It's All In The Family

01 Mar 2006 00:00 IST

New Update

In a country where family ties are the topmost priority, it
is only natural that a brother will help his sibling or relative set up a
business he is already in. Sometimes this might also get extended to referring
their relative's name to a business peer for collaboration as well.

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Daljeet
Kaur

Data Spec Computers and
Peripherals, Bhopal

Satpal
Singh

Dataspec, Chandigarh

Despite Satpal Singh of
Chandigarh-based Dataspec being miles away from his sister Daljeet Kaur in
Bhopal, it did not deter him to go all out and help her establish herself
in the Bhopal market. "He has always helped me, especially when I was
starting my business venture. He came to Bhopal to conduct a market survey
that gave me a lot of information about my prospects and ways to target
them in the future," Daljeet explains.

"This relationship is
very special to me and whenever we meet, I make sure that we spend some
quality time with each other whether it is a family party or a business
occasion," she adds.

Helping Daljeet meant
immense personal satisfaction for Satpal. "I feel very happy when I
see my sister doing well in this business. She of course initiated this
and I came forward to help her in this business," Satpal informs.

It was his personal aim to see his sister
well-settled in life. Again as both companies cater to a different set of
customers, competition is not a problem for them. "We never think
about us being competition to the other. However it does help us when we
quote for tenders. There are times when we get some special quotes and
then we share a lot of information, which is vital for both of us,"
Satpal says.

The IT channel community in India is replete with instances
where experienced people have helped groom some of the closest relatives, who
later on went ahead to start their own business venture. The inspiration of
these younger ones and their success came from the hard work being put by in by
their elders in making sure that solid foundation was there all along.

"One of the best ways to help close relatives develop
into responsible adults and capable business owners is to make sure that they
spend some time in the real world and get fluent with current business dynamics.
This builds self-confidence and helps overcome any feelings of entitlement or
obligation," says Vijay Bamba, CEO at Ghaziabad-based Prompt Data Systems
and a mentor for Delhi-based Green Vision's Saket Kapur.

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Once the younger ones have succeeded on their own, it may be
time for them to make an entry towards starting a business venture on their own.
The most important point here is the fact that they should have clear objectives
and have their performance coached and evaluated regularly-preferably by someone
other than their parents.

Godfather aka uncle

There comes a moment in life when relations between relatives are soured
over professional matters, but for Jaipur-based Kailash Gupta of ETSC Computers
and his nephew Rajeev Gupta this was otherwise. This chacha-bhatija duo
leveraged on their relationship to build a profitable business. Here, the elder
Gupta provided this younger protÃ©gÃ© with hands on knowledge about the
intricacies involved in the trade, making him expert of the field.

Initially, when Rajeev made his entry into the trade, Kailash
helped him bag the dealership of Genius and other prominentÂ brands for the
entire Rajasthan territory. He worked on his existing contacts to bring more
business for his nephew.Â Â

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Rajeev reminisces how his uncle had explained the nitty
gritties of the IT business when he had embarked upon his business stint.
"I won't be exaggerating if I christen my uncle as my godfather. Indeed,
he is the person who sketched my growth path in the IT industry. Today, I
possess an UPS manufacturing unit, whose existence would not have been possible
without the blessings of the Almighty and my uncle," smiles Rajeev, who is
now a proud owner of the Jaipur-based Radetron.

Umang

Mehta

Roop

Technologies,

Mumbai

Sameer
Mehta

Computer Corner, Mumbai

Mumbai-based Sameer Mehta of
Computer Corner is the elder brother of Umang Mehta from Roop
Technologies. Even though both brothers work within Mumbai, they have made
sure to target different customers to maintain good business as well as
personal relationships.

"We maintain a cordial
relation with Roop Technologies. Some customers are aware that we are
brothers and try creating problems by pitching for a deal with both. If
any such clash happens, we talk and solve is accordingly," he
explains.

He does not believe that
both companies are competitors. "We are not competitors. If need be,
we will work out certain deals on a mutual arrangement. Once or twice it
happened that a customer inquired at both the sides and both gave the same
price. On these occasions, I have told Umang that he has been doing more
volumes with me in the past and so let me have the privilege to close the
deal, and Umang agreed," he adds.

According to Umang Mehta, it
helps a lot when you have a family person in the market. "We mutually
understand each other and have always exchanged leads and this helps
increase business prospects. When there is some order that he cannot
fulfill, he passes it to me. Similarly I do the same. Sometimes there are
some issues with respect to quoting a price to same customers, but we
solve it personally. The understanding is who is closer to a particular
customer will serve that client," he explains.

"My brother is
aÂ commercial person andÂ I am a technical person. So when some
customer wants more technicalÂ info, he sends that customer to me. And
similarly I take his help as well," Umang ads on.

"My brother went on his own after
working with me for seven or eight years. For the first six-seven months
we felt a little uneasy, though everything was done on a mutual
understanding. Soon everything was okay," he says.

Leveraging on human capital

A family's forte is the relationship that exists between its members. When
the skillsets of relatives are coordinated in a complementary cache of knowledge
with a clear division of addressable segments, the likelihood of success
improves significantly.

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"I worked for Escorts and then with HCL before Vijay
Bamba, my brother-in-law, convinced me to start my own business venture in the
year 1990. It was personally very important for me to have a different focus for
the company that I was going to head. While Vijay focused on the Ghaziabad
market, I focused on the Delhi region. So, we never had a competition,"
explained, Saket Kapur, CEO at Green Vision.

Similarly, Chandigarh-based Satpal Singh stretched himself to
help his sister Daljeet Kaur establish an IT-focused company, Data Spec
Computers and Peripherals. Satpal helped Daljeet entrench herself firmly in the
Bhopal market in

terms of generating contacts and providing necessary business information.

"My brother did a lot for me. It was 1993 when we
started our operations in Bhopal. Even though he focused in the Chandigarh
market, he came all the way to Bhopal to conduct a survey and help me develop
good local contacts," she

remembers fondly.

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While contemplating start-ups with family members, they
should consider strategies to encourage supportive relationships between
siblings initially. Elders should try to mentor their younger relatives so that
later the decision to go solo or join the family business venture becomes
easier.

"Promoting the right values, strengths and importance of
family members is critical to the right grooming of your relative,"
explains, Vijay Bamba from Prompt Data Systems.

Close relatives should know what major challenges the family
business is facing and how well it's doing. They should never feel isolated or
left out.

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Finding the right balance

Taking the personal out of professional isn't easy when you're talking
about family. Most people in businesses have more trouble separating personal
from personnel issues than they have figuring out how each of the words is
spelled.

According to Nitesh Bhandari of Chennai-based Texonic
Instruments, he never had a bad experience as far as maintaining healthy
competition from people coming from similar family background is concerned.
"Many members with who I share personal relations are in the same business,
but I follow a policy that every one will get a piece of apple and that nobody
can have the full thing. Each gets his share on relation and solution. So we try
our best to maintain the right balance," he explains.

Kiran
Holla

Holla Sons Trading Company

Uday Holla

UK International, Bangalore

UK International is a
distributor for IT products, especially hardware. They also deal with
desktops and printers. The proprietor of UK International belongs to the
Holla family, who run another company called Holla Sons Trading Company in
Bangalore.

According to Uday, it is
important to remember that belonging to the same family should not come in
the way of doing business. "Professional and personal lives have to
be kept separate and we need to strike the right balance, to see that the
two do not intermingle with each other," he adds.

The Hollas started out as a single
company 15 years ago and then as the company grew, they decided to split
their business. "We realized the need to separate business because
that helps to avoid a lot of confusion over deals and helps us overcome
some petty issues, which otherwise tend to be ignored. Like they say, it
is better to have two eyes than one, for clearer vision," he
explains.

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"It is important to remember that our belonging to the
same family should not come in the way of doing business. Professional and
personal lives have to be kept separate and we need to strike the right balance,
to see that the two do not intermingle," opined Uday Holla, Proprietor of
Bangalore-based UK International.

UK International is a distributor for IT products, especially
hardware. The proprietor of UK International belongs to the Holla family, who
run another company called Holla Sons Trading Company within Bangalore itself.

Mumbai-based Umang Mehta of Roop Technologies has his elder
brother Sameer Mehta managing another company, Computer Corner. Still both
brothers have managed a good balance in maintaining good business as well as
personal relationship.

"Overall my experience with my brother has been good. It
helps a lot when you have a family person in the market. My brother operates in
the Lamington Road vicinity and I operate in the suburbs of Mumbai. So I get
feedback on the price in Lamington Road and these feedbacks are trustworthy
inputs. This is one positive aspect that among relatives we can be sure that
there is no vested interest while giving feedback from the

market," Umang Mehta of Roop Technologies added.

Vital to strike a fine balance

Things may become tough especially on occasions when different companies
being run by people coming from a similar family upbringing cater to the same
set of customers. It does become a challenging task, but family values can help
tackle this to a large extent.

Vijay
Bamba

Prompt Data Services, Ghaziabad

Saket
Kapur

Green Vision,

New Delhi

After starting Prompt Data
Services in 1982, Vijay Bamba was the first one to get a computer in
Ghaziabad. "I still remember the computer ad that I saw in the
newspaper. We got a computer from Machine Manufacturing Corporation (MMC),
Kolkata and the computer had an 18" floppy. So I was one of the early
movers as far as this market is concerned. Saket Joined Escorts and then
HCL. He was pretty settled over there but than I thought that he would do
very well if he got into the IT business. So I convinced him about this
and eventually, he started his business in the year 1990," he
explains.

After all these years, both
Saket and Vijay have kept the same family values when it comes to
maintaining good relationships. "I have learnt a lot from him and
that's why I respect him. There are times when even small things about
business and finance make a lot of difference and my brother-in-law has
helped me a lot towards this," Saket ads on.

"I was never business
minded and I never had the business competence. From the beginning itself,
it was Vijay who gave me the right kind of encouragement and support to
grow my business as well as myself in this area. We still meet up the
usual way. There is no big change that we have experienced even after so
many years now," Saket comments.

Saket reminisces that there was this
geographic difference between them, so there was no question of
competition. "But we always worked with a synergized approach and
that helped a lot," he adds.

Â says.

"There are chances that we have many common customers to
cater to. They may at one point chose to buy from us and at another time from
another family member doing separate business. Given that we cannot operate on
very low margins or sell cost-to-cost, this can become a challenging task for us
to tackle," Uday adds on.

However, for people running different business units in
different geographies, catering to different market locations can be a good way
to ease out competition. "While I focus my efforts in the Chandigarh
market, my sister does the same for the Bhopal market. So I always help her with
right contacts and business," Satpal adds on.

Family members in the same business manage time for work and
play both. It is interesting to note how their ties are strong enough and that
they squeeze time out to sit with their close ones to gain on the lost time and
fun.

"Saket and I both love good food. So we used to go out
to these five star hotels in Delhi for lunch. Whenever I would be in Delhi, we
made it a point to have lunch together. We still try to do the same whenever we
get time off," remembers Vijay Bamba.

While for Satpal and Daljeet, it was spending quality time
with each other and sharing everything. "We are five sisters and two
brothers. And like anybody else, we used to sit together for hours and talk
about everything. We still do it whenever we meet up during any festival or
family get

together," Daljeet informs.

Jatan Baid

Eastern Comnet, Kolkata

Nitesh
Bhandari

Texonic Instruments, Chennai

Prakash
Mody

Sejutronics,

Mumbai

THREE
BROTHERS, THREE BUSINESSES, ONE FAMILY!

Entrepreneurship seems to be
the key to growth for Bangalore-based brothers Ramgopal, L Madhu and Kiran.
Running three companies that are diversified into various areas of IT
business, they believe that the driver behind their success is
diversification and keeping oneself updated with emerging technology
trends.

It all began in 1993 when
Ramgopal, a computer engineer could not get a visa to go abroad, and he
began to contemplate starting a venture on his own. Called Balaji
Institute of Technology (BIIT) in Bangalore, which focused primarily on
computer education.

His brothers then started
two more companies in 2000. Apsis Technologies came under the management
of L Madhu and the second organization was called Sanctum Technologies,
and was handled by the youngest brother Kiran.

Currently, BIIT is primarily
involved with computer rentals, sales, service and maintenance. Apsis
Technologies is synonymous with seamless networking and expert IT
solutions for hardware and software in Bangalore.

Sanctum Technologies
actually started as an outfit that catered to the growing need for an
all-in-one computer product and services company.

L Madhu, Director of Apsis
Technologies believes that for any business to grow and expand, the need
for diversification is a must. "When we talk of

(L-R) Ramgopal, L Madhu
and Kiran, the three brothers who run BIIT, Apsis Technolgies and
Sanctum Technolgies in Bangalore

family businesses we have
two choices; either all of us do the same business under one company or
diversify and began different start ups. The advantages of diversification
are many. Firstly, customers who approach us will have better options.
Since the three of us deal with three different part of IT business,
customers can approach us for various services."

So does business interfere
with their personal life? Says Ramgopal, "The key to any business
success is to keep personal and professional lives as far separated as
possible. They are two parallel things, which should never run into each
other. As far as we brothers are concerned, we are very clear that once we
finish work, we are brothers and not businessmen competing with each
other."

Agrees Madhu, who says, "In fact, we
run the business as one single unit and it has its fair share of
complications. Customers tend to overlap and order delivery gets
difficult. Also as business expands, managing a huge company gets tough.
Alternately diversification helps the business and the family running it
to get a greater visibility in the market and therefore enables quicker
and a far more effective growth."

ZIA ASKARI

with inputs from Anjali Chowdhry in New Delhi, S Gopikrishna in Chennai,
Subbalakshmi in Bangalore and Nelson Johny in Mumbai