A visionary with a difference

Kailash C Choudhari, Managing Director, Aksh Optifibre, is a pioneer in the optic fibre industry. He shares with Punita Jasrotia his vision of making path-breaking initiatives in the fields of e-governance and rural convergence

"Gramdoot is the means through which e-governance will become a reality via optical fibre cable"

Meeting Dr Kailash C Choudhari, the 41-year-old managing director of Aksh Optifibre, who is also known as a visionary in the optical fibre industry, is no easy task. And, when you intend to profile him and draw inspiration from his life, you certainly have a tough job on hand. Perhaps it is the toughness of his character that has taken the company where it is today.

While some people call him media shy, others who know him well feel that it is his intrinsic value of taking everyone along rather than basking alone in the glory of success achieved by the company. All set to become a doctor in radiology, Choudhari put a halt to his plans after completing his MBBS and decided to join his family business of manufacturing and selling copper cables. The reason? The gentleman refuses to divulge. But yes, he does concede that he just wanted to take a few years break from the medical profession.

The traditional family business diversified into different cable businesses once Choudhari joined. It was in 1986 that he decided to start Aksh, with the vision of having a professional cable company with a global and transparent outlook. In 1984, with the Government de-regularising the cable industry, Aksh diversified into fibre optic cable manufacturing and is today a leading player in the market, besides being a producer of fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) rods. Presently, the company holds 25 per cent of the domestic market share.

Aksh has come a long way from the time it had a turnover of Rs 25 lakh in the first year. Today, the company plans to close its books at somewhere around Rs 250 crore this financial year. Talking about this journey Choudhari says that it has been “quite an adventurous and enriching experience”. Starting out in a 400 square feet shed, with six people working in a six-by-six room, today Aksh boasts of four state-of-the-art manufacturing plants in Rajasthan, with three of them already having ISO 9002 certification. The company presently has an employee strength of over 350 people.

Choudhari says that when they were 12th in size in the domestic market he realised that if they had to grow globally, the outlook had to be truly global. “At that time, there were seven very strong players in the Indian cable industry and giving them competition was a difficult task. Our goal was to launch an ‘operation’, to take us to the top-three spot nationally. At that time most cable companies were making power cables, whose turnaround was somewhere around Rs 100 crore. And we were looking at fibre optic cables which have a turnaround of somewhere around Rs 1000- Rs 5000 crore. As fibre optics was still a virgin field, there were many barriers to cross and of course plenty of experimentation,” he says. It is this vision of the future, that has helped the company stay one step ahead of its competitors. One important thing Choudhari always kept in mind was the focus on Return on Investment (ROI), which he feels is beneficial for both the company and the concerned person. According to him, rather than investing at one go, companies can concentrate on short ROIs, which will help them take their operations ahead.

In 1999 Aksh transformed itself from a process-based organisation to a function based one, offering solutions to the cable industry. Choudhari is very proud of the values he has been able to inculcate in his team. “Aksh is a place where technology is the trigger which has enabled us to constantly improve the performance of our present products. Our vision statement is ‘building global competencies and challenging the processes of transformation’,” he says. Firmly believing in team work, Choudhari feels that it is this spirit which has helped them attain greater heights in all these years. The same spirit is reflected in his dealings with other people.

The man does not like to take credit for the work just because he is the MD of the company, and believes that it is the group effort which ultimately matters. “In spite of us being a small player with smaller turnover and no technical collaborations, it is the team spirit and the motivation of our people which has helped Aksh make a mark in the fibre optic arena, both nationally and internationally. In the first year itself we had achieved 60 per cent capacity and generated a profit of Rs 11.5 crore,” he says.

To take this task further, Aksh has started working on solutions like Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH), rural convergence, National Long Distance Telephony (NLDT) and e-governance. According to Choudhari, what keeps him excited are the untapped opportunities in the market.

Initially, the company plans to focus on the rural market as Choudhari feels that it is still not exploited by bigger players and has a lot of potential. Aksh plans to open around 15,000-20,000 cafes which will further enhance its vision of making rural convergence a cost-effective feature. “FTTH will bring voice, video-on-demand and Internet direct to home and deliver services such as telecommuting, education, security, video-conferencing and entertainment,” he says.

A step in that direction is the company’s recently introduced Gramdoot, a rural convergence beta site. “We believe that convergence is poised to be an inseparable part of any economy and future development, and is here to stay. Gramdoot is the means through which e-governance will become a reality via optical fibre cable. Citizens will enjoy a fast and convenient ‘service’, with the integration of the government into the community itself and the ability to focus the resources where they are needed most,” he adds.

Choudhari plans to take Aksh ahead and create corporate history, wherein the company enhances India’s economic competitiveness and progress through path-breaking initiatives in the fields of e-governance and rural convergence.