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Like father, like son. That is one oft-repeated comment that Sunila Thariani cherishes most in his life. Banking on the sound advice that his father handed out to him at the start of his career, and still does, Sunil had managed to build up a company that brought in Rs 11 crore in revenues last year, 25% of which came from service and support division.
STARTING YOUNG
Sunil always nursed an ambition to carve out a niche for himself in the business world. He closely observed as his engineer father set up Sound Solutions in 1989 as a service center for TVSE products.
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SUNIL THARIANI |
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Push-products is where profits are |
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At the young age of 16, Sunil found time from his college activities and his hardware classes at CMS Computers to work at Sound Solutions. But he sensed that while service has good margins, more revenues could be earned by product
sales.
In 1995, Sunil started reselling TVSE printers. “I wanted to start at the grassroot level and sold around three units a week,” Sunil reminisces. But gradually, sales picked up and by the year-end Sound’s turnover was Rs 40
lakh.
In less than four years, Sunil moved up from a TVSE reseller to the company’s distributor. “It felt great to be in the league of likes of Tech Pacific and Ingram Micro, who were TVSE’s two other distys,” Sunil says.
ADDING MORE BRANDS
Sunil devoted himself solely to TVSE till 2000, also selling Lexmark and Iomega, brands distributed by TVSE. But then he felt he was himself to one brand and tied up for distribution of Samtel monitors.
| PROFILE |
| START-UP
YEAR |
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1989 |
| PRODUCTS |
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Printers, UPS, monitors, scanners |
| ADDRESS |
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40/42, Shroff Bhavan, P D’mello Street, Carnac
Bunder, Masjid (E), Mumbai - 400 001 |
| TEL |
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022-5630661, 22659464 |
| E-MAIL |
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tsunil@bom5.vsnl.net.in |
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But soon Samtel folded its India operations and Sunil tied up with Proview for monitors. He also Canon, Epson, Lexmark and Wipro to his product portfolio. But Sunil was careful to direct his energy on selling only push products, not pull ones. “Pull products might have high turnover, but very low volumes. I would rather sell products that will ensure that my bottomlines are taken care of,” he reasons.
AT YOUR SERVICE
Of the 120 people employed in Sound Solutions, 70 are part of the service division. Sunil smartly leveraged his service background to push sales. “I offer onsite service for my products with a turnaround time of four hours in Mumbai. This is why my customers keep coming back to me,” he smiles.
Sound has a customer base of 350 partners, of which 120 are active and buy goods worth Rs 1 lakh monthly. For these active partners, Sunil organizes exclusive movie screenings or picnics. “This helps in bonding with them and they share their problems or give suggestions in an informal ambience,” he says.
VINITA BHATIA in Mumbai Page(s) 1
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