A. Afzal – CMD, Parveen Travels
The spark in him was visible from his childhood. As a cricket enthusiast, young Afzal would sneak out of the house to play in the wee hours of the morning before his father awoke. As is natural with parents, his father knew about his son’s comings and goings at odd times.
Born into a humble family in the year 1962 in Achcharapakkam, Chengalpattu district of Tamil Nadu to hardworking but enterprising parents, Afzal was the second eldest amongst six children.
When in school, he dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon but for a word of caution from his parents on how stressful the job would be, he changed his mind.
His father’s metered taxi business along with his uncle was taking-off around the same time. By the time Afzal was in the 10th standard, the family business grew. Now, 10 lorries were also part of the fleet. Obedient and sharp boy that Afzal was, he ran rounds on his bicycle to clients’ offices.
“My job was to collect invoices, keep them in my ‘basta’ and collect payments after school. Every night I had to keep awake and inspect the trucks coming in at 10-11 pm. I would take a torchlight, grease gun, tool box and get under the chassis to remove any embedded stones in the tyres, grease where necessary and check for the health of the vehicle. It was my granduncle who taught me patiently what to look for. During weekends, he would take me to the loading yard, make me sit on top of the truck cabin and ask me to watch if loading was being done properly. I would make an inventory of boxes being loaded. It became a part of my psyche.”
By mid-1980s, Mr. Afzal pursued graduation in zoology but his enterprising mind kept him busy in new business opportunities. He became interested in renting out private tourist taxis. Despite his father’s resistance, Mr. Afzal made him invest one-third of the cost in buying private taxis. And Mr. Afzal would juggle between attending college and filling tenders to run his taxi business which soon grew by leaps and bounds in the next few years.
Loss for medical sciences proved to be a gain for the automotive industry. And Afzal thrived in the business, despite the high stress nature of his work.
“Before long, we had about 50 taxis plying and alongside I graduated with distinction. It was around the same time in 1980 that we branded our company for the first time as Parveen after my sister. A year later, my father toyed with the idea of acquiring tourist buses. As usual he was cautious, but I convinced him and we began with two buses plying between Chennai and Bangalore. I approached five-star hotels because there was a huge demand for ferrying foreign tourists. But my challenge was that my buses would run at night so they needed to be cleaned and readied quickly first thing in the morning for picking up and dropping the tourists for Mysore sightseeing.”
Mr. Afzal proved his mettle in the automotive world in a unique way. Because he could find the rare sweet spot between being highly ambitious while letting the spirit of life take its course.
Taking charge of his new business, he travelled with the buses half the distance to Mysore along with the two drivers, to ensure quality service at all times. As a heavy vehicle driving license holder himself, Mr. Afzal would often volunteer to drive the buses if the designate drivers felt tired or sleepy.
“My father had drilled it into us that our business should always be run transparently and no underhanded methods will be tolerated. So I continued with that. I got my driving license when I turned 18.”
Soon, the market demand was for air-conditioned tourist buses.
“At that time, there was only one bus air-conditioning company. Our AC unit buses would have to be built in Jalandhar, Punjab, from where they would go to Mumbai for getting retro-fitted with the AC units and come back to Chennai.”
Sending parcels loaded on top of the buses soon became a practice and Parveen Travels Express Line came into existence. And in the early 1990s when the Indian industry opened up for the MNCs, Mr. Afzal started staff transportation services to offices and factories by juggling all his buses between the various services he was running.
“Now our challenge was to train our drivers. By then, two of my younger brothers had joined the business, so one handled marketing and the other maintenance. With training, the companies began feeling the improvement in our drivers’ attitude and behaviour and a few companies requested us to start chauffeur service for their expat officials. Alongside, we began ferrying the newly manufactured cars from factories to the docking yard. We needed to feed our large number of drivers stationed in various places. Thus began our food service and we would transport food by our own vehicles to all the drivers in the city.”
Mr. Afzal’s brother brought in the franchisee of Dixie’s Chicken from London into India and the first outlet was put up on the East Coast Road in 2007. And Pit Stop, with the tagline ‘Fuel Your Body’ was born.
With the rise in the number of vehicles, their infrastructure too became big with gradual addition of all aspects of maintenance.
“We provided 25,000 square feet to each OEM where they could bring their trucks for reparation and maintenance, wheel alignment and reconditioning of the parts. And thus was born Motorzone which my brother began handling.”
Building a conglomerate is born out of passion to grow, for Mr. Afzal.
“Opportunities keep floating like passing clouds. It is up to us to catch them because even the passing clouds may have some showers for each one of us.”
He believes in being selfless and always wants to keep his family together, move forward together as one unit in progress and towards success.
“Today, we are almost 5,000 employees and we have touched Rs. 500 crore-mark in sales this year. I believe nothing is difficult if taken in the right sense.”
Having literally spent his prime years on the roads looking after the business, he is now able to spend more time with his wife, whom he turns to when in doubt about anything – well more about personal puzzles rather than business.
Laughing uproariously, he shares: “I call my wife, when I feel low or unsure. She gives me one good shouting and I am back on track. We married young and she had to sacrifice much. She is a lovable person and I believe her instinct in every aspect of life. But I believe more in mine when it comes to business.” (Laughs again)
“I do not micromanage. Every family member has a free hand to take their own falls in business. We have created this empire where each one in the family should be aware of how to handle things. I do not fear losses.”
He has widened his scope now and is happy working for the benefit of the transport fraternity. His passion for growth while keeping the family together, his punctuality and acceptance in life have driven him forward.
A unique combination of head and heart, his is a peaceful soul. His easy laugh from the heart says it all!