The Man With A Healing Touch

Dilip Datta, 53, a consultant who specialises in bringing sick corporations back to health, had small beginnings. He comes from a village in the Burdwan district of West Bengal, which had no civic amenities till 1963, the same year that he finished his schooling and came to Calcutta.

"I hadn't ever dreamt of setting up my own business. As a child, I used to dream of becoming a scholar," he says, but after working for a number of organisations, like Hindustan Cables and UCO Bank, he set up his own consultancy firm, and his rise was meteoric.

In 1992, he set up a consultancy firm with an initial investment of Rs 15,000, Sayantan Consultants Private Ltd (SCPL) which, over the years, has executed more than 300 assignments from large and medium sized companies.

 

SCPL is empanelled as an approved consultant of the All India Financial Institutions _ a body headed by IDBI, IFCI, IIBI and the likes, which recognises consultants. And financial institutions, banks and corporate houses look for consultants on this list. SCPL is also a consultant with State Bank of India and several nationalised banks. It is also a category-IV merchant banker, registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India. Today, the consultancy has a Rs 70-lakh turnover and is growing at 40 per cent annually.

When I came to Calcutta I found it very difficult to adjust to the environment at Presidency College where I was studying. But within a month I came to terms with it.

After graduating with honours in chemistry, I joined the 3-year chemical engineering course of the applied chemistry department of the Calcutta University in 1968. Most of my friends had by then joined the Naxal movement. It influenced me too, but I did not get directly involved with it.

I got a job with Hindustan Cables when I was close to finshing my course. I worked there for just one and a half years, but my stint with them holds great significance in my life. There I got an opportunity to put theories taught in classrooms into practice. And what is more, the opportunity to work on projects helped me develop an analytical mind.

In 1972, I joined UCO Bank as a probationary officer. The bank charged Rs 2,000 as security deposit. I didn't have the money, so had to borrow Rs 1,000 each from two friends. I was a spend thrift, so I couldn't save anything. As a student, of course, things were different. I received the national scholarship which took care of my expenses.

My stint with the advance department of UCO brought me in touch with different industries and businesses. Besides, I attended a lot of training programmes, which were invaluable. I worked with UCO Bank for 13 years. The experience was great and helped me immensely in the long run.

In 1985, I joined the Industrial Reconstruction Board of India (IRBI). There was an ad in a newspaper. I applied and got the job.

My responsibilities in IRBI were almost the same as in UCO Bank. But now I could see things from the point of view of the indutries as well. Earlier I was always on the other side of the table. This was another great experience.

R Ganapati, the first chairman of IRBI, somehow took a great liking to me. In 1992, IRBI asked me to move to Bombay, which was not possible for me. So I had to quit.

My wife gave me immense moral support. She used to say, "We don't spend too much; we aren't ambitious; so we don't need too much. Don't worry, we'll manage." This gave me the confidence and encouragement to start my own business.

Besides, I have always had confidence in my abilities and the strength to address difficulties. What is more, R Ganapati gave me a lot of encouragement. He showed great confidence in my abilities, and helped me out with his business connections. Frankly, without his support I wouldn't have been able set up the business.

For the first three months, there wasn't much business. I was just marketing myself. My first account came in December 1992. It was to devise a plan for the takeover of India Polyfiber by the Reliance Industries. I did it under the guidance of R Ganapati. After that there there was no looking back.

I must have made my first million rupees within six to seven months. I was then operating from a 275 square feet office in a dilapidated house in central Calcutta. I moved into my present 1,100 square feet office in 1996.

What helped me was the fact that at that point in time, the idea of consultancy for rehabilitation, revival and restructuring of sick businesses was not common. You may say, there was no competition in the market.

With time I realised, it is important to have offices in other cities as well. So by the end of 1996 I set up an office in Mumbai, and within another six months, one in Hyderabad. The office in Delhi came a year later in 1998. I am planning to open offices in Chennai and Ahmedabad soon.

We have about 26 employees across the country. We have a unique way of starting the day. At our offices, we begin with meditation and prayer, which are followed by playing the Gayatri mantra, and then reading the works of philosophers like Vivekananda and Arobindo. We also end the day with prayers. This helps release tensions and takes our mind away from the pile of papers on our table.

Our turnover in the last year was Rs 65-70 lakh from consultancy and about Rs 20 lakh from software we produce. We produce inventory management and MIS software here from a separate unit which began in 1996. Our profits are around Rs 15 lakh. Our business has been growing steadily by 30-40 per cent since we started out.

My target now is to become the No 1 consultant in NPA management. Though the banks are trying to keep this within themselves, they will have to engage consultants from outside for this in the long run.

The employees are too overburdened to look at this problem which demands a thorough analysis. There are a number of areas for the banks to focus on. They make mistakes not only in initial appraisals, but also in the areas of need-based finance, that is finance when needed to salvage a business and recover past financing.

For the last two years, we are working on developing a software, which would give handy evaluations of the performance of a business. This would help managements quickly decide whether or not to issue loans, or advise the companies what measures they should take in order to get financing. The software is almost ready and we are giving it extensive trial runs. I have already talking to some banks and hope to market this software to them in the near future.