Arvind Modi, face of successful ‘modi' fication

After completing MBA in 1981 from Sydenham College, Mumbai, Modi never knew that he would be making his carrer in the IT field. " After my MBA, I joined a textile company over there as a Management Trainee. The company was just embarking on computerisation of its operations. Since nobody in the company knew anything about computers the task was entrusted to me. Not that I knew anything about computers but the management felt that with my background I would be the most appropriate person to carry out this task. I accepted the challenge and thus started my tryst with IT Industry," he recalls.

Getting into the busniess

Modi shares, "As a part of my training with the textile company, they had sent me to Colombo, Sri Lanka to open a branch over there. However just after 6 months of operation there were massive civil riots in Colombo in 1983 against Indians. I had to immediately leave the country and come back to India. It was then that I decided to come back to Jaipur and start my own business. IT seemed to be the natural choice as it was a virgin and challenging field."
He further says, "Since by now I had some exposure to computers and realising this would be the industry of the future, I decided to get into IT business and Bits & Bytes was born."

Challenges and roadblocks

Since Modi was very new in the sector and started his busniess at a time when there was no market for computers in Rajasthan, things were quite difficult for him. He initially survived by selling office equipments like electronic typewriters, hands free telephone diallers, calculators etc.
He then tried his hands in online astrology, which did the required trick for him. "In 1986 I also got into astrology software which luckily became very famous all over the country by the name of ‘Computer Pundit'. We developed the software in 3 languages - English, Hindi, and Gujrati," Modi said.

Things smoothened in 1991 when Rajiv Gandhi liberalised the economy and talked about computerisation in a big way. Modi recalls, "There was no looking back after that, volumes kept growing and we were earning good margins also. However by the year 2000 the scenario changed once again. The Y2K phase along with dotcom bust and increasing competition was putting pressure on the margins. It was time to change gears once again. We shifted our focus from box pushing to value addition. Though by this time we were the leaders in practically all the products and companies we were handling - be it be HP, Samsung, Microsoft, Intel, Epson, Seagate, Vintron, Elent etc.etc. even than we gave up the numbers temptation and decided to move towards value addition and solution selling." Modi chose networking products and solutions as the next focus area, which turned out to be a winner strategy for him.

Achievements

"Bits & Bytes has been a pioneer and a leader right from the beginning. We have excelled and been number one in whatever companies and products we have undertaken. We enjoy excellent reputation and credibility in the market," says Modi.

Success mantra

Modi belives in thinking two steps ahead of the competition and fine tuining your products and policies."You will succeed only if you have long term vision and endurance.Also you have to maintain good credibility in the market. That way you willget product and price preference from your suppliers," the man advices.

A word for budding entrepreneurs

"Hard work with long term vision is the only way to survive in a competitive environment," says Modi, who stronly follows ethics in busniess.

On the personal front

Modi is married to Malti, who teaches Economics. He has two children, daughter Isha who has done her LLM from King's College London, and son Yash, a BTech, MBA from Narsee Monjee, Mumbai, who now assits his father in the busniess.

Hobbies

Modi is an ardent nature lover and is also fond of Indian classical music, yoga, and meditation.

Future plans

"Now that my son has joined the business, future plans are to scale up the existing business as well as diversify into a few more areas," shares Modi.

Poornima Bajwa
(Poornimab@cybermedia.co.in)