Cruising through the Entrepreneurship Highway
With a work experience of around three years in a non-banking sector and a major in Marketing, I was certain I will be ending up in a Sales and Marketing job profile post my MBA. But destiny plays its role in funny ways and I was introduced to OfBusiness, a company that invests in people and not profiles, and there has been no looking back since then. I had always heard that you need to know every domain if you are working in a start-up and although I didn’t have that kind of knowledge at the time of joining, however, I am proud to say that with the help, the guidance and the knowledge imparting from the people in OfBusiness I now have an in-depth understanding of the processes like Sales, Finance, Underwriting, Processing, Products, etc.
J.Bezos wanted to give people in the middle of nowhere the chance to reach out for rare and/or sophisticated books. That’s how Amazon started…At OfBusiness, we focus a lot on going the distance of places, reaching out to every SME even in the farthest of locations, and fulfill their business needs. The premise being that other NBFCs/Banks/suppliers generally do not provide the best of services and products to these distant places. The idea here is not to reinvent the wheel but make out of your disadvantage an advantage. Even in the middle of nowhere, people have needs and if served well they are even willing to pay a premium for it. We as a company are region agnostic and it is our service that stands us out among our fellow NBFCs/Banks.
A quote by William Shakespeare: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. We at OfBusiness believe in people donning multiple hats at the same time which in turn brings out the best in them. Having closely worked on the inception phases of regions like Chandigarh, Jaipur, Ajmer, and Baddi the company entrusted me with the responsibility of developing the newest and probably one of the most important regions i.e. Maharashtra. With more traction coming from the South Gujarat/Daman belt, I didn’t even realize when the occasional trips to Daman/Vapi/Silvassa changed to quite frequent ones and eventually transpired into a home, a team and an office here.
It all started with my seniors having faith in me and giving me a free hand to try, test, fail, learn, and relearn. With constant guidance and feedback from all departments, I was able to replicate the things that worked at other places and refrain from repeating the ones that didn’t work. Starting a new region is like a double-edged sword. On one hand, there are a plethora of opportunities to en-cash upon and subsequently higher revenues and on the other hand, one wrong step and the repercussions are there to stay for a long time. It’s a step by step process wherein you start with understanding the market, knowing the big regional players, meeting suppliers for leads with the assurance that you are not there to eat their customer base but to help them earn more revenue. All these executed well and there you are with an empty canvas to paint upon.
A quiet place with beaches all around, Vapi is one of the finest examples of the state’s burgeoning progress. Known to be one of Asia’s largest industrial hubs, Vapi is significantly contributing to Gujarat’s economy and OfBusiness’s progress. Not many would have known what this region had for us in the store. We soon realized that Surat/Vapi/Daman/Silvassa was one the biggest belts in terms of plastic manufacturers and civil contractors, two of our favorite sectors, and that realization has transpired into one the highest number of customers and biggest books area wise which is growing exponentially month on month. In addition to this, the Vapi region is also a hub for Pharmaceutical Companies, Paper Mills, and Chemical Industries, the new avenues that we are aggressively working on to venture into.
The last two years with OfBusiness have been instrumental in defining me what I am today. Starting this journey with the experimentation with Solar as a segment, realizing quickly how it’s not the ideal avenue to venture into to starting Polymer as a full-fledged segment for the company, the growth as an individual and a professional has been phenomenal. The knowledge sessions, the constant feedback, the informal chats after office, the brainstorming late in the night, the urge to develop others into rockstars, the desire to make it big have been the core elements of this journey. With the new batch of Management Trainees and laterals coming in I am looking forward to working on newer avenues and strengthening our hold in the existing ones.