Anil is not just the founder of Elcab, he is also the founder and main cheerleader of our COEP Mech 90 group. If there is any batch gathering or talk happening at any place, one can rest assured Anil is part of it. How he manages to lead such an active social and business life has been a mystery to most of us. So we decided to invite him to tell us his story. After his mechanical engineering, Anil went to work with Alfa laval. Anil’s family had been into a range of trading and construction related business for many years. His mom was worried. A traditional Sindhi mom, she was worried about which Sindhi family would let their daughter get married to this abnormal non-businessman Sindhi guy. But no worries, the business DNA inside him was alive and kicking. Exactly 365 days after Ms Poonawalla (btw, another Sindhi from COEP Mech, batch of 67) hired him, he bid goodbye to Alfa Laval. 

The first 14 months of his non-naukri time were spent in researching what business to start. The final decision was cables – for the simple reason that cable making machinery required the least capital. So with 1.25 lakh of savings – and 4 lakh of borrowings from the extended family – and 5 lakh of loans – Elcab was in business. He bought a second hand machine from Delhi for Rs.35000/-. Hired a welder – and he took on the role of a helper. Together the duo put in place the factory shed – and on 6-0ct 1992 – production started. Along with this professional milestone, he achieved a personal one around this time. Which was when he got hitched to Ritu, now his partner for more than a quarter century. 

Having made his beginnings with such high debt leverage, surprisingly Anil now stays away from debt. I wonder whether such financial frugality is his Sindhi DNA. Or possibly the frugality is just a carry over of the frugality that characterizes his personal life. At times, Vijay Chheda, has joked that Anil is not in cables business, he is in the finance business. Every asset that he has purchased has been loan-less. The working capital loan that he takes from the bank – is against FDs that Elcab already has in the same bank. Incidentally he still continues to bank with the same bank that gave him the loan to start his business. Another business philosophy that he adopts is to stay away from customers who are not prompt in payments. There have been occasions where he has cut off customers, who at that time accounted for 20% of his business, just because they demanded extra credit, and Anil saw no valid reason for the credit. The conservative finance philosophy also extends to vendors. Copper alone accounts for 70% of his costs. In the pseudo-commodity business that Anil operates in, it’s actually the vendor who is king. So his business philosophy – Never Ever Delay vendor payments. 

After vendors, the number 2 in the pecking order of priorities for Elcab is – employees. Anil is proud that 27 years after he set up shop, his first worker is still with him. Workers are family to him. He makes it a point to interact with workers directly, so there is still that bond between him and his team. This bond helps in employees treating the business as if it were their own – and some of the most useful ideas in the last quarter century has come from not Anil, but his team. What helps also is that Elcab salaries are higher than the rest of its SME peer group. During the Corona crisis, when the rest of the industrial sector was worried about employee costs, Elcab employees need not have worried. Their salaries will be in the bank – and their jobs are not going away anyplace.

One of the questions that got raised later on to Anil was about Polycab. Why did Elcab not reach the scale that Polycab has reached? Possibly because of the financial conservativeness that Anil has imbibed. Another reason could be HR. Most of us have brains that cannot do justice to more than 150 close relationships. With the direct command and control structure that Anil has, this acts as a limit to manpower growth. And finally, because Anil has consciously stayed away from retail – the scale and brand both have suffered. Elcab is like one of the thousands of Mittelstand companies in Germany – not too many people know about them – but they are all leaders in the niche areas that they operate in.

One definite silver lining in the business has been new products. For many years copper cable was the sole bread and butter of the business. One day, while visiting with one of his competitors, Anil found out that his competitor was getting a lot of enquiries about copper braids, but was unable to supply – as he did not have the machines to make that. It so happened that Tata Motors had had discussions with Elcab about sourcing braids – and Anil had gone ahead and purchased the machinery for that. Tata had later on backed out. This was serendipity. Today copper braids account for as much of revenue for Elcab as copper cables do. Anil’s son, Neerav, has joined the business a few years ago – and the rate of new product introduction has accelerated since then. I look forward to my next EV having a cable harness made by Elcab!