'Change is the Only Constant'

Change is the rule of the nature; this is the philosophy of Anuj Modi. He feels that in this industry nothing is fixed and may change overnight

 

"In Business, IT is changing and it seems that the time will get tougher and therefore, we have to change accordingly. We need to see what different products and services we need to focus upon," says Anuj Modi, director, Modi Infosol on the changing scenario of the businesses.

Family owned businesses are peculiar to one individual, however, Modi Infosol, formerly known as Modi Peripherals, is the brain child of four Modi brothers and surely not run on the whims and fancies of a single person. Established in the year 1987, the company started making money from imported products and then by distributing assembled PCs. Today, after 26 years, the company's 95% of business comes from distributing IT products starting from software, PCs, laptops, servers, printers, multi-function machines/photo copiers, Video projection system, storage and networking products to develop customized IT Solution for all sorts of customer needs.

Inspiration
One of the prodigies who were watching their father's business carefully during his childhood days, always aspired to be one of them. He used to see his father travelling all around the world during his business meetings, which would eventually mean his father sharing his experiences with him. This triggered an awe in him to join his family-owned business, once a grown up. "I used to see my father doing different things in different parts of the world. I was inspired and always thought of becoming like him (his dad)," said Anuj Modi. A well-built man in his early thirties, wearing denim trousers and Tommy Hilfiger's red and white horizontal striped collared T-shirt, seemed poised in his small but spacious office, amidst lot of hustle and bustle. Modi shares, "As for every child, his father is a hero (laughs) and I was same kind of person. So, I followed his suite."

 

Later on, he went on to walk on his dreams and signed-up for a management degree. After his MBA degree from the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), Modi opted to work in different company then. But after a short stint of 6 months, he took a call and continued his legacy.

Experience
But success did not come easy to him. He was puzzled and was confronted by inexperience. It made him bewilder but a strategic change gave him stability. "I shifted to sales wherein we used to do channel sales," remarks Modi, "and that time laptops were in boom and so we sold them plenty along with printers."
It was here that he started meeting a lot of people and understood the lacunas in the business. Understanding credit policy, pricing policy and reasons on which his competitors were preferred became a key area for his study.

"Next three years, I completely did field work establishing ‘Modi' brand name," explains Modi. It was the same time-the year 2007-when there was a huge shift in the market and system integration became a buzz word. Modi formed a team of three people including him and started doing cold calls to the corporates from the available data base at that time.

He recalls, "I felt that system integration is going to be a bug push to our business. Since we were primarily an HP partner, the company helped us a lot by explaining the modalities on moving in this segment."

As soon as things streamlined, Modi Infosol bagged a big order from education vertical. Rai University became its customer, placing an order of 2500 units of laptop. "Initially the orders went to Acer, but later they consolidated all their requirements and gave the orders to HP, which we distributed," says Modi.
Then the company, eyed different other educational institutes and later associated themselves with institutes like JIMS, MAIT among others in Noida and Gaziabad. And then the rest went on. Today, the company is a Premium Business Partner for HP, IBM, Lenovo, Acer, Vsnl, Samsung, Intel, AMD, Seagate, Epson, Xerox, Microsoft, Wipro and solution provider for PITNEY BOWES, Red Hat and among others. The company is also a referral partner of SAP.

Daily Life
Playing the role of director in his company, Modi daily life seems hectic. His usual day begins at 10.30 in the morning, at his office premises in Nehru Place. He starts his day with going through his e-mails and keeps himself updated on his team. "I check my daily sales report and at least make three calls a day and try to keep a vendor interaction every day. Also, the brands which we are carrying, I try to speak to them once a day,"says Modi. This way he keeps a track on what is happening. Also, interacting with my team forms the main objective of the day, mentions Modi. "If we lack somewhere we try to focus on driving new strategies," says Modi with a confident look.

Learning
His learning dates back to the times he joined the company. He figured out that in bulk sales, his team went through lot of troubles. "They were unable to connect to the right person at the right time and at right price. When one goes to channel sales, one needs to understand that if that partner has already analysed five other competitors on pricing, depending upon the buying capacity. If yes, then the partner would look for better pricing. Similarly, if any partner is new in the market and people are reluctant to give him credit, will be willing to give higher prices," explains Modi on the key issue of the market.

Major challenges
Change is the rule of the nature; this is the philosophy of Anuj Modi. He feels that in this industry nothing is fixed and may change overnight. One of the most important challenges he faces is that there is no predictability to the market. He explains, "Every day it is a new challenge. We started selling products focusing on SMBs and then we moved to branded business, then to desktops and then laptops. And today, it's mostly tablets and smart phones. Also, there are discussions on whether the infrastructure will remain on premise or it will move to cloud."

Given a chance, what would he like to change
Modi says that the companies missed out many opportunities with different principals, which Modi Infosol should have added in their portfolio earlier. We have seen a lot of people going for Dell in last 5-6 years and we really missed out the bustle at that time and we have also missed out with Lenovo, he regrets. "If we had added these two products earlier, it would have given much breadth to our business."

Hobbies
Modi calls himself a social person and have also joined a business network-Business Network International group, which he goes to every Wednesday morning.

Advice to channel partners
Every company should have their virtual presence everywhere, advises Modi to all partners. Also, on the recurring trouble on competing the online giants like Flipkart, or Snapdeal he says spending money on marketing is not wise as these online companies have big pockets.

Abhishek Angad
(abhisheka@cybermedia.co.in)