GRP SLOTTED CHANNEL

Way back in 1995, Ravi Shah 22 at that time, came over to Mumbai to set up a bearing business which would be an extension of the family business in Kolkata. In the very first year, he set up a shop in the heart of South Mumbai and achieved a turnover of Rs. 70 lakhs, which was as good as or more than the turnover of the family’s bearing business in Kolkata. But he was not very happy with what he was doing and what he had achieved. Like anywhere else in the world, in India trading of bearings is a low margin commodity business with cut-throat competition. One has to be highly efficient and well connected in the market to make any money. He knew that he was doing very well under the circumstances, but he wasn’t satisfied. So he decided to look beyond the traditional business of trading bearings and sell what no one sells! He started interacting more with the users of bearings and understanding their pain areas in terms of the availability of adjacent products. He soon realized that a large number of customers require products such as ball screws, linear guides, etc of the best brands from the world but they were not available in the market for on-time usage. The reason was simple they were not required in large numbers so the distributors were not interested in stocking or selling them. Besides, one had to understand the technical aspects of the customer’s requirement, product features, product design, and manufacturing process to be able to successfully import, stock, and sell these products. Ravi saw an opportunity where very few people did.