Sumit Grover (PGDBEM 1999-2000)

Vinod International

For this Delhi lad, life was cool. He wanted to make it large but never thought seriously over what it takes to make it thus. As a protected child from a family with business background, he wasn’t ever coerced into working hard and establishing a distinct identity. After his graduation in commerce, he was once again at crossroads – he wanted to join business but at the same time felt it was too early and that he should dabble with something else. But the phrase – ‘something else’ made no sense to him. All he was sure of was that he did not want to pursue a master’s degree in engineering akin to his peers. Somewhere, he was connected with business and so when a friend mentioned EDII’s Post Graduate Programme in Management – Business Entrepreneurship to him, it struck a chord. As Sumit puts it, “I have a strong intuitive power and something seemed to be telling me that I must grab this opportunity. Soon, I was at EDII, with every day only reaffirming my decision. I got more focussed here. The desire to create something of my own got kindled in me.”

By his own admission, Sumit was a changed person after joining the course at EDII. He started contemplating his own business. After research and under mentorship of his guide and father, who possessed 45 years of experience in the steel industry, he zeroed in on steel rolling mills. He prepared a detailed project report and tried to learn as much as possible about the idea. The question about a permanent base for his business bemused him but only for a while, as somewhere in his heart he was convinced about Ahmedabad as his ‘karmabhumi’, as Sumit puts it.

Sumit was discouraged by many of his friends who were dissuading him from joining the steel business; they said he was technically not sound and, therefore, would not be able to pick up tricks of the trade. But, Sumit remained resolute and never doubted his competence. “I had grown up amid discussions on business and had unconsciously imbibed the unyielding spirit of an entrepreneur. Hence, I was against quitting this easily. I did understand why not being an engineer would hinder my business or could be a mark of my technical incompetence. I decided to do something concrete about it,” reminisces Sumit.

So, despite his impatience to take the plunge immediately after completion of his course, Sumit waited for a while. He took up a job with an Ahmedabad-based company as a trainee to derive on-job training. Simultaneously, he got an opportunity to put his skills to test when he revived a steel plant.

A year later when he set up his business, Sumit bagged his first order of exporting hydraulic cylinders to Saudi Arabia worth ₹50,000.  He fulfilled the order but at a loss of ₹10,000. He shares, “I did not earn from this order; rather I spent my own money but I learnt a lot. My father encouraged me, saying that unless I soiled my hands, I would not learn anything.”