The Multimedia Connection

Born and brought up in
Lonavala in 1963, Harinder Salwan migrated to Mumbai in 1974. Salwan
completed his schooling from Mumbai, and graduation in Electronics
and Communication from REC Kurukshetra College in Haryana. Further he
completed his MBA in Marketing and Management from KC College, Mumbai
in 1988.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

Taking his first step into
business, Salwan started part time job with Accutrol Systems, better
known as Honeywell India in 1986. “My job profile in Honeywell
included selling process control instruments,” added Salwan.After
Honeywell, it was time for Salwan to look for a change in his profile
and he went ahead and chose to sell computers and terminals with
Indchem Electronics in 1987.

Looking for a better
growth profile, Salwan left Indchem and joined Datamatics Consultants
in the software development space and dedicated two years to the
organization from 1988 to 1990. It is truly said that success is
liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. Salwan
yet again quit his job at Datamatics and joined the Kirloskar group
in 1990. “Working with Kirloskar was a great experience like other
companies, and I used to work for their marketing operations in Mumbai
for consecutively
five years,” he said.

The interesting part is
that Salwan was a partner in Trident Communications setup in 1991,
while working with Kirloskar and used to promote the concept of
multimedia. He was involved in launching brands like Creative,
Aztech, Multiwave, Aver and technologies like VCD and DVD in the
Indian market. “All these launches paved the way for me to receive
the title of 'The Multimedia Man' in the year 1996 from a reputed
industry magazine Dataquest,” said a proud Salwan. But sadly due to
some personal reasons, the partnership had to come to an end and so
did business for Trident Communications. Later he also quit
Kirloskar.

The Tricom Group was
finally born in 1994 with Tricom Multimedia as their first company
consequent to the closure of Trident Communications. “To focus on
the developing market of multimedia software, Tricom International
was born as a consequence to the reorganization of Tricom Multimedia
which was marketing the multimedia hardware and software in the
western region of India since 1994. During the first five years of
operations, we started from Margoa, Belgaum, Delhi, Vapi and
Hyderabad with representative offices in Delhi and Hyderabad,”
added Salwan. Salwan managed to spread the company's wings across
the country and grew substantially.

He managed the business at
both Tricom Multimedia and Tricom International. While Tricom
Multimedia dealt completely with the hardware market, Tricom
International had a software side to it. However, last year Salwan
shut down both the companies and floated Tricom Multimedia Pvt Ltd,
which is known as the integration of both the companies. “We
launched Tricom Multimedia Pvt Ltd to drive the software business to
a new level and diversify into Green field technologies,” said
Salwan. Salwan has also been equally involved in promoting Green
products, e-waste management and the latest double taxation issue
which ISODA has been fighting for many years now.

“Until now, ISODA had
been seeking clarity from the government on the double taxation
confusion. But now with the notification from the Ministry of
Finance, dated December 21, 2010 which states that the channel
community has to pay either the customs duty and excise duty at the
first stage of import or the service tax at the later stage; the
channel community will now have to mention about the same to the
government and also ensure that customers are not charged more,”
said Salwan.

Talking about e-waste
management, Salwan mentioned that e-waste is a major environment
problem, globally and in the Third World countries like India. There
is not much attention paid to it neither by customers, dealers nor by
the government. Most SPs are not aware of the concept of e-waste
management and how it has to be handled primarily because we still
depend upon the road-side kabadiwala to take away the broken or
condemned electronic waste.

CHALLENGING THE
CHALLENGES

With so many up-downs in
Salwan's professional life, it surely must be a challenge for him
to gather all the strength and wake up to a new venture all together.
“Being the first generation business man in my family, I am happy
with the kind of success I have achieved in my life. My wife has always
stood with
me and has been equally supportive and coping through my hectic
lifestyle. The reason
behind our success is that we enjoy the work that we do and we have
always thrived to take our business to the next level. My approach
towards work is to remain dedicated and sincere and would always
strive to put in my best efforts. I am very passionate about my work
and it always gives me a high. I believe success always come with
hard work and honesty,” asserted Salwan.

THE OUTLOOK

Salwan believes that a
healthy bottomline is the flavor of the company's success. He is
one of the few guys who believe in ethical business and stick to
customers' commitments. And that is why he has always consolidated on
the technology front and kept himself abreast with the technological
advancements. With his ability to sustain values and work as an
honest entrepreneur, Salwan has remained quite loyal and dedicated
towards its customers, and has also been able to provide best of the
possible solutions to them. For him, every challenge is an
opportunity to grow. His family has been the pillar of strength
throughout this journey. “They have always encouraged me in every
situation and never
complained about my absence from home. They have a pivotal role in my
career as well,” said Salwan.