- Edited and Published by S.K Nair Director Edutech Foundation - Bangalore
Machine Maker
INCREDIBLE STORIES OF INDIAN MANUFACTURING
On this International Women's Day, let us celebrate #Womanufacturing with a young, enthusiastic entrepreneur who talks passionately about the chemicals and labs. Introducing Shruti Gosavi, a banker turned manufacturer who joined her father’s company named Ramco, which provides eco- friendly and custom-built chemical solutions to the industry.
Joining Exergon, Shruti said, “It was obvious to be part of Ramco, being our own family business”. She enjoyed the responsibility comes with the authority at the organization, and it had a narcotic effect on her which made her continue there. She believes that in this field she can see her work because it is tangible, unlike her previous job where she worked at a bank. Adding to the reasons of changing her field completely she mentioned about her fascination for the chemicals and labs and added, “My father is a PhD holder in Chemistry and during his PhD days he used to take me to the lab and then as a child those chemicals turning transparent and again changing colors used to fascinate and amuse me.”
In 1969, Shruti’s grandfather who was a lawyer by profession started RAMESH AND COMPANY, which was based out of a little shop in Narayan Peth, Pune, selling thinners and paint.
Over the course of time, they moved to a factory plot in MIDC, Chinchwad to begin manufacturing their first set of thinners and paints. With her grandfather, her father also joined the company. Shruti joined the organization before 11 years and before 3 years she changed the name of the company as the previous name was not doing justice to a new range of eco-friendly products they launched.
From Ramco to Exergon
Shruti recently before 3 years changed the name of her company to Exergon from Ramco. When we asked her about the reason behind changing the name she went on explaining in detail the meaning of the word Exergon like a 12 year old student who loves chemistry. She said that Exergon reactions usually do not require energy/ catalyst to proceed, and therefore occur spontaneously and somewhere I believed that the name suited our new range of eco-friendly products.
#Womanufacturing
Women and manufacturing is a rare cocktail, Shruti also believed the same but she is a little positive about the increasing number of women in the sector. She gave the credit of increased women in the field to MNCs which have made it easy to work for women in the sector. Shruti, while talking about it said that the challenge for the women in the manufacturing sector is heavy work but that is also getting resolved nowadays and they are getting better opportunities.
However, she believes that the biggest challenge for women, in any sector is that not being taken seriously by their male counterparts. She goes on adding and says, “Even when you handle your own company, people will think that one day you will get married and leave, you will get a child and then leave and will consider you as a person who is just there for the time being and not the person who is serious about your job.
Exergon is a small scale industry and thus Shruti looks after many things. She is the jack of all and looks after the customer support department, a department which she started. In addition to this, she also handles production, sales and as she is from banking background so she also manages finance and budgeting. But her primary job is designing a product designing as per the requirement of our customer wherein she designs the features of the products and then it gets formulated in the labs.
Empowering her Women
While talking about the fortunate coincidence of having women half of her employees she says, “I do not think it is a coincidence and I believe that women are equally capable and so when I took interviews half of the people who qualified were women.
The girl who considers her as an equalist says that she does not believe in giving any special benefits to women and they are treated at par with their male counterparts. However, she believes that financial independence and saving of one’s own makes women very confident.
Usually in Indian houses, working women give their salaries to either to husbands or to their in-laws so I started to convince and train our women employees for investing their money on their own
Customizing the Difference
There are many companies who provide chemical formulations, so when we asked about the difference Exergon is making, Shruti replied, “Unlike many other companies we do not shy away from customization; companies are not open to customization because it involves a lot of investment, R&D and constant communication with the customer.” She added that they do not want our customers to waste their time in the unnecessary task of customizing chemicals on their own, and thus Exergon customizes the product as per their requirement.
Post the year 2000, as the world entered a new world of stringent environmental norms, human safety and a lengthening list of banned chemicals, Shruti’s father who was a PhD in Chemistry saw a better potential in eco-friendly products than their hazardous counterparts. Exergon then began the development of a new family of products. These products would aim to be eco-friendly, human safe and free from harmful chemicals. For the next 15 years, the company spent the time designing and researching new ways to solve old problems. And now they are pioneer company which has a range of these eco-friendly products.
Shruti who takes pride in the range of eco-friendly products they customize, thinks that convincing the customers to use eco-friendly products and not the regularly used hazardous products is a task. She says, “However, I would not say it is a difficulty, I would rather say it is our job to educate them and make them aware of the benefits of new products and this is because they are using those products for years and years and they are familiar with the smell, texture of those products.”
Exergon is a formulations company which provide a range of customized products for component degreasing, leak detection, and rust removal, etc. to their customers
Journey So Far and a Way Ahead
This young partner of a company considers herself lucky for not having to go through a struggle like many young start-up founders. However, Shruti talked about her struggles of proving herself, she added, “It is a privilege that I had an already existing company for me but when you start as a third-generation entrepreneur, you are shadowed by the generations before and you have to work really hard to prove yourself.”
Nostalgically talking about her dilemmas while joining the company she said, “The most important thing I would like to tell to people like me who are third-generation entrepreneurs is that please do not get scared if you do not have the required qualification for working in your firm.” With little of a determination in her voice added, “See, even Elon Musk designed a rocket and he is not a rocket scientist so, even though you do not have the required qualification you can make magic, you just have to work hard.”
Shruti, who is inspired by an imaginary character named Dagny Taggart from the book by Ayn Rand who stands against the society in 50s-60s and becomes an engineer against all the odds, while talking about the journey said, “The journey was fantastic and I would not want it in any other way”.
Like many other entrepreneurs, Shruti also wants her company to reach heights. However, in addition to this, she has another dream for Exergon. She said, “I will say I want to grow but specifically I want Exergon to grow in the eyes of our customer and this growth, this feeling of satisfying our customer is important than everything else for me.”
