Role Model
Like father like son
V V Shrotriya, Chairman of Shro Systems, and his son Anirudh, the CEO, take us through the highlights of the 20 eventful years of the company
By Sharmee Roy
 After serving the Indian Air Force for 22 years, V V Shrotriya decided to move away from flying and took voluntary retirement. His interest in starting a business in IT was sparked by the emergence of the segment in India. Shrotriya started his business in 1988 with his pension money and invested a sum of Rs 1 lakh. Thus began the journey of Pune-based solutions provider Shro Systems.
“Having been a pilot I like to say that I crash-landed into IT. It was then a new stream, and the market was buzzing with opportunities. It became an obvious choice for me,” explains Shrotriya.
He started by reselling consumables such as ribbons and floppies. The first breakthrough came in the form of an order from TCS. “I used to sell them consumables, so they approached me to arrange PCs on rent for their Mumbai and Pune offices. This gave me lot of confidence that I could pull it off,” Shrotriya recalls.
With this order, Shro Systems entered the world of corporate reselling. The execution of the order gave it credibility in the market and helped it win more customers such as C-DAC.
The next phase came in 1990 when the company started its hardware arm, Ani Computers, and added assembled PCs to its business. This was also when his son Anirudh joined the business after getting his engineering degree in electronics. Shrotriya explains: “I had no IT background, but I was able to inject some fresh blood that was also qualified for the business. This helped Shro Systems to grow by leaps and bounds.” By 1991 Shro Systems had gained a firm foothold in the region, and turned into a Rs 24 lakh company with 80 percent of its business coming from consumables and the rest from assembled PCs. With such a huge chunk of business coming from consumables, the same year Shrotriya decided to start Aero Printers for manufacturing printer ribbons.
“The dot-matrix printer market was a high-growth segment, and we thought it would make sense to start manufacturing printer ribbons under our own brand name, Aero,” informs Shrotriya.
Both Ani and Aero were started with an investment of Rs 1 lakh. However, by 1994, Ani and Shro were merged to strengthen Shro Systems.
Growing steadily, the company ventured into computer training with the launch of Shro Computer Academy in 1997. The same year it also started software development with Shro Informatics specializing in software for the aviation industry. Shro Informatics was started by Anirudh and three of his college friends, but it is not part of Shro Systems anymore. The academy did well for the first three years as it managed to sign up the Symbiosis Institute, SBI, and the Military Engineering College to train their students and staff. However, the slump in the segment in 2000 forced Shro to close down the academy.
2000 was also a turning point for the company as it consolidated its operations, decided to become
completely hardware-centric, and partnered with HP as a corporate reseller.
Business blend
Working on the philosophy of changing with the times, Shro Systems saw its top-line grow from Rs 17 crore in FY 2007-08 to Rs 20 crore during FY 2008-09, with additional dollar billings of Rs 32 crore. Nearly 55 percent of the Rs 17-crore revenue came from solutions, 30 percent from corporate reselling, and 15 percent from services.
Shrotriya attributes the company’s success in the commercial segment largely to its decision to align with a single vendor, HP. “At one point we had so many brands in our portfolio that most vendors treated us like the jack of all trades and master of none. The multi-vendor relationship also came in the way of getting strong support from different vendors for clinching large deals, hence we took a conscious decision in 2004 to focus exclusively on HP,” explains Anirudh.
Last year in April Shro set up an HP Proof of Concept (POC), the first and only one in Pune. “We set up the POC because many of our SMB customers came to us and said that they would like to see how the solutions designed by us would work in real life,” Shrotriya says.
Shro has also secured the gold certification from VMware, and the company has done several projects in IT consolidation and virtualization.
Shro is bullish about the opportunities in the data center solutions space, and is currently undergoing training certification to become an HP data center specialist partner. “We are seeing huge opportunities emerge in the data center and virtualization space, and have enrolled for HP’s new training program,” says Anirudh.
Shro has also been working to identify new markets, and opportunities for solutions in them. For instance, it recently deployed a digital content library solution for a Pune-based education institute. This solution helps students to browse the latest information relevant to their field, and gives access to white papers and case studies.
Innovation and processes
Realizing the importance of having systems within the organization, Shro automated its CRM using HP’s Advanced Customer Management solution in 2006. According to Shrotriya, this helped the company reduce the turnaround time and repeat calls for customer support. Shro topped this with Microsoft CRM for sales in 2008.
Shro believes in being an early adopter of technology, and hence it virtualized its entire IT infrastructure in 2007. To increase client footfall, the company started a bi-monthly event called ‘Fridays with Shro,’ for which it invites a select group of five customers to its solutions center and demonstrates various solutions such as server consolidation, mobility solutions, printing solutions, and virtualization on the server side as well as client side.
The company put in place a strong financial plan, thereby increasing its cash reserves. “Based on this we started buying from distributors in cash, availing the cash discount, which added to our bottom-line growth. It also helped to increase our credit-worthiness in the market. Indeed, in the past 20 years, none of our cheques has been dishonored,” Shrotriya says.
Currently with 57 employees, Shro took the first step toward streamlining its HR systems by bringing on board a special team to take care of its people. “We also restructured our internal teams and appointed a GM for sales and service, appointed heads for each department, and formed a core team to navigate our business forward,” Shrotriya informs. He adds, “Even in this downturn we have gone on a recruitment spree and hired some good talent so as to strengthen our sales force both at the senior and junior levels.”
Last year, celebrating its 20th anniversary, Shro launched a year-long campaign to strengthen its brand image, and upped its marketing spend to 3 percent of its total turnover. The company launched an innovative campaign—Pizza in 20 minutes, HP server from Shro in 60 minutes—which it says has helped to differentiate Shro from the competition.
Seeing certifications as a business need, the company spends a good amount of money for training its sales and service staff. Shro is now looking at implementing an integrated ERP and CRM solution.
What’s next
Having set up a branch in Mumbai, the company’s next plans involve looking at increasing its presence in the upcountry markets of Maharashtra and also in the north. But that is only after the current economic situation has improved. Discloses Shrotriya, “We are specifically eyeing cities like Aurangabad, Nashik and Delhi.”
In addition, the company will consider adding security, networking and video-conferencing products, and will look at deploying industry-specific solutions. Shro also aims to focus more on the government, education and pharma segments. “Our aim is to grow by 20 percent this year, and we want to see a lot of our revenue coming through services,” Shrotriya states.
Chip off the old block
Narayana Murthy and Shah Rukh Khan are the two people Anirudh admires. But why such contrasting personalities? He explains, “For me, Narayana Murthy symbolizes value and ethics, while Shah Rukh Khan represents aggressiveness. We as a company represent all these qualities.”
Ask about the differences between father and son and Anirudh replies, “We are similar in so many ways. Dad came so far because he was aggressive and not afraid to take risks. I believe I have the same traits.”
Yet there is one thing Anirudh dislikes about his father. “Dad hates to carry a mobile, hence I can’t contact him even if I want to talk to him about something urgent while he is traveling. No amount of convincing has worked so far, and I have given up all hope that dad will ever use a mobile phone in this lifetime.” |