Adversity is the stuff that shows whether you are what you thought you were' goes an Italian proverb. When times are bad, it is very easy to buckle under pressure and simply slip into oblivion.

But there are some who think otherwise. These are people who surmount all hurdles life throws at them, battle it and then emerge victorious. They wear the war wounds with gladness because it proves that when push came to shove, they gave it back as good as they got.

Clichés aside, DQ Channels takes great pride to bring you some of the people in the channel who were almost brought to brink of shutdown but bounced back and are today well known names in their business areas. These are just a few of the indomitable people out there in the channel. We applaud those who are featured here and those who are not. Hats off to all you people there, who did not take no for an answer.

Tested by Fire

As a newcomer to the channel business, Rajesh Saboo had a rosy ideas of growth and prosperity. But an incident occurred that almost led him to down his shutters.

At the time he started trading, the channel business was primarily fed through the gray channel and most of the products were imported. Saboo too
would import various hardware from different sources and then sell them all over the country.

Rajesh Saboo Saboo Computers Kolkata

With just Rs 2 lakh as capital and the rest backed by credit, Saboo bought some imported hardware worth Rs 5 lakh, which was supposed to be sent to Mumbai. He had assigned a private courier company to deliver the consignment. Though at that initial stage this huge investment was a big risk, he was not very worried as the consignment was insured.

But he was in for a rude shock as the wagon, in which the shipment was, caught fire while stationed at Bagnan near Kolkata. All the contents were destroyed. “I had never dreamt that what was supposed to be a well-calculated risk, would prove to be a disaster and that too due to a fault committed by the courier company,” Saboo recalled. “In those days except medicines, for all other products shipped to Mumbai one would have to pay an octroi charge of two percent. Naturally I had also paid for the same. But the courier company, in order to save that money and to transfer it into their own account, declared the consignment as medical goods. This treachery barred us from claiming the insurance money and my entire business choked and recovery was difficult at that point.”

Getting his business back on its feet was tough and it took Saboo a lot of determination and hard work to recover, that too within two years. Luck favored him as he got support from some of his dealers and partners, who offered him credit. “They were confident about my intentions and knew that with their help I would be able to bounce and repay back their money. I owe a lot to those people who stood by me in my difficult times,” he stated.

The experience taught him that there's no alternative to fair play and clean business dealings. It was because he did business with honesty and paid all dues in time that people trusted him, which helped him in the end. Currently Saboo Computers is Rs 40 crore company with four branches across Kolkata. It is a distributor for Microtek, Seagate, Creative, LG, D-Link, Intel, Samsung, Sony, Canon, TVS-E, Frontech, Epson, Asus, APC, Powercom, etc. Over the last two years it has shifted its focus from pure distribution to create a successful retail chain.

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