Success is by-product of weighing options rightly

“I come from a farmer’s family in Yerrabalem village in Magalagiri, in AP. My father, Lakshmaiah, was an employee in the electricity department as part of field staff. Though I had become an engineer in electronics and communication, he and my mother, Arunamma, expected me to join the electricity department. However, I had different dreams altogether. So, I refused to heed their counsel and went ahead with plans to join private sector,” recollects Mr Babu.

Ambitious, right from the word go, this topper in school decided to improve his skill vis a vis electronics. Therefore he joined ATCO a weighing scale manufacturing major as service engineer. One and a half month into the job, he realised he learnt everything and quit.

Common sense told him that to fulfill his entrepreneurial aspiration he needed capital and thus he joined another Mumbai-based company, which is into the business of electronic weighing scales. “After sometime, I convinced my bosses that I would continue as their worker if I was given the marketing responsibilities of the coastal districts of AP. After achieving that, I employed three people and trained them into direct marketing of the products,” he said.

After three years, Mr Babu bid adieu to his employer and set up his own outfit. “It was 1999. I got a bungalow at Habsiguda on rent for office, manufacturing and marketing facility. My savings and my hard work put Cal-On Instruments on a firm pedestal. In 2002, we were declared the second largest manufacturer in South India of electronic weighing scales.”

Cal-On’s forte was in servicing the electronic sales for a nominal AMC. “In 2003, we bought bigger premises at Cherlapally. More land was required to diversify ourselves into other areas of electronics in the future,” he said.

Diversification in 2006, however, saw Cal-On its fingers. The company’s plan to manufacture E-Bikes and scooters for the local market turned out to be a failure. It cost the company dearly a debt of Rs 7 crore. “The saving grace, however, was that the core business of the manufacture of weighing scales continued and orders from Africa saved the day.” The demand for precision weighing machines comes from sectors like pharmaceutical, laboratories, industries and jewellers. At any given time, they have close to a hundred marketing personnel and a little over the half century mark in manufacturing.

Mr Babu selects only people from a native background as he feels they tend to think differently. Meanwhile the nucleus business of electronic weighing scales has chugged along and with these new forays they intend to touch the Rs 50 crores mark in the near future.