‘I want to create two Marathi entrepreneurs every year’

MUMBAI: Starting from a garage to owning factories, Ashok Subhedar has come a long way.

Be it betrayal, or disappointment, the founder and chairman of DSA Electro Controls, has seen it all.

Subhedar was working with Larsen & Tourbo after gaining a degree in electrical engineering in early 80s when his uncle offered him a job.

He was restless then and jumped at the opportunity. But things did not work out as planned and Subhedar’s uncle returned to US after winding up the shipping business without telling him.

“It felt like someone was pushing me off a hundred-storied building,” recounts Subhedar, of those initial days.

“I had worked there unpaid for four years and I was married then. Those times were terrible.” 

But Subhedar did not give up. He started a garage in the lobby of his house and his wife took  tuitions.

“We had to sacrifice all the niceties of young age. Movies, holidays, vehicles - we were forced to avoid all such things,” he recalls with a smile. It is difficult to say whether the smile is of regret or indifference.

However, destiny was kind. He met four entrepreneurs from Pune, who had quit their jobs to make electrical parts. Subhedar decided to join them and became their distributor in Mumbai. Also, he developed skills in designing control panels.

In the early 1990s, there was a huge demand from small companies for control panels, which were costly and unreliable. Subhedar decided to do something about it.

He joined Switch, a leading printing company, and sweated it out to design and manufacture control panels for printing machines. The early days were challenging to say the least, he says. To make matters worse, a Russian company cancelled a big order for his printing machines.

“I am afraid of success, not failure. That is why I decided to start a company even after the setback. I did not know how to approach a bank or how to make a balance-sheet. I forged it. I borrowed assets. I had no vehicle, no stocks, no track record. My gala was not near the bank, so I gave my mother-in law’s address to the bank. I had nothing but a story to tell about my spirit,” says Subhedar, sitting in his office at Raj Industrial estate, where he bought one gala for Rs 6 lakh in early 90s.

“In 1995, our small gala made its first million but the immediate thing that came to my mind was when it would become 10 million.”

In 1996, DSA Electro Controls was registered. After highs and lows, things started moving fast. 

In 1999, DSA made control panels for auto-rescue devices in elevators. But 90% of these were never sold. But, DSA decided to swim against the tide. In 2000, the company built a factory at Wada near Thane.

Soon, DSA expanded its product portfolio. It introduced water jet cutting machines for cutting thick metals in India and also developed wire harness systems. By 2007-08, DSA became one of the largest suppliers of niche parts for defence.

Today, DSA is credited as SME 2 by Crisil. The rating indicates the level of creditworthiness of an SME in relation to other SMEs.

It now has two big projects at hand. It is  also setting up two more factories in Gujarat and Coimbatore.

“We are happy being small giants. We do not want to be as big as Reliance or Tatas,” insists Subhedar when asked about how big his aim is. The company has a turnover about Rs 70 crore and staff strength of 176. “Out of which 90% are Marathis. I want them to be entrepreneurs. I want to create two Marathi Entrepreneurs every year,” Subhedar says.

His simple demeanour makes the success of DSA look more astounding than it is. On advice to young entrepreneurs, the self-made entrepreneur says “No business can cause you harm, keep falling to bounce back.”

k_vasudev@dnaindia.net