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TRAIL BLAZER/ WHO DARES WINS

The challenge is not stated, but comes across clearly: changing tracks within a segment is tough. A conversation with Abhimanyu Gupta, director, Actis Technologies Pvt Ltd, shows that he's had to take those swift calls in business, though it's not precisely what he set out to do. A rather casual involvement with family business found the young Gupta hooked.

Plans to join Indian airforce were set aside and he found himself enjoying solving shop-floor issues in Mumbai "� where Manmohan Gupta, his father, ran the flourishing, but small business dealing with mobile projectors and film editing equipment. He kept working as he attended college, after graduating from Mithibai College in 1997, he took a short technical training course in ICIA in the U.S. Today, at 31 , he's doing what most his age would only dream of: establishing turf and turning around the vision of his enterprise.

Actis Technologies, actually an old company that started innings in 1971, made the transition from manufacturing film equipment to marking an entry into presentation systems by first manufacturing overhead projectors. It's gone on to introduce the latest products from global leaders in multimedia equipment and control technology from players such as Clarity, Epson, DNP, Samsung and Sony among others.

When the company first decided to associate itself with a multinational player, it joined hands with U.S-based Proxima to import and resell the equipment in India. This involved Gupta being sent to the U.S. for a training course with Proxima, to learn maintenance, repair and after-sales service, for training the team back in Mumbai.

However, the company was later acquired and Actis then forged an alliance with Epson of Japan to market their products in India "� a relationship which has endured and grown in time.

The turning point in the business came when the company decided to move into the digital space in the audio-video industry. It had realised the need for other solutions and products, having seen the market change: the price of head projectors were continuously falling and it was easy for anyone to invest in those.

So in 2002, Gupta with the guidance of his father (Manmohan Gupta, MD, Actis Technologies) decided to discontinue the production of overhead projectors and made the transition from being just a 'box-seller' to becoming an integrated audio video solutions provider.

"Over the years we have designed and built some of the most hi-tech communication facilities in India including board rooms, conference rooms, auditoriums, video conference rooms and executive briefing centres among others," he says.

For instance, the Reliance web stores have been aided by Actis Technologies running their projection equipment. It has also been involved in projects for players such as GE Medical, Air India, IIM Bangalore, Aditya Birla Group, Satyam Computers, Patni Computers and ICICI Venture.

Currently Actis is the leading player in the AV space, servicing more than 7000 customers. In fact, the company is also a channel-base partner with more than 500 dealers and resellers across India. The recent development includes a strategic alliance with Codian, the leading manufacturer of high performance video conferencing infrastructure and as part of this, Actis has also launched the Codian MCU series in India.

Though Gupta fights shy of taking credit and calls his father as his chief mentor, but observers agree that he's clearly been responsible for infusing a new vision into the family enterprise.

However, he does not hesitate in staking claim to being "arguably the top AV company in India." Growth thus far has been organic for the company and it has consistently grown at over 40 per cent in the last few years. Now, Gupta is targeting a turnover of Rs 100 crore next year.

This growth is also manifest in the spread: "When I joined, there were only five employees and one office. Today, we have 190 people across seven branch offices and our head office remains Mumbai," claims Gupta with visible pride.