Legacy Personified

Sanjay Singhania was born
to a Marwari family in Delhi. After completing his schooling and
graduation, he joined his family business. Singhania came from a
family where his uncle owned an IT company- ACI Infocom, with a
turnover of around Rs 500 crore. Previously known as Sujata Data
Products, ACI had been a pioneer in the Indian IT industry since its
inception in 1982. “IT was my passion. I got inspired
by the success of ACI Infocom, which is owned by my uncle,” says
Singhania. Singhania, while in
college, started working in his family business, and slowly developed
an interest in IT. The Indian IT industry was in its infant stage in
1987, when Singhania got inspired from people around him and found
his own way. In 1990, he started his own company-Sheeltron Digital
Systems, with some associates, including Chandraprakash Parekh, one
of the directors and his wife-Rajni Singhania. Initially it was a
tough call as the investments were very low. But he somehow managed
to keep up the pace. “Coming from a business community, Singhania's
were known for their commitment. So, money was not a major concern,
we could raise funds at a short notice and that's how we
ran the company initially,” snaps Singhania.

Apart from looking after
his own company, Singhania used to work in another of his family
business, known as Venktron Digital Systems. Though he worked in his
well established family business, he however was
not very optimistic of the distribution and channel business, where
margins were going down and the risks were increasing. So he moved
out of the family owned-company and started focusing on his own
company. Sheeltron Digital Systems, which was dormant from 1988 till
2010, started full-fledgedly with active involvement and planning by
Chandraprakash Parekh, one of the directors and stake holders of
Sheeltron in 2011.

Writing the growth
story

Initially, they started
the company with import and distribution of floppy diskettes and
consumables and slowly diversified into the peripheral and hardware
business; and turned their focus on asset recovery and aging
inventory. “We knew that there would be a lot of opportunity in
this sector and in 9 months Sheeltron had a turnover of Rs 80 crore;
where 60% of the business came from stock lot and asset recovery
business and 40% from the hardware solutions to the education
sector,” says Singhania.

“We tried and tested
different technologies. It was a continuous learning process. We
researched through all products before we sold them,” says
Singhania. He further adds, “It was also because of the hard work
put in by Shibhu Joseph in Kerala, one of the regional directors of
the company, we were able to achieve our goal.” He proudly says,
“The turnover of the company took a great leap from Rs 40 lakh to
Rs 80 crore in a span of just 9 months. We provided support and
delivery to locations that were in the interior parts of the country
and used to give technological solutions to schools.”

Dealing with a set-back

One of the major
challenges faced by Singhania was Dell India's accusation over
parallel market where they identified, and issued names of 11
partners, who were found indulging in parallel imports, grey market
and refurbished products. Singhania reacting calmly to this says,
“This was an issue we brought to the notice of Dell, that we have
never imported any Dell laptop or finished product till date. Our
name was put in by some competitors to tarnish our image. We have a
very good and clean relationship with all the major vendors like IBM,
HP, Lenovo and even Dell. We are mature enough to
know that we would never make a move which could affect our
relationship with them. Initially we used to receive around 300-400
calls asking if we had anything to sell from
parallel imports, which itself came as a surprise to us, as we have
not imported or sold any laptop or desktop from the grey or parallel
import market.” Though Singhania is not against parallel imports
till goods are brought in as per law, but he admits that before he
sells anything parallelly imported, he will always think of the pros
and cons of the business. Advice to young entrepreneurs “Great
things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will
accomplish them. Think, organize, innovate and do things with passion
and money will come on its own,” concludes Singhania.