Looking beyond boundaries, Abhishek Modani, Director, Accrete Eletrochem Pvt Ltd

Young Abhishek Modani is a passionate second generation entrepreneur. Since childhood, he wanted to join the family business but elders advised him to obtain good education first. He graduated in Electricals and Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani and later pursued MBA at XLRI, Jamshedpur. As he plays an important role in the business today, he finds good education as a valuable asset. In this interview, Abhishek speaks about his vision as an entrepreneur, his take on Aurangabad, and much more. Excerpts.

Question: Your entry in the family business...

Answer: January 1, 2015… I still remember the day when I fulfilled my childhood dream of joining Accrete Electrochem Group nurtured by my father Ramanand and uncle Dnyanprakash. Of course, I did not take plunge directly. After engineering, I worked with Bangalore unit of Qualcomm, a US-based company which makes semi-conductor chips, for two and half years. After MBA, I worked in GlaxoSmithKline in chain sourcing division for a year.

Working in these companies, I learned people management, work ethics, how difficult it is to earn money and importance of discipline making my foray into the family business easy.

Q: Your vision for Accrete group?

A: Our group has three verticals - automotive components, parts for home appliances (consumer durable) and transformers. It provides 500 direct and indirect jobs through five plants in Aurangabad and one in Supa in Pune.

I take care of automotive and transformer businesses. When I joined, we were focussing on domestic market only. I believed that the road ahead is to focus on exports. We happened to attend a couple of exhibitions abroad and struck some deals. Even today, only 7 to 8 per cent of our revenue comes from exports but we are supplying auto components to markets like USA, Mexico, UK and France and aggressively exploring opportunities overseas.

Today, we supply made to order products on the basis of designs given by customers. We are in talks with few Turkish company for a technology tie-up so that we can launch on our own products. We are also focussing on Electrical Vehicles (EVs). We are a tier-2 vendor supplying products to all two and three-wheeler Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Fortunately, our products shockers (suspensions) will remain unchanged in EVs also.

I see big growth in home appliances business in the next ten years. Earlier, there was only one AC in the master bedroom of a house. Today, it’s in every room. As per capita income increases, comfort level too rises, spurring boom in demand of ACs, coolers, microwaves.

In transformer business, we are catering to 65 customers in 14 states and closely working with big steel plants and solar and wind energy companies which need transformers.

Q: How will EVs impact future?

Looking at the current infrastructure, it may take 5 to 8 years to scale up use of EVs. Also, a better technology - hydrogen cell (HC) – is evolving which may make EVs as obsolete as mobiles made pagers.

In HC combustion engines, exhaust is water which is absolutely green. Whereas electricity, the source of EVs, is even today generated from coal which is not green. The HC technology is being tested on commercial vehicles and its success will change the scenario. Unorganised market, China dependency, charging issues and lack of clarity on disposal of battery are other factors that may hold back EVs.

Q: Aurangabad as an industrial destination.

A: The business environment here is very friendly. There is no competition within competition, but collaboration within competition. Even if we are supplying to the same customer, we both can negotiate for the best deal together. This is the city of the first generation entrepreneurs. We learn from experience of each other, have access to our facilities.

DMIC is shaping up really well and will witness growth in the next ten years. Samruddhi Mahamarg will take us close to Nagpur and Mumbai. Aurangabad has developed eco-system for low cost manufacturing so well that very few can compete with us on India level. Only concern is lack of proper connectivity in terms of flights.

Rapid fire

Your idol in industry: Ratan Tata for his work ethics, social work and humility.

Hobby: Reading about startups, business professionals.

Favourtie book: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Favourite Movie: Three Idiots

Favourite Actor/Actress: Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta

Holiday destination: Italy.