Circa 2012. When the handset rang, Ashok Gupta looked at the number on the dial and smiled. The caller was no stranger to him. He has been dealing with him for more than a decade. If it was from within India earlier, now it was from overseas, but the caller remaining the same. Excepting that he no longer worked for the multinational he represented a decade ago – but a yet another global giant at present.
Picking up the handset, “wassup?” hollered the December-born Gupta, Chairman of Rs.100 crore IRC India, into it. Over the next five minutes he heard the ‘narration’ and during the entire call duration, the St.Xavier alumni’s smile kept broadening. Why? Simple, he has smelt a big business opportunity in the offing.
“Done,” he blurted out and permitted the call to die down.
Over the next hour or so Gupta and his team sat together at his spacious Chairman’s office to dissect the challenge on hand over a few cups of hot tea and cookies and hammered out the perfect solution. Before sunset that day, a detailed email reached his caller from overseas giving the contours of his ‘solution’. Needless to say, he was asked to execute the same as he designed it.
As I sit with him at the same office in Karol Bagh, New Delhi where that design was perfected more than a year ago, he spills the beans with his characteristic modesty and his polished St.Xavier English: “It was not a pure vanilla transport solution but a well thought out 3PL plan.” What is it all about? “Innovative value addition to assist the business growth,” adds he, kindling extra curiosity.
The help seeker is a senior executive working for a global giant in healthcare and Nepal, India’s neighbour, is a key market for his company. Significnaitly, logistical nightmare posed the biggest challenge. Its desire to sell high value MRI and CT Scanners to Nepal market could not be met because the consignment (three trailor load for a single unit) has to be treated with helium gas within 12 days after it leaves its overseas manufacturing site via New Delhi and the entire end to end transportation would entail at least 25 days. If the unit is not helium gas-treated within the specified 12 days period, the entire unit would become a ‘piece of scrap’.
By the way, these two gentlemen were no strangers and in fact their business intimacy goes back by a decade when the former was with another global giant in a different vertical which IRC India was servicing. It was a sheer coincidence that Gupta’s innovative logistic solution then again wiped out the worry lines on the forehead of the same caller now. That trust only brought him back to Gupta’s doorstep again.
What’s Gupta’s innovative solution to circumvent the new concerns? “We decided to get the unit from New Delhi’s customs out and moved the same into the Free Trade Warehousing Zone at Khurja, Uttar Pradesh, where we have space. There are no customs hassles because goods warehoused in this set up can be value added and re-exported. We parked the imported units at Khurja, brought in its helium gas experts to get the units treated and pushed it to Kathmandu by road. The entire operation was consummated in 17 days from the overseas manufacturing site to Kathmandu client site,” elaborates a composed Gupta. His message is simple and clear: Am no pure vanilla transporter, but a solution provider.
The client is happy because Gupta’s innovative solution opened up a potential market which was hitherto out of bounds. IRC is happy because it managed to showcase its ‘innovative streak’ to other potential service seekers. Customer delight is something the Gupta clan believes immensely. Otherwise, how would IRC been in existence for 50 years.
Come August 15, the Guptas will be in a celebratory mood. Nothing to do with the Independence Day celebrations of Republic of India. Then what? It also happens to be the commencement of 50th Year since IRC India – the business outfit floated by Raghunandan Lal Gupta along with his uncles with the once imperial capital of British Empire viz., Calcutta as the base came into existence.
Originally from Rajasthan, the Gupta clan moved to Hansi in the erstwhile undivided Punjab under Lala Muraram Gupta and to Hissar subsequently. Trading timber brought from Daltonganj, Bihar, Raghunandan Lal Gupta shifted base to Calcutta in 1958 sensing greater business potential in transportation and warehousing.
“Doing business those days was much more relaxed and clean. Less competition. Service was the yardstick to gain business and we were never found wanting,” recalls the IRC India honcho. How did Gupta Senior managed to get into the gates and hearts of corporate giants of those days? “It is an interesting story,” avers Ashok Gupta. During the course of interviewing a prospective candidate for a senior executive positon in his company, Gupta senior heard the candidate passingly mentioning about Stewarts & Lloyds’ need for some logistical assistance through an open bid. The rest, as they say, is history. Gupta did bid and won the contract and never looked back thus adding to his business kitty through this maiden corporate account. In a similar, IRC managed to get into Goodyear, another global giant, an account brought in by another executive. Though this executive left within a month, the Goodyear account stayed, “thanks to our good service record”. Sometime later, when a senior executive left Stewarts & Lloyds to join Dunlop – a multinational, no doubt, needless to say that he wanted IRC to handle the Dunlop logistics, given his past experience in dealing with IRC. “Sheer reference coupled with good service record helped IRC to keep on adding corporate clients,” recollects the second son of Gupta Senior.
Ashok Gupta’s induction into the IRC makes an interesting tale. Even while he was in high school (Plus Two level), he got into learning the ropes of the transport business. With a 100,000 sq.ft godowns and a clutch of exotic clients such as ITC, ICI, Goodyear, Dunlop, Bata, Metal Box, the young scion of Indian Roadways Corporation (that was the original name under the partnership format) used to land up at five in the morning and work till eight to circumvent 8-11 a.m. entry/exit restrictions on Calcutta roads then. Inventory management those days stipulated three month goods in godowns and one month items in transit due to bad roads and poor communication facilities. “Mind you, there were hundreds of items to be procured from 183 locations across India and kept ready to be delivered at the factory gates of these giants. Those days, companies used to have at least two months stock in their godowns and one month stock in transit because you simply cannot stop production due to lack of raw materials. And IRC with its huge godowns in the neighbourhood of these factories and prompt delivery rose to the occasion and won over the hearts of clients,” elaborates a proud Gupta. The icing on the cake was that IRC never charged a penny for warehousing and its revenue came from transportation alone. “We were into value addition for the clients and providing 3PL even before this magic phrase came into existence,” adds he.
Punctuality, clean business ethics and prompt delivery were key lessons he learnt from his father. “Those things have not changed till this day,” avers Gupta.
After exiting the prestigious St.Xavier’s in Calcutta with a degree in Commerce in 1980, he got into the business whole hog. As part of diversification strategy, the Guptas entered the manufacturing arena with a plant for flexible packaging in Calcutta. Then in 1985, IRC entered into a joint venture with a South Korean company for the manufacture of electronic capacitors at Noida, near Delhi and that is when Ashok Gupta shifted base to Delhi to assist his uncle in the expanding transport and warehousing business and also manage the new manufacturing unit.
What is the size of fleet? “Our focus is on business development and client servicing and not fleet management,” categorically says Gupta. Hence, IRC has a decent fleet strength but most of its transport requirement is met by associates through the ‘attached outsourcing’ route.
Over the years, the company has grown leading to separation of businesses between the family members – with elder brother Anil setting up IRC Limited with Calcutta as base and Ashok with Delhi as his base under IRC India nomenclature. However, father was the Chairman of both companies until recently. Today, he is just a ‘benevolent patriarch’ watching the growth of his two sons’ business empires from the sidelines.
Though transportation is the core business, IRC India has three more new verticals viz., warehousing and 3PL, international freight forwarding and customs clearance/regulatory with an independent head for each vertical. Aaradhya, who will inherit IRC India one time, educated abroad is currently learning the ropes of business management at Maruti Suzuki on one year full time Second Generation training programme.
“Don’t get bogged down by challenges. They are knocking you down today to help (you) gain wisdom,” declares the soft spoken Gupta, a weekend handicap 8 golfer. His target: Rs.250 crore over the next three years.