'Find the purpose, the means will follow'

GEARING UP HIS CAREER

A complete 'aamchi
Mumbaikar' at heart, Ketan Patel, CEO of Creative Peripherals &
Distributions, would have been practicing medicine today if destiny
had not chosen any plan for him. Failed to get an admission in a
Medical college and compelled to take up engineering, today Patel is
one of the leadingIT re-distributors in the country.

After completing his
education from IIM Bengaluru in 1989, Patel's first job was
withXpress Computers as a service engineer, after which, he worked
with HS Computers for a year, assembling PCs. “Chetan Shah, the
owner of XpressComputers was a very good friend of my brother and I
decided to start my career from hiscompany. Customers mostly bought
assembled PC's in those days as there were very few PC brands. The
components market was highly unorganized and there wasno proper
warranty available. Hence providing post-sales services was
lucrative,” recalls Patel.

Starting off with Xpress
Computers in 1989,Patel secretly nurtured a dream of being an
entrepreneur. From a small rented office in Lamington Road, Patel
started Creative Peripherals & Distributions (CPD) in 1992
providing post-sales support services.

THE SWEET TASTE OF
SUCCESS

In 1997, Patel decided to
expand the business and move to sub-distribution,partnering with
Epson.

It signed up with
Microsoft for distributing their products in Mumbai and Gujarat,
which Patel regards as one of the milestones achieved in his life
for CPD in2000. “We felt that there wasn't any value addition to
the product that we sold and I didn't want to be a typical box
pusher. I wanted to get into IT. Thus we took upMicrosoft
distribution in 2000 and we dropped the products we were trading.

ROADBLOCKS

Unable to make any large
profit with the Microsoft hardware business, as India operation
wasn't interested in the hardware business because it was small in
terms of revenue, Patel noticed that large distributors were
notinterested in distributing the rand, as the pricing was really
high. To overcome this hurdle, Patel decided to concentrate on the
small and new resellers to sell Microsoft products. By taking this
step, CPD became one of the the first re-distributors, to have
realized the potential of small cities and build a strong network in
them. “We are really proud to say that thehard work we put in
initially to develop new markets and channels, has really paid off
well,” added Patel.

Wanting to create name
and
value for him in the western market it was clear that Patel wanted to
remain focused and elusive.“Regional distribution model worked well
in our favor and western market became the centric distribution for
us. Also we have always maintained exclusivity in terms of our
vendors. We also took up the AOC mobiles in 2010,” said Patel.
Today, the distributor has a diverse product range consisting of
monitors, hardwares, memories and printers and is associated with
brands like Microsoft, AOC, Twinmos and others.

“Our valuable service
has helped us to gain over 500 SOHO, SME and corporate customers who
have complete faith in our capabilities. Our list of corporate
clients speaks for itself,” proudly avers Patel. But Patel also
admits that the biggest challenge he faced was to revise himself from
a trading mindset to a distribution mindset. This requires a lot of
work such as increasingthe market size, the brands, to get people
upgraded, to skills for distribution and to make them think in their
way.

Post the election for the
period of 2009-10, held in September, Mumbai-based Trade Association
of Information Technology (TAIT) announced Patel as their President.

THE TAIT EFFECT

“My role as a president
with TAIT was really satisfying. The biggest thing I learnedin this
part was to be clear in our communication, reaching out to people is
not that easy as it shows and having lots of patience. The members
were very supportive and I can rate my satisfaction level at 9.5 out
of 10,” said Patel

THE FUTURE HOLDS BRIGHT

CPD's focused business
strategy has translated into exponential growth all these years. From
a turnover of Rs 13 crore in FY'02-03, the company closed FY'09-10 at
Rs 120 crore and aims to cross the 240 crore mark in the coming FY.

“Partnership with AOC
has indeed helped us in achieving the profits and is going greatfor
the LCD monitors. Last year we also began pushing their TVs and this
has contributed significantly to reach the topline,” added Patel.

BAPUJI:
ROLE MODEL

Talking about the
inspiration that Patel has found all these years, he considers
MahatmaGandhi as his role model.

“Mahatma Gandhi was an
incredible individual. His non-violence policy affects every sphere
of our life. The whole world needs tolearn a lot from him. I
personally believe that a good role model should have certain
qualities, and he should have a good personality, be humble, be
respectableand be ambitious in his life. I have always followed his
thought, 'Find the purpose, the means will follow',”concluded
Patel.