As we celebrate 20 years of GGK Systems today, it is time to reflect, say thanks to so many wonderful people who have been a part of this journey and just spell out the experiences. Hopefully I have done my bit to the society and thank the power that be for granting me this wonderful life. If I were to live but again, I would want anything else except may be tweak it a little. I will try to irregularly write a few sentences of the experience of these 20 years and hope that by the time I finish, I would have thanked all those who shared it with me. These will be anecdotal and hope fully you will enjoy it. There are a few not so pleasant experiences which I will also address so that new entrepreneurs do understand that it is not all that rosy and they should be aware of the pitfalls also. Our first client was Ferroalloys Corporation, Nagpur. I was only a metallurgist and software programmer, so I employed a electrical consultant to study the EAF Transformer diagram and make the cable schedule. I took him to Nagpur and he spent 3 days at site and then returned to Mumbai and promised to send the Cable Diagram to me in 3 days. 3 days passed, then another 3 and so on. After 3 weeks I spoke to him at length. I realize that it was not going to happen. The drawings came back by courier to me. In the mean time pressure was mounting from the client. I want and spoke to a Professor at IISc, He promised to do it for me and the same scene repeated again. 3 weeks late, armed with a book and the diagrams I sat down and made the cable schedule as an absolute novice would and courier to the client. Next week was a meeting at the client’s works. As I entered the meeting room with the Managing Director sitting there, I was terrified. The meeting started. Mr P K Gupta, Manager (Electrical) stood up and said”I must say that the cable schedule sent by Dr Sastri and totally incomprehensible and I would like to be excused from this meeting as nothing positive can be contributed by me as I do not understand them.” I was aghast. I muttered “We will meet after lunch and discuss this”. With that Mr P K Gupta left. Meeting over and after lunch I hesitantly made my way to Mr P K Gupta’s cabin. I requested him to listen to me for exactly 5 minutes and then would do whatever was necessary to make the diagrams understandable. He listened to me for 10 minutes. The he picked up the phone called his MD and said” I want to apologise for what I had said in the meeting. Dr Sastri has explained the cable diagrams to me and they are so clear that even my electricians will easily understand them. This is the way the cable diagrams should be prepared.” Mr P K Gupta – You a rare person. In the entire project you taught me so many things but your honesty and straight forwardness is worth emulating. Thanks to you the project was a tremendous success. You have been a good friend to me ever after that and I do hope that this will continue for a long time to come. Thanks and may your breed flourish.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 06:34:53 +0000
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