Category: Cover Story

Entering a billion-club & growing faster After some years of trading in chemicals, Rakesh Shah entered into the manufacturing of speciality chemicals. In 1996, in a major break-through, he bought a small chemical unit, to which incidentally he was doing jobworks then. Rakesh Shah was only 25 year then. Today the company's annual turnover is around ₹100 crore. With the ensuing expansion and diversification plans, the size will move up manifold. It is through the company's expertise in waterborne emulsions, it makes eco-friendly products in areas where solvent-borne emulsions have a big demand. Water-based latexes can be designed to perform a similar task to solventbased systems, without the environment ramification. The efforts of R&D enable the company to consistently improv...

Rakesh Shah wants his company to be one of the 50 best companies with a high level of respect and credibility. The pace at which the company revived from ground zero six years ago shows the top management can drive its business on a high-speed lane, thanks to the plan for rapid expansion and diversification by making the best use of its emergingproduction capacity and existing R&D skills. Rakesh Shah has a wonderful history as a successful entrepreneur, very interesting and inspiring. First of all, he hasn't inherited a business legacy, making his entry into the business more challenging for himself. Nevertheless, things haven't been so tough, thanks to his sagacious approach and precise calculation. "Though I belong to a service classfamily, doing business was my passion since the...