Chennai, April 13
Recognising that successful entrepreneurs have a direct positive impact on society as they generate more economic opportunities, the Tamil Nadu unit of the Confederation of Indian Industry in partnership with The Hindu Business Line decided to recognise entrepreneurial talent in the State.
A rigorous process that began in January 2010 culminated in the short-listing of 24 entrepreneurs, each a trailblazer in his own right, for the final round.
The winners will be decided by a jury that consists of eminent persons from Tamil Nadu, and the winners will be announced on April 18.
The awards will be given away by the Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister, Mr M.K. Stalin.
Here, the profiles of the third set of four of the 24 entrepreneurs short-listed for the final round of the Tamil Nadu Emerging Entrepreneurs Award.
Mr P. Ponnudorai Managing Director, Lion Dates Impex, Tiruchi.
The son of a landless farmer from Tiruchi, who later went to Sri Lanka, Mr P. Ponnudurai, Managing Director, Lion Dates Impex Private Ltd, worked in a small provision shop from the tender age of 10. When his parents were sent back to India in 1974, the 17-year-old continued working in a provision store in Tiruchi for a monthly salary of Rs 85. “But right from childhood I wanted my own business. So I got a bank loan of Rs 4,600 through a lawyer friend and started a small provision store, but having no experience, it failed and I was left with a debt of over Rs 4,000.”
He next got a job as a junior assistant in the Collector's office at a salary of Rs 800. To enhance his income he sold cleaning powder Sabina packets. “One day I saw some dates being sold loose in an unhygienic condition and asked the shopkeeper why could he not package and sell it. To goad me he said why don't you pack and give it to me. So I did.” Thus began the story of Lion Dates; last year his turnover was Rs 120 crore.
With his salary and income from sale of Sabina and dates, he soon wiped out his debt. Gradually the sale of dates went up to 500 packets a day; “As I did not have a shop, I would pack dates at home and personally deliver to shops and stores,” recalls Mr Ponnudorai. Gradually he extended his sales to Chennai, being supported by Sabina distributors. Soon it was time for branding and he did it in five minutes. “I thought the lion is the most powerful living being and king of the jungle, and as dates are packed with iron and vitamins, this would be the appropriate name. I did not have money to even print labels from Sivakasi as they would only take a minimum order of 10,000 labels, so I took the lion's picture from a political party's election symbol!”
In 1992, when he went to Bombay to expand his business and found it difficult to communicate, he decided to learn English by employing a tutor; “I paid him Rs 100 a day for three years.”
As he started importing dates from Muscat, in 1995 he was invited by a Muscat Government factory that had made a lot of date syrup but did not know how to sell it. Mr Ponnudorai began the experiment to mix it with milk and promoted dates syrup as a healthy, nutritional drink, particularly for children. He has now put up his own production plant.
Mr M. Ponnuswami Chairman and Managing Director, Pon Pure Chemicals,Chennai.
When he got married, in 1980, little would he have known what a momentous change this was going to make to his life. But that is exactly what happened for Mr M. Ponnuswami, now 56. For, shortly after he got married, he quit his job in a relative's company that was dealing in laboratory equipment and chemicals. In 1981, he started his own business dealing in buying chemicals in bulk, re-packaging and supplying them to clients who required them in smaller quantities.
Ask Mr Ponnuswami what was the trigger for him to become an entrepreneur, he replies that when he got married, the salary he was getting was not enough. “And those days the salary level was so low that you can take a chance of venturing into business.”
Hailing from an agricultural family from a village, about 17 km from Erode, Mr Ponnuswami says he was the first graduate in his village. He started off in March 1981 with some borrowed money, took an office space on rent and started his business with a typist and a delivery boy. He also recollects having bought a motorcycle on hire purchase. In the first month, the sales amounted to Rs 23,000 with a profit of Rs 3,000. “It was a nice start-up,” he says. In the first year, his business netted a turnover of Rs 12 lakh and a profit of Rs 1 lakh.
Mr Ponnuswami now heads a group that has over 300 employees, has a turnover of over Rs 700 crore and 20 branches in India and two overseas. For all his achievements, Mr Ponnuswami remains a down-to-earth person and is eager to contribute to the educational development of his native village Kokkarayanpet.
He broke into the business of distributing chemicals, one that was dominated by players from Mumbai, which was the centre for chemicals manufacture, and made a mark by being entirely customer-focussed.
He has established the Pon Pure brand as a symbol of trust. The company is seen by its clients as one that is reliable and will never refuse an order, whatever be the size.
His ambition is to grow the group's presence in India, having warehouses and offices in all the major producing and consuming centres, increase international operations and become one of the top five players in the chemicals distribution business in the Asia-Pacific region in the near-term.
Mr G. Rajendran Chairman, GRT Group, Chennai
From the glitzy and glamorous world of jewellery to the hospitality business is quite a change. But Mr G. Rajendran, Chairman of the Chennai-based GRT group, has managed it well, without losing his focus on either of his businesses.
GRT is the name of the jewellery business that he runs, and that is the name the group used when it decided to enter the hotels business.
“Though we are basically jewellers, we wanted to diversify into some other activity. We were thinking about the hotel industry for a pretty long time,” he says.
A friend also encouraged him to enter the field. The first hotel, in a short-lived tie up with the Days Inn chain, came up in T. Nagar in Chennai, a short distance from the jewellery business where he made his name.
The hotels business started in 1998 and since then GRT has expanded the number of properties it owns or manages.
The disinvestment programme by the Government of India came as a good opportunity. A hotel property belonging to the India Tourism Development Corporation was on the block and Mr Rajendran made a successful bid for it.
It was a beachfront property on the outskirts of Chennai, just at the entrance to the popular tourist destination of Mahabalipuram, and Mr Rajendran has transformed the place that it is unrecognisable from when it was under the ITDC management.
Ask him the reasons for his success, and the 56-year-old Mr Rajendran simply says “hard work and sincerity.” And, of course, “divine grace.”
He is constantly looking to expand the hotels business, even as the main jewellery business continues to bring in the crowds. He wants his hotel properties to straddle different segments – the GRT Grand, his first hotel, offers what he calls five-star facilities at four-star rates.
The GRT Temple Bay, in Mahabalipuram, is a luxury resort holding its own with the best in the business. The growth is sustainable and the hotels business is doing well, despite the economic slowdown.
Mr Rajendran plans to start an eco resort in a coffee estate in southern Tamil Nadu. He is hoping that the next generation, his sons who have joined the family business, will take this project forward.
Mr M. Ramasami Managing Director, Rasi Seeds (P) Ltd, Salem.
His long years as a field extension officer in the State's agriculture department came in handy when he decided to venture out on his own, marketing hybrid seeds to farmers. The relationship that he had built with the farmers and the trust that they had in him are the foundations on which his entire business has been built.
Given his background, it was but natural for Mr M. Ramasami, Managing Director, Rasi Seeds (P) Ltd, in Attur, Salem, to enter the seeds business. Hybrid seeds in bajra and maize were becoming popular in the early 1970s when he was with the State Agriculture Department.
Farmers were encouraged by the dramatic increase in yields. He had taken the initiative to get hybrid seeds from companies in other States to help farmers. A graduate from the Agriculture University in Coimbatore, it was quite easy for Mr Ramasami to understand the needs of farmers and also grasp what the seed marketing companies were trying to do. That he hailed from an agricultural family was an added advantage.
Once he realised the opportunities that hybrid seeds presented as a business, Mr Ramasami decided to quit his job and started a partnership company with a couple of others. That experiment was short-lived when the partners decided to quit, unable to deal with the vagaries of a nascent business. Undeterred, Mr Ramasami converted the partnership company into a private company, which structure he still retains. The partners had put in Rs 100 each as capital and Rasi Seeds' equity capital now, almost 37 years after it was founded, is about Rs 30 lakh and the turnover in 2008-09 about Rs 450 crore. His son, a mechanical engineer and an MBA, and son-in-law, also an engineer, are active in the company.
Being a first generation entrepreneur, Mr Ramasami has established Rasi Seeds as one of the top seeds company in India, and the brand has excellent product recall in the market, holding its own against a host of other competitors. His strength has been in understanding the needs of both – the farmers producing the seeds and the farmers consuming them – and building long-standing relationship with both.
Traditional agriculture, according to Mr Ramasami, earns farmers limited income, but when you demonstrate the benefits of advances in seeds technology, they are willing to try it out. This is what his business is built on.
Two sets of four profiles each were published on April 12 and 13.
See other profiles over the next three days.
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