once the policy got formed in early 2012, and we got approval from our Board, it was circulated to all employees with a note from our CEO saying, “Go through it, your life depends on it.” We are very proud of having done this. We don’t want people to think that Orient Bell has implemented this because bribes were rampant in our company. That’s not true at all. The policy is pro-active. It shows the strength of our commitment to our people, and tells them, “Management believes in you, go do the right thing.”

Now, when someone takes a bribe or thinks about taking one, he, at least, has the thought that he is breaking a golden tenet that in this company is written in blood and stone. There is no ambiguity.

Often, people get tempted because there is no one to watch over them. We also have the Whistleblowers Policy, a five-page document that has also been approved by the Board. Anybody can write to the audit committee, or to the chairman directly, and be assured that their input would be completely anony-mous, and their interests protected.

I’m confident that our people will feel empowered to do this. That is definitely in transition. If you ask me, is everyone in your company empowered? Yes, they are empowered but do they have the mindset to do it, to speak up, to stand out? Maybe

not everybody! But how can I change that other than by reiterating and repeating that they can come talk to me.

Things are changing—for example, I’ve had various executive assistants for the past 12 years. Over the past year and a half, this is the first time I have had an executive assistant who calls me by my first name. I love that. I have tried it in the past but then I can’t put a gun on our head and say, “Don’t call me sir!” Now, there are 10 peo-ple in the company who call me by my first name. There are 950 people who don’t but I won’t accept that it’s not because I don’t want them to.

Companies We Find exCiting

it’s great to be professionally managed but with that if the entrepreneur demonstrates interest in the business, it creates an instant and abiding engagement.

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COMPANIES WE FIND EXCITING

Lite Bite Foods Sector: Services Location: Gurgaon CAGR: 110.86% 2012 Revenue: `75 crore

nO.13

The Maverick Restaurateur

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september/october 2013 | INC. | 7 5

As Told To SonaL KhetarpaL | PhoTogRAPh by SuBhojit pauL

amit Burman was born into money, as they say. For this fifth generation heir of the `6,800-crore Dabur Group, savouring his bountiful inheritance wasn’t enough. While Burman continues to be the FMCG giant’s vice chairman, he has dabbled in entrepreneurial ventures outside his family-controlled business empire. Unfortunately, none of the businesses across the different segments he tried—internet, car dealership and health care—worked out. Burman finally tasted success with Lite Bite, a casual dining and QSR brands company that he founded with his friend Rohit Agarwal in 2001. Today, Lite Bite has 65 outlets across 12 restaurant brands. Yet, Burman’s business appetite is far from satiated. Over the next three years, he plans to invest an additional `100 crore and add 100 more outlets.

a Full-time Foodie Burman loves to eat out at different restaurants. If he

likes something, he always brings it back for his chefs to relish.

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I am in the office latest by 8.05am. Before I start work, I say a little prayer; and then organise all my devices around me—my laptop, iPad and BlackBerry. We have an 8.30am meeting every alternate day with all the department heads. I always, always attend that. When I first started Lite Bite, it did feel strange to be so involved in the day-to-day functioning of the business. I was used to Dabur where my work role was more strategic. I was mostly involved in exploring or closing M&A opportunities and quarterly reviews. Yes, I had started Dabur Foods, the processed food division of Dabur India in 1999. But, really, all I had to set up from scratch was a new sales and marketing team. We relied on the parent company for the rest of the infrastructure.

Starting up at Lite Bite literally meant starting from ground zero. It wasn’t easy, not for me, or many of the people we hired, most of who were from large hospitality chains. Much like me, they were also used to having the back end being taken care of. But, a growing F&B retail business cannot take those things for granted. We couldn’t wait for the infrastructure and processes to be totally set up. If a light bulb wasn’t work-ing, we couldn’t wait for the scheduled maintenance contractor to come fix it. We needed to be responsive, and solve prob-lems quickly. To make sure that becomes the way Lite Bite worked, I realised I had to step out of my cubicle. I began to get involved in the most trivial problems, even if it was a leaking tap. And, gradually saw everyone following the lead.

Even though the company is 12 years old now, I still maintain this attitude. We currently have 65 casual dining and quick service restaurants—Punjab Grill for north Indian cuisine, Zambar for coastal food,

Asia 7 for South East Asian, Fresc Co for Italian and Mediterranean, Pino’s for pasta and pizza, and cafeteria formats Baker Street and Street Foods of India. Almost 70 per cent of my time goes in looking after these brands.

At Lite Bite, I really feel for the first time that all the responsibility is purely Rohit’s and mine. We don’t have the comfort of board members monitoring our decisions, or helping us think through ideas. At Dabur, I had never taken a decision alone. Now, it’s both scary and empowering. You can really be your own person. I remember when I started Dabur Foods, I wanted to include pink guava and lychee juice in our packaged juice range. But, the board was against that. So, we introduced the regular orange, pineapple and mango flavours only. But, because there is no board at Lite Bite, we can work with an open mind. If I had the same board at Lite Bite, they would have never let me bid to open restaurants at airports. They would insist we concentrate on our existing model of opening restau-rants in shopping malls. Obviously, not having that kind of counsel makes our risks higher. So far, things have gone our way. We are growing fast, and well. In fact, we intend to open 30 restaurants at the Mumbai air-port this year.

We’ve made up for the absence of a board by working closely with all our teams. In fact, I never take any decision without involving them. This is my first venture on my own, that too in a new industry and I value the feedback of our professionals highly. Such collective deci-sion making is mostly peaceful, but there have been cases of massive arguments as well, mostly with the chefs in our restau-rants! They are creative people and aren’t

nO.139Mittal Corp

Sector: Steel and Ferrous Metal Location: indore CAGR: 33.7% 2012 Revenue: `667 crore

“A dynamic leader is one who has the ability to be a good team member as well. leadership is not just about leading; it is as much about following too.”—Karan MittaL, MD

the company manufactures construction material such as steel and steel bars, wire rods, angles, billets etc. and has featured four out of five times on the Inc. India 500 ranking.

y day starts very early. I get up around 6.30am and leave home around 7.30am. This one hour is always a big frenzy at home as my 11-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter also wake up at the same time. The

focus is on all of us getting ready and finishing breakfast on time. Then, our driver drops the three of us at my kids’ school. I walk to my office which is right across the road.

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september/october 2013 | INC. | 7 7

always business-oriented. Their top priority is to experiment with food. We have to constantly pull them back to reality that their experimental food might not work with customers. However, every Wednes-day we give them a chance to showcase their creative potential and cook for Rohit and me. This gives us a lot of ideas about organising different food festivals and mak-ing changes to the current menu. It was after such innovative food buffets that we organised a tomato festival at Fresc Co and a Biryani festival at Zambar.

Getting to eat different varieties of food is the favourite part of my job. I am a com-plete foodie. Whenever I travel, I always try out different restaurants. If I like a particu-lar dish, I bring it back for our chefs. We then try to replicate it in our restaurants. The hamburgers at Fresc Co are inspired from the burgers of London-based fast food chain Patty & Bun which I simply love. I also keep an eye on what other res-taurants are doing—how the service is,

what is the spacial layout, overall ambience, placement of cutlery, use of lighting, and the footfall they attract. The five-minute menu at our Fresc Co outlet at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi is inspired from one of the fine dining restau-rants at Changi Airport, Singapore. They had mentioned preparation time alongside every dish they offer. Picking up new con-cepts and understanding them gives great insights. Incorporating such best practices has a comfort factor too. If it worked for them, it might increase our footfall as well.

Increasing our customer base and building their loyalty is all the more impor-tant now as I plan to invest another `100

crore in Lite Bite to finance our expansion plan. In the next three years, I want to add another 100 outlets and achieve revenues of `500 crore. Instead of adding individual restaurants at different locations, we want to now focus on opening a few brands together at a single location. Doing this helps us save on space and rent. Each outlet can have its individual kitchen but they can share space for cutting vegetables, prepar-ing sauces and even staff area. This is important as rentals in malls are a killer. They take up to 20 per cent of a restaurant’s operating cost. But this strategy has kept our rental cost at eight per cent, which is much lower than the average industry rate. At Ambience Mall in Gurgaon, three of our brands—Punjab Grill, Asia 7 and Fresc Co—are situated next to each other with common backrooms and we have six quick service restaurants at its 15-stall food court.

We are also implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) in our office. It would help us to work on a single platform

for all our brands. This is our first step towards cor-poratisation. To be honest, we are already delayed by three months; so I have started micro-managing this project. I’ll leave it to others after it stabilises. If we are able to integrate it well with our current busi-ness, we will emerge as a winner as there are not many companies in the

F&B space that use ERP solution. I like being organised. It’s what I want my

business to be too. I’m very disciplined when it comes to me—things shouldn’t extend beyond their stipulated time. I never have an unanswered mail in my inbox for more than 24 hours. If a meeting has to end in an hour, it should. I don’t like our employ-ees to stay back late at work. In fact, the office bus leaves at 5pm sharp. I also leave around that time. Of late, though, I’ve begun to realise that my need to always have an agenda, a line up of tasks to be achieved every day, is a hang-up I should let go off once in a while. Otherwise, even on vaca-tion, I have to know what I’m doing next.

nO.19 harvel agua india

Sector: plastic products Location: Delhi CAGR: 80.5% 2012 Revenue: `64 crore

“I admire Miguel oton, the chairman of our partner company in spain, for his ability and immense capacity to listen. I have seen him listening patiently to deliberations, silently taking notes and speaking only when necessary. Never have I found him leveraging his position to offer unsolicited gyaan.”—priMaL oSwaL, MD

the company manufacturers and offers micro irrigation systems, filtration systems and technical know-how on intensive agriculture including turnkey contracts for building protected cultivation projects.

My need to always have an agenda, a line up of tasks to be achieved every day, is a hang-up i should let go off.

COMPANIES WE FIND EXCITING

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7 8 | INC. | september/october 2013

people AT WoRK

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photograph by subhojiT pAul reported by iRA sWAsTi

this 350-people company employs about 85 workers at its main rolling mill in greater Noida, several of whom have been working with the company for nearly three decades. the average age of these workers is between 45 and 50 and most of them are immigrants who have been living in delhi for years now. this family enterprise was founded by the late hari Kishan rathi and his brother in 1942, and is today led by Kishan’s son deepak rathi. after operating for 54 years in Shahdara, delhi, the mill was relocated to greater Noida in 1999.

Kl Rathi steels

No: 233 Cagr: 24.33% 2012 revenue: `716 crore Location: Delhi NCR Sector: steel & Ferrous Metal

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No. COMPANY CAGR (%)

58 Vikas Granaries 47.69

178 Aseem Global 28.7

193 Asahi Songwon Color

27.55

310 Venkys (India) 20.27

393 VLCC Healthcare 15.86

Companies with Women Entrepreneurs

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Women entrepreneurs

The Glow of Ambition

nO.393

AS ToLd To ShREYASi SiNGh | pHoToGRApH CouRTESY SuBJECT

That each year, our ranking throws up only a handful of women-founded companies is possibly the worst metric we deal with. Meeting Vandana Luthra, founder and mentor, VLCC, a beauty and wellness products and services company, made up for much of that despair this year though. VLCC is on a roll this year with a string of foreign acquisitions, partnerships and investments in Singapore, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Kenya. Yet, it’s Luthra’s unapologetic ambition to grow even faster that is the interview’s most memorable takeaway. It isn’t often that women leaders tell you that money motivates them, and that sometimes she intentionally gives those around her—including her husband Mukesh Bansal, the company’s chairman—a tough time because she wants to show that women have the right to stand up, and “say yes to yes, and no to no.” It’s a lesson she hopes her team of 4,000 women at VLCC’s 300 outlets across 121 cities in 16 countries pick up from. Beyond the impressive business growth, Luthra’s is a story worth telling for her self-belief and can-do, and why she believes women should be more ambitious.

VLCC healthcare Sector: FMCG Location: Delhi NCR CAGR: 15.86% 2012 Revenue: `476 crore

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Standing Proud Vandana Luthra confesses that she acts stubborn sometimes to show that women can stand up for something and put their foot down too.

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really believe every woman has an ambition. In fact, we are more ambitious than men in whatever we do—we have higher standards for ourselves, and those around us. Even an uneducated house-wife will want to do her best when it comes to feeding her children, or tying to educate them. But, our culture is such that the women are sidetracked. So, we have to fight for it. I did that. From a very cosmopolitan and educated family, I was

married into a very conservative family. I got married when I was 21 and a half years old (despite my parents discourage-ment), and had my first daughter very quickly.

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I was at home for the first few years so I went through the frustrations and diffi-culties that other women go through. But, I always kept my ambition on fire—to create wellness centres for women. I could’ve been stuck at home forever, but I didn’t let myself be.

Thanks to my broad-minded parents (especially my father who travelled abroad a lot), and my liberal arts educa-tion at Delhi University, I had a great exposure. I was very ambitious even growing up. My brother Nishit Arora, who today runs a publishing house, got a job with Lintas after he graduated from St. Stephen’s to work with Alyque Pad-amsee. But, I was very sure—I said I don’t want to work for anyone. I will start my own business, to create my own com-pany. I always wanted to be in wellness—I always wanted to create something where I would make people feel trans-formed. I didn’t want to start a beauty salon or a hair salon. I wanted a wellness centre with cosmetologists, dermatolo-gists doing advanced procedures. I thought about doing very high-end med-ical treatments. I’m a technical resource—I did courses in Paris, Vidal Sasoon, I studied nutrition in Germany. I knew I could do this.

I started with a ‘transformation’ cen-tre in Delhi in 1989. My husband infor-mally assisted me from the start but

officially joined the company much later, in 2000. When we saw the huge opportu-nities and potential the business had, we knew it could be taken places. By then, I knew my strength—I am an out-and-out operations person. I’m not involved in operations at all now, but it comes natu-rally to me whatever the scale of the business. I love being on the field, and working with the people. Mukesh brought in a whole other set of skill sets. Best of all, he’s been a great partner.

Usually, we never take a decision sin-gle-handedly. We always check with each other. But, sometimes, I still might take a decision alone without checking with him. He never does that—he appreciates that I’ve started the business, that I have the pulse of the business, and that it comes very naturally to me. Let me tell you, that he would certainly not take a decision alone. I still could. But, he’s very clear about the fact that he won’t. That wouldn’t be fair to me.

To be honest, I’m very conscious about the fact that I am a woman, and that wherever I am, I’m representing women. Sometimes, I get stubborn because I think women need to demon-strate that they can stand up for some-thing and put their foot down. Sometimes I do this just to prove a point. In the first couple of years when we were working together, I put my foot down a

nO.17Aseem Global

Sector: Trading Location: Delhi CAGR: 28.7% 2012 Revenue: `260.9 crore

iRA RASTOGi is a rarity in the field of business—a married woman to have started a metals business in the metal trading hub of Delhi—Sadar Bazaar— way back in the 1980s. Her company manufactures zinc and aluminum alloys and it went public in July 2012.

nO.5Vikas Granaries

Sector: FMCG Location: hisar, haryana CAGR: 47.69% 2012 Revenue: `114.8 crore

BiMLA DEVi JiNDAL has been running this Hisar-based company since it was incorporated in 1995. The Guar Gum Powder manufacturer has a plant with 4050 MT capacity in Chandisar, Gujarat.

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lot. We had arguments but he let me lead, let me have my way.

Thankfully, in the kind of profession I’m in, at the front end, there are mostly women. People always quip that two women can’t live in one house together but I’m very proud to show that at VLCC there are 4,000 women working together! Yes, it’s true that this mix doesn’t reflect as well on the corporate level. There we have 70 per cent men, 30 per cent women. See, to be honest, if I’m scouting for a head of HR, I might not get too many women candidates in my talent hunt pool. And, I’ve seen that even when we have got women for these roles, often it does not work out. My husband actually aske me recently—you fight for women all the time but when it comes to hiring for the corporate office, why do you say, let’s hire more men? See, any CEO who runs a services company, has to micromanage, especially when you are in the hospitality and services business.

So, I would love to have a female CEO, she would have connected better to the women staff in our salons but I have not been able to identify anybody. And, even if I have, they have some reservations—some problems (school, child or in-laws issue), or don’t want to travel 20 days a month which is what you need to do when you are running a company like this. I do it, have always done it. That drive is sometimes missing in others.

As entrepreneurs, women can bring a lot to the workplace. One of the key qualities of a good entrepreneur is the ability to balance the head and the heart. Women do that effortlessly—as they manage relationships and homes. They are great team builders. Not many male bosses love their colleagues! Women do—they actually love their team members.

These days, people ask me—where will you stop? We’ve had quite a year at VLCC. In July 2013, we bought control-ling stake in Singapore-based company, GVig (Global Vantage Innovative Group), which manufactures and retails beauty and wellness products. In November 2012, we acquired Malaysia’s Wyann International. They operate 22 outlets across Malaysia, and fortunately the integration process has been very smooth. Then, in early September, we entered into a JV with Kenya’s Sameer Group, and by early next year, we should have our first VLCC centre in Kenya,

Africa. We’ve also recently set up a manu-facturing facility in Ban-gladesh. We expect a turnover of `1,000 crore by the end of 2013. Our global expansion should get us to `1,500 crore within two years.

But, you never reach where you want to. We’re going to go very fast now—may be seal up more deals, including in the UK and India. Why should I go slow? My daughters are grown up, and are busy in their

lives. I’m 54 years old—I’m very passion-ate, very ambitious, and so is my hus-band. Together, we’re a house on fire. I’m also really looking forward to both my daughters (they are 33 and 29) joining the business, and making things more exciting. But, they are both raising young children right now. To be honest, more than even joining the business, both Mukesh and I really want them to work, to build strong careers.

Women entrepreneurs

nO.310Venkys (india)

Sector: Food & Beverage Location: Viththalwadi, Maharashtra CAGR: 20.2 % 2012 Revenue: `990.2 crore

ANuRADhA DESAi practically grew up on her mother’s farm. Her father, the late Dr B.V. Rao converted the farm into a hatchery and set up the Venkateshwara Hatcheries business in 1971. Soon after his death, Desai took over the reins of the family business of producing eggs, egg powder, animal feed, vaccines etc.

nO.193Asahi Songwon Colors

Sector: Chemicals Location: Mehsana, Gujarat CAGR: 27.5 % 2012 Revenue: `233.6 crore

PARu JAYkRiShNA married into a multimillionaire family but started her own business of manufacturing pigments for ink, paints, textiles and rubber, without asking for any monetary help from her in-laws. Under her leadership, the company’s manufacturing plant in Mehsana that had started with a production capacity of just 5 MT, today has a capacity of 14,500 MT.

I am very passionate, very ambitious, and so is my husband. Together, we’re a house on fire.

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The KicKsTarTers

Elder Health Care Sector: Pharmaceuticals Location: Mumbai CAGR: 44.96% 2012 Revenue: `151 crore

nO.65

A Versatile Businessman

THE KiCKsTarTErs

No. CoMPaNy CaGr (%)

FouNdEd iN

8 AdLift Marketing 200 2009

11 Easy Trip Planners 122.6 2008

20 DSMAX Properties 76.83 2007

43 Surin Automotive 53.34 2007

44 Texmo Pipes & Products 53.23 2008

46 Enaltec Labs 52.96 2006

50 BS 50.72 2004

59 Enzen Global Solutions 47.61 2006

65 Elder Heath Care 44.96 2006

130 Gateway Rail Freight 35.22 2005

Lights, Camera, Business Anuj Saxena has an on and off love affair with acting. That is, when he’s not busy building the Elder brand in India and overseas.

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As told to ira swasTi | PhotogrAPh By JiTEN GaNdHi

anuj saxena is a doctor by education, an actor and movie producer by passion and the MD of Elder Health Care by profession. Many of these roles were rather unplanned. His father Jagdish Saxena had started Elder Pharma in 1987 after his former employer Walter Bushnell, a Delhi-based pharma company, shut down some of its plants and laid off 300 people. As the MD of the company, Jagdish Saxena felt responsible for the lost livelihoods and he quit to start Elder Pharma, to employ those who had lost their jobs. Anuj, who earlier had dreams of becoming a doctor, felt pulled towards helping his father establish the business. Yet, for somebody who never wanted to be an entrepreneur, Anuj has demonstrated quite a knack for building businesses. He runs three of them today.

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rowing up, I always wanted to be a doctor. But after studying medicine for six and a half years at Grant Medical College in Mumbai, I didn’t find it as fascinating as I thought it would be. Coinci-dently, while I was wrapping up my studies, my

father was building Elder Pharmaceuticals. Much like my father, who never thought he’d be an entrepreneur at 50, I had never imagined I’d be involved in business. But, I think that was what destiny had in store for both of us. After he began the business, my father was very keen that my brother Alok, my sister Shalini and I join him too. So, in 1991, after completing my MBBS, I joined Elder Pharma.

8 6 | INC. | september/october 2013

For the first two years, I handled the marketing and sales of Elder Pharma’s anti-cancer products to hospitals and medical institutions. I even introduced a few new brands such as Japan’s Tanave hypertensive drug, its antibiotic Suprax and our own vitamin supplement brand Ivit. We were growing at 20 per cent year on year at that time. While working at Elder Pharma, I realised I was more of a marketing guy than a sales guy and concept selling inter-ested me more than anything else. So I headed marketing for Elder Pharma for another 16 years or so.

Around 2001, I took a short detour from running the family business. I was cast as the lead in a Balaji Telefilms show Kkusum that aired on Sony from 2001 to 2006. I hadn’t planned this. I was acting in a few TV shows on and off during the 90s, just for fun. I had even done a few model-ing assignments in college. But I never thought of acting as a profession until Kku-sum became a hit and I had to take a break from my work at Elder for a year and a half because of the gruelling shooting schedules.

That’s when I realised that acting is something I really enjoyed doing and would never give up. It makes me feel alive and creative. It also taught me to be patient because a lot of times, I just had to wait for eight to nine hours on the set for my shot to be ready. At those times, I would work from my vanity van and be in touch with my teams at Elder Pharma through e-mails or over the phone. Even though I had a great time shooting, I was certain acting

could never be a full-time career for me. It doesn’t pay enough! So, when the show ended in 2006, I returned to head market-ing at Elder Pharma.

Around then, my father was planning to expand our branch of over-the-counter products. While the products already existed for our FMCG segment, we weren’t doing enough in terms of sales and market-ing to push them. It was only when Shahnaz Hussain approached us for the marketing of her range of fairness products that we realised FMCG could offer us great opportunities for growth. I decided to switch over to take charge of the subsidiary we set up for the FMCG business—Elder Health Care (EHC). Today, EHC has a wide portfolio of self-manufactured and in-licensed personal care and grooming products such as deodorants, fairness creams, balms and make-up.

Building the new subsidiary from scratch was a challenge. For one, I had to work hard to change people’s mindset in our parent company. At Elder Pharma, the approach, people policies and distribution systems were geared towards a pharmaceu-tical company. Running an FMCG com-pany required a completely different model in terms of distribution, marketing and investments. From selling to doctors and hospitals, we had to develop a whole new distribution model that targeted chemists and kirana stores. In the pharma business, the company’s medical representatives would get prescriptions from doctors and sales would come in soon after. But FMCG

nO.43surin automative

Sector: auto ancilliaries Location: Bangalore CAGR: 53.34% 2012 Revenue: `375 crore

“Focus more on the important and less on the urgent. It helps you focus on the long term goals even when the short term outlook looks difficult.”— aMaN CHoudHari, JoInT MD

demerged from Krishna Fabrications in 2007, the company manufactures assemblies such as cabins, half-cabins, fuel tanks, fenders and counter weights for the automative, constructive and farm industry.

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products require huge investments upfront for branding and marketing campaigns to create product visibility among consumers and then there’s a long waiting period for sales to come in.

At the end of the day, the funds for EHC were to come from the parent com-pany and it was tough to convince the finance team at Elder Pharma, including my father and my brother, to shell out money for marketing FMCG products. Eventually, I realised that it would be better to hire new teams—especially, in market-ing, sales and HR—who understood this space. So, today, while EHC is a group company of Elder Pharma with 580 people of its own, in many ways, it functions as a completely different entity. Even as I build a separate identity for my business, I apply a lot of things I picked up from my father. He always says that to understand what is going wrong in your business, you should be in touch with the people working on the ground. You should be accessible and open

for anybody in your organisation to come and approach you with any problem. I think I have inherited another quality of his which I am not very fond of. We both are very emotional about letting people go, especially those who have worked with us for years. But I am working to change that.

In 2006, when I took charge of EHC, I also started two other businesses—Maver-ick Productions, a movie production house that makes regional as well as Bollywood movies (it has made movies like Aloo Chat, Chase and Dulha Mil Gaya) and a restau-rant called Blue Waters. Since I have always been involved in acting, it was a natural progression to enter the entertainment

business to make movies. As far as the res-taurant business is concerned, it was more of my dad’s passion to have a restaurant, although I am the one who runs it.

I have so much going on simultane-ously that I only sleep for three to four hours a day and spend rest of the time at work. You could call me a workaholic. Most of my evenings and nights are spent at Maverick and most of my day at Elder, which is still in its growth stage. In fact, we entered the overseas market only in 2009 when we had launched some of our skin treatment products in Malawi and Zambia in Africa. We have received a good response for our vaporub brand Solo, Elder Balm and Respite Muscle Rub.

The idea was to get local distributors in these countries to invest in the brands along with us so that marketing would be easier. We avoided entering countries where the market for Indian brands was very regulated or the registration of prod-ucts was difficult. We chose to enter

countries where a consid-erable percentage of its population had similar skin conditions as Indians do so that the people there could easily identify with our products.

Six months ago, we launched fairness products in South East Asia under the brand name Go Fair and the interesting thing is that even in Korea and

Japan, whitening products are hugely suc-cessful. People there are already fair but they still want to be fairer. And a lot of darker skinned people want their skin to glow. It’s all psychological—people every-where want to feel good about themselves.

Our success abroad has helped us achieve my first big goal for the company—a turnover of more than `100 crore. We closed FY 2011-12 with `151 crore in sales. My next goal is to take the company to `500 crore. We should get there in the next three to four years. My task is cut out. But, what gives me a lot of pride today is that EHC is looked at as being the future of the whole group.

acting has taught me patience. i used to work for hours in my vanity van while waiting for my shot to be ready.

nO.46Enaltec Labs

Sector: Pharmaceuticals Location: Mumbai CAGR: 52.96% 2012 Revenue: `68 crore

“Meeting your customer in person instead of over email or a conference call, even without a fixed agenda, helps build relationships that can turn into crucial business thereafter.”—aNaNd sHaH, FounDER

This Mumbai-based company was founded in 2006 and produces APIs or substances used to manufacture antibiotic, antiasthmatic and antipsychotic drugs, among others.

The KicKsTarTers

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The KicKsTarTers

Easy Trip Planners

Sector: Services Location: New Delhi CAGR: 122.60% 2012 Revenue: `364 crore

nO.11

The Travel Rangers

As Told To SoNal KhETarPal | PhoTogRAPh by SubhojiT Paul

if there was a genre such as business fantasy, Nishant and Rikant Pitti’s journey of building Easy Trip Planners would be a bestseller. Think about it. How often does a lark of an idea between two teenage brothers become a business that closed its latest financial year with `620 crore in sales? In 2004, the Pitti brothers were on summer holiday from school and college when the first dabbled in booking airline tickets online for their friends and family—for fun. Those heady summer wins finally led the brothers to start a travel company out of their home four years later, in 2008. Today, Easy Trip Planners claims to be India’s No. 5 travel agency with a network of 35,000 travel agents. Yet, the duo is far from done. Still in their mid-20s, their next destination is—sales upwards of `1,400 crore by March 2014.

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Driving Growth Embarked on the journey to make Easy Trip Planners the

No. 1 travel company, Nishant (left) and Rikant Pitti (right) plan to cross a

`1,400 crore turnover by next year.

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Rikant Pitti: Soon, our relatives began to call us to buy their tickets too. I was in school then—Class 11—but couldn’t keep myself away from the excitement. In no time, we were booking 10-15 tickets every day. My school friends also started asking us to book their tickets. That’s when we stopped to think—we couldn’t just con-tinue to do this for free. We began to charge `200 per ticket from our friends. However, we continued to book for free for our extended family. On an average, we would make `600 daily. That was a lot of money for us then. We got so involved in our “business” of sorts that the two of us made a pact—we ensured one of us was always at home in case booking requests came up.

NP: As our volumes picked up, an airline noticed that our IP address was making these many bookings. They offered to make us their travel partners. We were thrilled. Generally, airlines give a five per cent incentive to the agent on selling one ticket. We persuaded them to give us six per cent. However, there was a catch. We had to deposit `25 lakh with them and sell tickets worth that amount in two months.

RP: In our naive enthusiasm, we agreed and persuaded our father to help us with the money. But, we could not even sell tick-ets worth `2 lakh in the first two weeks. The `25 lakh target seemed far-fetched. We were stuck. We turned to our father for help again. He had good contacts in Sri-nagar and Guwahati. Through him, we managed to get two agents in each city who agreed to sell tickets for us using our agent’s ID. Within five days, they sold tickets worth `10 lakh. We sold the remaining `13 lakh in over a month.

NP: When college resumed, we completely stopped this makeshift business. But, entrepreneurship never left our minds. The keeda bit us again at the end of 2005. This time we wanted to focus only on the B2B segment. We talked to a few airlines and became their travel agents. The cost of partnering with each airline generally costs `20-25 lakh. That is a lot of money. And, small travel agents couldn’t afford to have accounts with multiple airlines. So we thought we would book tickets for such travel agents and offer them a commission for each ticket sold. They could deposit the ticket amount later in our bank. That way, they need not make an investment with any of the airlines. This is how Duke Trav-els, our travel agency, started from one room in our house.

RP: Our big problem was that agents did not take us seriously because Nishant was 19, and I was 17. They were hesitant about signing up with two kids. So, we focussed on expanding our reach in Srinagar and Guhawati since we already knew several agents there. In smaller centres like these, references of our existing travel agents worked very well. Within six months, by July 2006, we had 80 travel agents working for us in Srinagar and Guwahati.

NP: To increase our network, we would use Justdial to get contact numbers of travel agents in an area and cold call them to become our travel partners. What we also started doing was persuading phone booth owners, cyber cafe owners—basi-cally any place with more footfall—to become our travel partners. By the end of 2007, we had 400 travel agents across Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Gujarat and

ishant Pitti: It all started during the summer break of my first year in college in June 2004. Our father used to travel a lot for his coal supply busi-ness. So, instead of going to travel agents, we started booking his tickets directly from the airlines’ web-

site. It would save him `300 to `500 per ticket. Proudly, he spread the word amongst our relatives and all his business associates.

nO.59Enzen Global Solutions Sector: utilities Location: bangalore CAGR: 47.61% 2012 Revenue: `275 crore

Founded in 2006, it is a consulting and services company working in the energy and utilities space, primarily in India and the UK.

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Kolkata. We were processing around 30-40 tickets daily.

RP: We couldn’t keep up with this quick expansion. We had just five people in our Delhi office to handle all the requests from our agents. It wasn’t feasible, and there were many glitches. Sometimes the amount billed was wrong or the traveller’s name was misspelt. To ease the booking process, we started working on a B2B website so the agents could book tickets themselves. We worked up to18 hours a day studying dif-ferent websites, evaluating the functional-ities we required, and what we should and shouldn’t offer. We finally launched the website EaseMyTrip.com in July 2008.

NP: We knew the name was similar to the leading travel company in those years. But, we were so neck deep in getting the company up and running that we just could not spend time on getting a different name. Honestly, we wanted to go ahead with an easy option.

RP: At that time, we weren’t really thinking about long term plans for the company. We would concentrate on a very short term plan—mostly the “to-do” list for the next day—the airlines we should talk to, the kind of offers we should put up, and the travel agents we could target.

NP: We devised a simple division of work. I would handle the contracts with different airlines and work on increasing the agents network while Rikant concentrated on the operations, marketing and technology part of the business. We still follow the same bifurcation of roles.

As Rikant worked on improving tech-nology, I contacted potential agents to grow our network. We used cheaper adver-tising modes such as Google adverts, e-mailers and SMSes to expand our reach. In the first year, we had a turnover of `33 crore. And, by the year end, we had 2,500 agents and 15 employees.

RP: We could no longer work from a small space and we had already occupied three rooms in our house. The time seemed right to move out before we took over the entire house! In 2009, we moved to a 600 square feet office so we could hire more people to support the expanding network of agents.

NP: We also wanted to start creating a sales

team, all of whom were hired on a revenue sharing basis to help increase our network of travel agents. We had 30 sales people in 2010. Currently, the team has 280 people across India.

RP: 2010 was a big year for us in other ways also. We crossed the `100-crore turn-over threshold. So, we continued with the hiring spree as we were planning to diver-sify our business. We started working on a B2C website to sell air tickets directly to consumers. We finally launched it on March 2010.

Of course, building the website wasn’t without great anxieties and pain. Our biggest challenge that year was to stream-line the operations for the existing B2B and the new B2C website. Initially, it was the same team that was handling both the sites. That was a bad decision. Our opera-tions were one big mess. We hired more

people and gradually formed separate teams for both the websites.

As we were fixing the operations, in June 2011, the website was hacked into. It was the peak season, and we were ground to a halt! No agent or customer could make bookings. Our agents were calling us non-stop. I was literally in tears. It felt as if all was lost and we will have to start from scratch. Thankfully, we retrieved the web-site after 12 long hours.

NP: Till 2011, we would get 20 per cent of our total business from the B2C segment. To expand our reach we started using mass advertisement mediums, especially radio to gain more visibility.

Last year, Rikant came up with the idea to get linked with movies by becom-ing their travel partner. We signed a bar-ter agreement with various production houses where we would sponsor tickets for the movie crew, and in return they would mention us in movie credits. We have done 17 movies in just over a year and a half. Housefull 2 mentions our company as their travel partner in their opening credentials. Also, at the opening ceremony of the movie Once Upon a Time in Mumbai Dobaara!, Imran Khan thanked our company for associat-ing with his film. I have put that video on my website. Such initiatives have cer-tainly helped us expand our reach.

By 2012, we were able to increase our travel partners to almost 25,000. Our B2C business improved too. 25,000 visitors visit our B2C website daily. In fact, our business is evenly split between the B2B and B2C segment. We do a total of 2,500-3,000 transactions every day across the two verticals.

RP: What makes us the most proud is that around 70 per cent of our customers have booked tickets with us at least three times. On the loyalty count, I think we beat all other travel portals. My only regret is that we didn’t launch our website earlier. If we had launched it in 2005 when we had started Duke Travels, we would have been India’s No. 1 travel com-pany by now.

My only regret is that we should have launched our b2C website in 2005 when we had started Duke Travels. if we had done that, we would have been india’s No. 1 travel company by now.

The KicKsTarTers

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FictionFAn

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Which fictional character (from a cartoon, movie or a novel) would you like to go into business with?

“That would have to be Birbal. He was great at coming up with simple solutions for complex problems.” —Aman Choudhari joint MD, Surin Automotive, No. 43

“I am quite influenced by the Hollywood movie The Godfather released in the year 1972. I

especially like that one line from the movie—I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

—J. K. Arora, CMD, SOM Distilleries & Breweries, No. 86

“My dream business partner would be Patek Philippe, the world’s greatest watch maker. The brand’s advertising punch line says ‘You never actually own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for the next generation’. We want to model Cameo similarly—solidly built, worthy of being handed over from generation to generation.” —Jawahar Vadivelu chairman, Cameo Corporate Services, No. 56

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“I would like to do business with Scrooge McDuck, the richest duck in the world. As a businessman and a treasure hunter, Scrooge is noted for his drive to set new goals and face new challenges. Scrooge’s motto is Work Smarter, Not Harder. He also maintains a personal code of honesty and often sacrifices his goals to remain within the principles he has set for himself.”

—Karan Mittal MD, Mittal Corp, No. 139

“I’d like to go into business with Bugs Bunny. No matter what happens, he always gets out of sticky situations and comes out on top. In business, even with all the planning and processes, you sometimes need a little bit of luck. Also, he’s got a rabbit’s foot with him all the time so he would be a great business partner.” —Rahul Sahgal, founder & CEO, Annik Technology Services, No. 154

“If I was ever to talk shop with a fictional character it would have to be the late martial arts legend and Hollywood superstar Bruce Lee from the feature film Enter the Dragon. As an individual, he is humble and patient. His lack of ego in decision making, focused dedication, and the uniqueness of his work are the greatest assets that one can want in a business partner.” —Santosh Kumar Choubey, chairman & founder, AISECT, No. 27

“I would like to go into business with Asterix, the titular hero of the French comic book series The Adventures of Asterix. Daring, adventurous, shrewd and quick witted, Asterix will make a great business partner.” —Sankey Prasad, CMD, Synergy Property Development Services, No. 53

“My favourite character would be Tintin. His presence of mind, and his ability to think his

way out of difficult situations would be an asset in the real business world.”

—K. V. Vishnu Raju,CMD, Anjani Portland Cement, No. 155

Fan Fiction

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the dependables

nO.144

As told to Sonal Khetarpal | IllUstRAtIoN by Manav Sachdev

Read this exciting account of the modern David vs Goliath business tale. Vinod Saraf started Vinati Organics in 1990 to manufature Iso Butyl Benzene (IBB), the raw material used to manufacture the painkiller Ibuprofen. The market for IBB was then dominated by a handful of companies in the US and China. But, in 15 years, Saraf ousted the biggies from the game. By 2006, Vinati became the largest producer of IBB in the world. Check out his formula for success.

vinati organics Sector: pharmaceutical Location: Mumbai CAGR: 32.9% 2012 Revenue: `447 crore

companies have featured three

times on our lists

companies have made it to all

five of our lists

companies have appeared four times on our lists

23 47 126

on top of the World

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At the Inc. India 500 Awards Ceremony: Sonal Khetarpal in conversation with Vinod Saraf, founder, Vinati Organics

Mumbai, Aditya Birla Group (1990): Saraf finds out that the French Institute of Petroleum (IFP) has a technology to produce IBB at lab scale.

Mr Saraf, take us right to the

beginning. How did it all start?

Like a true Marwari, I always wanted to

start my own business even when I was working

at the Aditya Birla Group.

Wow, you need IBB to produce

Ibuprofen. If I can bring this technology to India, it could be a brilliant

business.

september/october 2013 | INC. | 9 7

Page 96: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

With IFP’s consent to be my technology

partner, one hurdle is down. Now, its money?!?

You didn’t have competitors

in India. But, who were the major global

manufacturers of IBB?

Mainly US and China. But, China would export IBB to India at a very low

price.

Travels to IFP plant, Lyon

In December 1990, Saraf resigns from Aditya Birla. He forms a JV with MPCL. MPCL has 26% equity, Saraf 25%, and

the rest they open to the public.

Saraf pitches to Maharashtra Petro Chemical Ltd (MPCL) to invest in the project. He is successful in doing so.

9 8 | INC. | september/october 2013

the dependables

Page 97: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

Great meeting. I finally

see hope for manufacturers like us. Let me show the

Chinese now.

Great production!

6,000 tonnes of IBB!

Oh damn, Vinati has turned the

tables.

How can we beat Chinese

prices? It seems impossible.

India is a great market—keep

pushing!

Vinati Factory Meeting, 1995.

Profits!

Govt. office, Mumbai: Saraf asking to impose

anti-dumping duty.

By late 90s, Saraf buys back MPCL’s shares and starts exporting to China.

The factory of the main IBB player, Jilin in China.

Jilin stops exporting to India in 1998 and shuts shop in mid-2000s.

september/october 2013 | INC. | 9 9

the dependables

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Buck up guys! We still have a long way

to go from here.

Saraf invites the largest consumer of IBB in the world from the US, a client of Chevron Phillips, to India to

show him his production plant at Mahad, 2006.

Vinati works to increase its IBB production capacity.

Now, since we have captured

the China market, I will target other

markets.

Very impressive! You can supply

us 4,000 tonnes which is 80% of our IBB demand.

The next big market is the USA.

10 0 | INC. | september/october 2013

the dependables

Page 99: The Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Companies in India

As Vinati got the deal from the US consumer, Chevron Phillips had to

stop its IBB division.

With the closure of major players in the US and China, Vinati became the only producer of IBB in the world for

merchant consumption.

Now, I can say with great

pride that Vinati Organics is the

largest manufacturer of

IBB producing 16,000 tonnes

annually.

september/october 2013 | INC. | 101

the dependables

Vinati’s IBB plant in Mahad prospering

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10 2 | INC. | september/october 2013

The DepenDables

Talwalkars Better Value Fitness Sector: Health care & Diagnostics Location: Mumbai CAGR: 23.13% Revenue: `100 crore

A Fit Business

nO.261

As told to Sonal KHeTarpal | PhotogrAPh By JiTen GanDHi

even after 70 years of being in business, Talwalkars Gymnasium was a local gym chain with 16 stores across Mumbai. But, the story changed dramatically in 2003 when the family-run business was rechristened as Talwalkars Better Value Fitness (TBVF). In the 10 years since, TBVF has muscled up—and how! It today has a turnover of `165-crore and over 145 state-of-the-art health clubs, spas and zumba studios across 70 cities in the country. More than 1,25,000 people across India have Talwalkar memberships. Yet, this high-powered growth routine is only the beginning, says Prashant Talwalkar, the company’s 50-year-old MD and CEO, who is also trained to be a fitness instructor and masseur. In the works is a plan to strengthen the fitness chain by adding 400 health care centres, and to introduce new leisure and sports clubs.

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september/october 2013 | INC. | 10 3

Going Strong After targeting smaller urban areas through Hi-Fi

gyms, Talwalkar is working on capturing the premium segment

through TBVF’s sports clubs.

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nheritance isn’t something I was allowed to take for granted. My family had 11 gyms in 1982 when I graduated from Jai Hind College, Mumbai. But, my late grandfather Vishnu Talwalkar imposed a strict rule—not to take any managerial role until I learnt all aspects of the trade. So, at

the age of 19, I started as a housekeeper at one of our gyms in Mum-bai. For two years, our fitness trainers, dieticians, masseurs, orthope-dics, accountants and gym managers drilled into me

nO.154annik Technology Services

Sector: iT & iTeS Location: Gurgaon CAGR: 31.9% 2012 Revenue: `77 crore

“An old boss, when facing a crisis situation instigated by an individual said, never let them have free rent inside your head.” this taught me to not let anything get to me and stay calm during difficult times.” —raHul SaHGal FOunDER & CEO

Annik has featured three times on the Inc. India 500 list.

10 4 | INC. | september/october 2013

the art and science of the fitness business. It was in 1984 that I became a manager at the Mahim branch in Mumbai. Like our other employees, I had to work my way up in the company. It was only after a decade, in 1993, that I became a partner in the fam-ily business. We had 13 branches at that time. We grew at a snail’s pace because we could manage to open an outlet only once in two or three years due to limited finances. But, my uncle Madhukar Tal-walkar, who was also the chairman, had worked out bigger plans for the family business. He wanted us to think about growing exponentially.

Under his stewardship, in 2003, we started looking for collaborators, investors and partners. We received interest from Vinayak Gawande and Anand Gawande, the promoters of Mumbai-based financial consultancy firm Better Value, and Harsha Bhatkal, publisher of the Mumbai-based Popular Prakashan. Together with them, my uncle, his son, Girish and I incorpo-rated Talwalkars Better Value Fitness (TBVF) in 2003.

There has been no looking back since. In the first five years, we opened 35 new gyms. We added spas to our brand portfo-lio after that, and have 11 spas now. In 2007 in Mumbai, we started our own training academy for health and fitness profession-als. Other than marrying my wife, opening this centre was the best thing that has ever happened to me! It is the pivot that has helped us grow and reach out to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

By 2010, we had grown to 40 gyms in India. That was also the year we got listed at Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange in the month of May and

were oversubscribed by 28 times. We raised `77 crores which we used to expand and launch weight loss programmes. We went on a major expansion spree and opened 50 more gyms in the next two years. March 16, 2010 is a symbol of that growth. On that day, we opened five gyms across India.

We also introduced NuForm, an EMS (Electro Muscle Stimulation) training which requires only 20 minutes of workout per week. It is designed especially for those people who do not like exercising and are always short of time. We now have eight NuForm studios in India.

We were focused on innovation and research, and after a successful trial on 1,200 people, we also introduced a diet-based weight loss programme in 2012 called REDUCE that provides low-calorie, balanced meals for people who do not want to cook. TBVF is the first company in India to have launched such programmes.

To add more variety to the workout options available, we introduced Latin-inspired dance-fitness programme Zumba, and have 350 trainers and 25 Zumba stu-dios. It has helped us to capture the grow-ing number of health-conscious women. In the mid-90s, there were hardly 30 per cent ladies in our gym. Now, it is almost 50 per cent, and in weight loss category, their percentage is more than 85. Also, the increasing fashion consciousness has worked in favour of the fitness industry. Every time Salman Khan or Hrithik Roshan remove their shirts in a movie, footfall increases in our gym.

Concentrating on different lifestyles was not enough. In India, fitness is a `5,000-crore plus business and the oppor-

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nO.56Cameo Corporate Services

Sector: Services Location: Chennai CAGR: 48.1% 2012 Revenue: `79 crore

“Businesses that can grow organically, and at a steady yet robust pace, are better placed to be amongst the winners in fiercely competitive markets, than businesses that rush headlong to frenetic expansion, only to find themselves in all sorts of tangles.”— JawaHar VaDiVelu, CHAIRMAn

Cameo has featured five times on the Inc. India 500 list.

nO.53Synergy property Development Services Sector: real estate & Construction Location: Bangalore CAGR: 49.60% 2012 Revenue: `270 crore

“l have a plaque in my office that reads Never Fail to Plan, Unless you Plan to Fail. I collected it when I had started my entrepreneurial career and I have had it for almost 15 years to keep me on track.” — SanKey praSaD, CMD

Synergy has featured twice on the Inc. India 500 list.

september/october 2013 | INC. | 10 5

tunity is huge. Currently, we are close to 20 per cent share of the organised fitness mar-ket. We wanted to reach out to different social segments as well. In 2011, we intro-duced Hi-Fi (Healthy India Fit India), a health movement to promote fitness by opening franchisee-based no-frill fitness centres in smaller towns and cities.

As we opened our gym in Guntur, a journalist asked me the reason for opening a branch in a place that many Indians can’t even locate on a map. But, we got a grand response, much better than many of our gyms in Mumbai. This is the story of India. It is growing not only in metros, but also in smaller urban centres. We currently have 15 Hi-Fi gyms and will open another 40 by the end of this year.

As we concentrate on towns and cities, we want to capture the premium segment, too. For that, last year we partnered with London-based sports club company, David Lloyd Leisure to open leisure and sports clubs in India. We are in the process of

acquiring land in Pune and it will take another year or two to launch our first club of this sort. Such persistent growth has been possible because of the goodwill our family has generated in running this busi-ness for eight decades.

A year ago an 18-year-old told me that his great grandfather, grandfather and father had all trained at Talwalkar’s. He is the fourth generation to train at our gyms because his grandfather insisted that he should continue to be with us. This is the value of legacy that I cherish.

The DepenDables

Increasing fashion consciousness has worked in favour of fitness industry. Every time salman Khan or hrithik roshan remove their shirts in a movie, footfall increases in our gym.

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10 6 | INC. | september/october 2013

PEOPLE AT WORK

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photograph by jiTEn GAndhi reported by iRA SWASTi

Founded by dr Vinod daftary in 1971, this biopharmaceutical company is today run by his two sons bharat daftary and gautam daftary. From the time bharat took charge of the company in 1989, the workforce has grown from just 120 people to 1,350 today. “over the years, I have learnt the best way to motivate people is to expand their minds like a rubber band that does not shrink back—to help them achieve beyond what they think they are capable of,” says daftary, chairman and managing director of the company. While the injectable plant (shown here) employs about 221 people, the company’s horse farm has 70. the average age of their employees is 33.

Bharat Serums & Vaccines

No: 262 Cagr: 23.11% 2012 revenue: `278 crore Location: Mumbai Sector: Pharmaceutical

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quirksoffice

10 8 | INC. | september/october 2013

What is that one thing in your office, or on your desk that catches people’s attention?

“A luminous, automated rotating globe bought by my daughter from Turkey. According to Vaastu, having a globe in the office improves the chances of increasing exports and making a global presence.” –Ajay Goenka, CMD, Rainbow Papers, No. 108

“My desk has a paper weight shaped as a miniature sprinkler. Since we are in the irrigation business, we had them made as souvenirs a few years back.” –Primal Oswal, MD, Harvel Agua India, No. 19

“Because I used to be the president of the PHD Chamber of Commerce, they sent me a pencil sketch of myself. It stands out because it is so lifelike. What makes it even more exceptional is that it isn’t drawn by a professional artist, but by a staff member at PHD.” –R. K. Somany, CMD, HSIL, No. 168

Continued on page 110

office quirks

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R

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110 | INC. | september/october 2013

“It is a quote from Mr Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota Production System. These lines reflect my personal philosophy and tells my managers what I want, and how I want them to be done.” What we want to do,How we want to do,Who will do,When he will do.

–Suresh Poddar, CMD, Mayur Uniquoters, No. 89

 

“The Certificate of Excellence received from Inc. India 500 for the year 2011. It is centrally placed and is the first thing anyone would notice on entering my office.” –Radhey Shyam Jalan, CMD, KIC Metaliks, No. 166

“The huge idol of Maa Durga at the entrance of our office. Many visitors have told us that there is something in the captivating eyes of the idol. It has an instantly calming effect. In fact, the area is a hot spot for important discussions and meetings, especially in the post-office hours.” –Dhirendra Kumar, MD, Camson Bio Technologies, No. 158

“A coffee mug that says There is no success without U. In a diagnostics business as ours, even one mistake can lead to serious consequences. Each of our employees is trained to get things right, first time and every time. This mug serves to remind everyone about the cardinal lesson of teamwork.” –Dr Sanjeev K. Chaudhry, MD, SRL, No. 40

“Motivating lines from my Guruji which has deeply impacted my life. On my request, Guruji wrote those lines on a paper and gifted it to me. I got it framed and placed it on my desk. Wo chaal chal ki umra khushi se kate teri,Wo kaam kar ki yaad tujhe sab kiya kare,Janha jikar ho tera, to jikare khair ho,Yaad tujhe sab kare to adab se kiya kare.”

–J. K. Arora CMD, SOM Distilleries & Breweries, No. 86

“A framed photograph of London’s Piccadilly Circus behind my office desk. I bought at a flea market in Piccadilly. While the photograph is in black and white, a bus in the picture is captured in bright red. The contrast between black and white, and the red makes for a very interesting composition. It always catches people’s eye.” –Jawahar Vadivelu chairman, Cameo Corporate Services, No. 56

“I have a manual voice amplifier with the words Director written in bold on it. I got it from Universal Studios Hollywood. This reminds everyone, including me, that I’m the boss and the buck stops with me.” –Rahul Sahgal president & CEO, Annik Technology Services, No. 154

Continued from page 108

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