Started with Cable TV

Ravi Kishan With Kunwer Sachdev on Sales ka baazigar TV show

My Journey started with the Su-kam in 1988 with Cable TV Systems, my first firm in Su-kam. Many will be surprised to learn that I began with Cable TV systems, not Inverters. The Su-Kam Legacy: A Brand that Will Stand the Test of Time is a story I wrote for the audience who wants to know the history of the brand Su-kam.

Su-Kam started as a project company where I did small projects, i.e., MATV and CATV projects for hotels and multistoried societies. Here, I used to install common antennas and VCRs for the whole building. The standard Antenna and VCR signal was distributed through this CATV system to all the rooms and flats for the TV sets in the same building.

I vaguely remember that one person from Bombay started giving licenses to people to show Hindi films to the houses through the cable by installing the same system I was installing for the multistoried buildings. This concept created a revolution because VCRs were costly, and few could afford them. On top of it, one had to rent the cassette for the VCR, which was another recurring expense, and at those times, very few films were available for viewing. In this system, one can install one VCR in one place and distribute the signal through the cable, and everyone can watch the same film on their television for a smaller amount of money paid monthly. This created a new industry which did not exist before. The birth of a Cable TV guy who installed the cable TV system and distributed the signal through cable to homes and made their money and bought equipment from people like us, and we used to establish the equipment for them as well. And this was an excellent opportunity for me to expand my existing business at that time,

From there, I shifted my business to cable TV, manufacturing parts like Amplifiers, Modulators, Directional couplers, etc. This was my first small-scale manufacturing experience, and I started with a small team to manufacture these parts for cable TV guys, establishing their cable TV systems for their areas. I was supplying the equipment as well as installing those systems for them.https://ventsmagazine.com/2023/01/13/the-inspiring-journey-of-the-inverter-man-of-india-kunwer-sachdev/

My real entrepreneurship experience started gaining from that point onwards.

cable tv exhibition Su-kam

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su-kam cable tv exhibition

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exhibition of su-kam cable tv

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Above are photographs from one of the events where we exhibited our products, CATV Amplifier, Outdoor amplifiers, directional couplers, etc. I started participating in exhibitions right from the beginning of my career, giving us a lot of exposure and the opportunity to meet new clients. I went to shows outside India, Hong Kong, and Singapore then. I always thought that one day I would also have my booth in an international exhibition and we would stand from our countryside. At that time, when we used to go to international exhibitions, no one from India had any stall. Even people had no respect for India as we were considered a poor nation then. I used to bring a lot of catalogues and specification documents from the exhibitions, and I could not afford to book into the luggage, so I had to carry them along. In one of the exhibitions in 1992, I got a Spectrum Analyzer at a low price which was the need of the hour for me for testing purposes, and somehow, the person gave it at a low price on the last day no one wanted to carry back goods with them. I seized on the opportunity and took that Spectrum Analyzer and brought it to India with me. The ordeal started at the airport at that time, duties were 200% and above, and they kept the Spectrum Analyzer at customs. It took three months to release it after many approaches and giving duties beyond my means. After a while, I bought one Anritsu-made Spectrum Analyzer in India, which was so costly at that time that I could have bought a house for that price. Still, I chose to buy the Spectrum Analyzer as I knew that it would help me in the End and improve the production quality of my products made at that time. The person from whom I bought the Spectrum Analyzer would never have imagined that such a small fellow could buy the Spectrum Analyzer at that cost which was 20 lakhs plus the price.https://yourstory.com/2015/08/su-kam

I took the distributorship of an American company called Echostar, which used to make the Satellite Receivers then and supplied to the Door Darshan in good nos. I created an excellent network with the Broadcasting network, which was Door Darshan only, and sold many materials to the different Door Darshan stations. I installed the Dish Antennas and Complete Cable TV network initially in the Mandi House and, after that, in various Air Force and Army stations as that was a very lucrative business, and I was able to create a brand. I was getting references from one station to another. I ran my own Cable TV business in Air Force Station at Subroto Park, for which we used to collect money from the individual subscribers and invested my own money. At that time Cable TV business was run by the Cable operators and not by the big companies. I wanted to create my own Cable TV company at that time. I tried in two more Army areas as well but needed help to handle the stations as I could not create management and had to sell those running businesses to the other operators after running for three years. Around 1996, many big companies entered the space Cable TV business, and one big player was City Cable, which started buying the small cable Tv operators. The monopoly of Indian manufacturers was going to be over as these big players used all imported hardware to set up cable TV control rooms, and the industry was in for a significant change. I had more of an Institutional business where I was installing my setups in Armed forces residential colonies and Air Force stations where commercialization was difficult for any operator to do then. But I knew that we needed to upgrade the technology. I worked closely with one Canadian company to develop a set-top box with digital compression technology in the Western world. I clearly remember investing a sizable amount of money in that startup company. I hope we can develop the technology, which is advanced compared to the current time. Still, I failed as the startup guys were not experienced in that field, and they experimented on my money and resources, which was a complete waste of time and money. Still, I realized that I was continually investing in technology. My life mantra was Technology, Technology, and Technology, which has changed now as, with a lot of experience and time, I’m a wholly changed personality.

Echostar satellite receiver distribution in Su-kam

Su-kam amplifier brochure

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Su-kam CATV Amplifier

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Su-kam CATV Line Amplifier

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A new beginning with the Inverters

In 1998, I got one Inverter installed at my place from one of the inverter vendors and was using that product for my home, and that Inverter used to get one or the other problem at my house. One day, I was at home, and the service guy came to repair my Inverter; I asked him a few questions about the functioning of the Inverter. He was ignorant about the Inverter he was improving and commented that I would not understand this technology part, which hit my ego then. So I took the Inverter to my factory, opened it, and saw the jungle of wires inside the Inverter and a very ordinary single-sided PCB. Since I made PCBs for Satellite receivers, which were very sophisticated compared to the ones used in the inverter, I realised ample opportunity in this industry as everyone suffered power cut issues. No suitable inverter was available at that time in India. This was a different line than what I was making then, but I took up the challenge and started investing my time and money in that product, and my experimentation with Inverters started. I made a few pieces on a trial basis with new MOSFET-based technology, and at that time, people were making transistor-based technology Inverters. So, I started looking for the same product available in the International market, and I came across an Inverter which was used in Recreational Vehicles at that time in the Western world, which didn’t have any charger as the RVs utilised to get the battery charged through the Dynamo of the truck. I realised that theInverterr was made on a double-sided PCB and had MOSFET technology inside, which was a new challenge for me to start from somewhere. The Su-Kam Legacy: A Brand that Will Stand the Test of Timehttps://www.bhaskar.com/harayana/gurgaon/news/know-success-story-of-su-kam-company-owner-kunwer-sachdev-5998123.html.

RV van fitted with Inverter

At that time, Kolkata was ruling the market as transistor-based inverter circuits came from Kolkata. So, everyone was using that technology to make inverters in India on a small scale.

The Inverter board we initially designed was an elementary board with connectors, and it was like a computer board which could be replaced very easily by any small technician. It took almost two years to make a functional, stable model as we experimented a lot with the circuitry, and it was a hit-and-trial method initially. We used to work hard to make changes as we designed the first two pieces. One was installed at the factory, and the other was at home. We used to make changes now and then and see the performance for the next few days and then face another problem, and we solved that and encountered another issue with those Inverters. Still, my perseverance kept me going to make changes along with my existing engineering team. It was frustrating because the Inverter Mosfets were blown repeatedly, and there was a big noise at home and the office. It was scary for people around; Mosfet was blown inside the Inverter under various conditions, and sometimes, observing what state they had blown was very tough. Still, we had to continue making changes almost every day. When I started making inverters, they used to fail in case of any heavy load connected with them. So the first thing we did was to create robust protection circuitry for the Inverters we were developing; any heavy load like a fridge and washing machine can be used on them, and in case of heavy inrush current, the Inverter is used to take protection. This was the first milestone of our developmental stage, and there was no looking back.

The existing technology of that time was transistor-based. Inverter technology was nothing but wires and three different PCBs connected. The biggest challenge with that product was it took a lot of time for anyone to repair it locally.

The charger of the Transistor-based Inverter is used to overcharge the batteries. First, the battery could not last for more than six months, and the size of the Inverter was huge. Secondly, the charger gave uncontrolled charging as the voltage fluctuations were very high. Therefore, this charger was used to increase or decrease the charging current in case of voltage variations.

When we designed the charging circuit, we took care of voltage variations and other factors so that the battery could last for more than two years, and the Inverter’s size was almost half that of the Transistor-based Inverters.

Another significant difference was that the Transistor technology-based inverters ran on two batteries. We designed our Inverter on a single battery operation. It was a considerable advantage for the customer and electrician as it was easy to install, and maintaining two batteries was tricky for everyone.

You can see below this is how our first Inverter looked. We called it a Mosfet-based electronics generator. That was the new name I gave as I thought Inverter was not the right name to attract the customer as that time generator was sold primarily, and Inverter needed standing. Another change I brought was the chassis colour, which I kept black; many people told me it’s not bright for Indians. It’s considered a non-auspicious colour, but I kept the black paint and later made it white; the market very well accepted black, and it became the industry norm. You can see the brochure has the off-white colour of Inverters, but we made the black colour initially and in between made this colour as well but later shifted to black only. The Su-Kam Legacy: A Brand that Will Stand the Test of Time

First Inverter look designed by Su-kam by Mr. Kunwer Sachdev

This is the first Brochure we designed and the First Newspaper News coverage of our Product

First Inverter catalogue designed by Su-kam in the Inverter industry by Mr Kunwer Sachdev

First newspaper news of Su-kam Inverter

First newspaper cutting of Su-kam

When we realized our two Inverters were doing well, I started installing small lots at my friend’s houses, and some cable TV installations also installed those inverters. We observed a few more issues when we started installing in different locations. We kept improving the technology as and when we got any feedback from these installed pieces.

Once those Inverters started performing, we installed more and more, and once I got the confidence, I decided to close my existing Cable TV business in 2000.

I started to focus all my energy on the Inverter business. I knew in my heart that the potential of the Inverter business was very high compared to the cable TV business, and this would take me to the next level.

Many people told me NOT to stop the cable TV business. Still, I decided to stop the Cable TV business on one fine day. I sold all the equipment to one fellow who wanted to take the technology to make those cable TV products as he was selling my products, so he was convinced about the product line I was making then. I realized later that he could only continue that business for a short time as handling people and technology in the manufacturing set-up is a very different game. It would be best to have a very different mindset; sometimes, a trader’s mindset differs significantly from the manufacturing mindset.

So the first thing I did was start buying testing equipment in Power Electronics and started looking for people in the power electronics. I made one good decision not to hire anyone from the industry as no talent was available at that time as everyone was designing their inverter, UPS.

Now, when I sit back and think about how it happened, I realize my strength of working with people motivates them, and I can bring out the best in them. I have learned now that I can take the best from the person who has the attitude to work sincerely. I train people and take care of people and try to work together and learn together culture. I made many mistakes and still make mistakes, but I try to mend my ways ASAP.

I kept learning a lot with different types of people, whether RnD, manufacturing, Sales, Service, Purchase or Marketing section; my learning kept on growing with working with varying people mindsets, and I realized people want to work in specialized domains and they are afraid to change their profile like from purchase to sale or sale to manufacturing even though you are an engineer by degree. I am very fortunate that I learned from many people as I got the opportunity to work with different kinds of knowledgeable people and learned a lot from them.

One can see the two news items above. The Times of India news was the first news that ever appeared for the company, and before that, I had no exposure to news coverage. I was so happy that my product was covered in the news and was shown to my employees and friends with so much joy.

The Su-Kam Legacy: A Brand that Will Stand the Test of Time

Initial Selling of Inverters

It was tough to create a distribution of Inverter selling to start with, so I made a small team of telly callers who used to call the prospective customers and sell them on the phone as in those days, there were no cell phones, and the calls were made from the yellow pages directory which was very famous, and we used to advertise in yellow pages also I targeted my cable TV dealers and customers for selling the Inverters and my friend circle came to my help—involved in selling inverters directly to the customers.

It was a very profitable business to sell directly to the customer. Once we sold around 500 initial inverters directly to the consumers, the installation and maintenance were also done by our team and after six months of the successful working of those installations, I gained confidence in the technology we developed.

Only after this stage, we started focussing on creating a distribution network.

The main aim was to associate with existing inverter and battery manufacturers and make them dealers as they could repair the product quickly. They were the people who could understand my technology also because they are in the same field, so they could immediately shift once they realized that the product was functional. This was tough initially, as converting the manufacturer to the distributor was difficult. So I used to go personally and show them the product by opening the Inverter and explaining the features and protections we kept in our inverters and used to demo them. The single battery, MOSFET technology, small size and a single board attract them.

The technology looked very state-of-the-art for those manufacturers and dealers. Everyone tried to copy the product, and by the time they could copy our model, we were constantly improving our circuitry as we knew the problems we faced in the functioning of our Inverters. I was directly involved whenever there was any complaint. We used to analyze whether this was because of a manufacturing defect, the customer’s wiring problem, or our technician’s mistake while installing the product. Once we were sure that neither of these happened, we used to go to the customer’s place and study how our Inverter failed, and we tried to create that condition in our factory to test the parameters once we were overcome with that issue. So we kept on improving our testing parameters and documented most of the things at that time.

Second inverter model

I always gave my models names as that became the practice, and a few models became very famous with the brand. Still, I should have created brands out of those models by removing su-kam from those models, which I failed to do. Also, sometimes the model names became more confusing as people used to get confused about which model was in which category, and our marketing people used to focus more on the model name than on the brand or the type under which that model falls.

This is another model we created with the first digital display, which was nonexistent in the industry, and here we can show the user all the features on display. In those days, no one could think of LCDs for Inverters as the manufacturers were struggling to make a workable model. Still, we created a digital display in our model, which was a significant achievement.

Su-kam inverter name was Electronic generator.

Electronic generator by Su-kam

Electronic generator by Su-kam with LCD display

Setting up the R&D

Once we started selling these inverters, I started creating a small Research and Development centre with one person dedicated to developing new technologies. Then, slowly, the team started expanding.

I started buying various testing equipment, and the Journey began. It was a never-ending journey where I kept improving the technology and never looked back. Creation of RnD was a very tough journey, and I struggled throughout as making a sound engineer was easy, but making an engineer a manager was tough. The engineers in the Inverter or UPS field were absent who could make any new product from scratch. The Engineers I hired from the market were very ordinary ones who studied at the local engineering colleges, and I spent a lot of time convincing them and training them to experiment with my new ideas; it was always a struggle to make them work on my thoughts, but somehow I kept motivating them and trained them that failures will be a part of experimentation.

In India, most people fear failure and don’t want to experiment. As they want job security, failure could lead them to lose their job. So the first thing I established in their mind was to experiment and fail, and your job is secured, and it took little time. Still, people realized that I was interested in actual development, and they started experimenting with reservations. This created a culture of development of new products and innovation in the RnD.

But I could not succeed in one thing, which I regret is that RND people never owned the products as they had no respect for the technology they created and were not bothered that the people used the products they designed. They can be proud that the product they developed is successful in the market. They made the products under my pressure but have yet to realize their potential. Team creation and leadership were some of the biggest challenges in the RnD as no one could guide the people, give them tasks, and monitor them. It was a struggle for me to make the head of RnD, and I had no choice other than declaring the oldest person as head of the RnD. The talent hunt started as we grew, and we hired fresh graduates from the best institutes as trainees. The experiment was very successful, but most left in the early stages as we needed the right leader to retain them. But all those guys trained in our RnD joined the multinationals as we became their training ground.

Leadership was missing in the RnD, and the jobs were available in the market once anyone had worked with me for more than two years. So, getting new people to put in those positions was also a risky affair, and I continued the RnD with my involvement in most of the areas and started enjoying learning with the people around me. I was getting more ideas, and more product innovation was happening. I never thought in school or college that one day I would become an RnD guy myself as I enjoy talking about technology and love to see technology in any field as it interests me the most. I go to the market and catch people’s challenges, and I love solving them by improving technology.

There are numerous examples, and one example is that during one of my interactions with the customer, I realized that once the Inverter goes into Overload mode, it switches off immediately. The customer has to go and reset the inverter switch. He told me that the person couldn’t reach the Inverter when it was dark, and he was injured doing that. I immediately realized the solution, so I returned and told my people to change the overload concept. We made changes in our product where the overload will happen six times. The customer can reduce the load during those six times and keep switching on and off during those six times, and the customer needs to switch off some load. The Inverter will keep working, and he does not go and reset the Inverter as, generally, inverters are installed in one corner of the house and do not have easy access.

I realized one more thing that people never got: that most engineers lose hunger after achieving job security. They stop learning and growing personally and sometimes don’t shape themselves as managers. I can take the example of one RnD engineer who learned programming in Assembly language, an old language to program microcontrollers. That Engineer stayed with Assembly during his entire career, and the world around him changed as the world shifted to C and C+ and other programming languages. Still, he stayed on to the same assembly language, and the microcontrollers remained the same as he remained in his comfort zone all these years. All the programs written in the RnD were in the Assembly language, which was a big challenge for me as new engineers did not know the Assembly language, and this was an advantage to the person to keep control of the RnD.

In India, the biggest challenge is that people want to control their positions and hide their knowledge from others, which is the norm I saw in most areas. What they learned they wanted to keep secret, and knowledge sharing was minimal. Creating Managers was a tough job, and I often needed help to succeed. I handled engineers individually and in the RnD and worked with them on individual projects as I had a lot of ideas to work on. The new engineers who joined at the end left us because there was a lot of nepotism created in the RnD, and changing the head meant taking a considerable risk, which I somehow avoided all through. People in India want authority but want to avoid taking responsibility. My learning in the RnD was great as I learned many things, including how to develop new technology ways and the means and motivation of the people working on the project. My experience is my greatest asset now. I realized this when the company went into bankruptcy. The Su-kam RnD team was hired by one of our competitors, and they all got fired within one year of joining. I realized my strength was that I could drive those people for 20 years and get the results from these fellows. It’s very tough to work with people with long experience as they create a lot of handicaps for themselves. As people in any organization become indispensable, they stop growing, and the organization also suffers. With my experience and knowledge, these things can be handled quickly, which I will do in my new company.https://content.timesjobs.com/my-first-job-kunwer-sachdev-founder-managing-director-su-kam-power-system-ltd/articleshow/59677843.cms

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Books written on me

Porus Munshi wrote this book and asked me very pointed questions on the creation of r&d and innovation at that time; I was not very clear about innovation, and now I can say that I have become a better person through the creation of Innovation in India is very easy. I have learnt a formula to handle people in a much better way. When I write my book on innovation, I will tell people how to create innovation in the organization. This is one subject where I’ve been very successful throughout my career. The creation comes in everything, not only in the RnD only. It comes in each area of your life. One has to change the pattern of thinking, that’s all. Change is the only constant factor rest is all stagnant. There are three books where one chapter is written about me, and different people wrote these books, and that time, my knowledge, experience and patience were other, and now the time has changed, and I’m a very another person. Next time I’m sure someone will write a whole book on me as my experiences will differ.https://www.iimidr.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/Making-Breakthrough-Innovation-Happen.pdf

I still remember that the efforts put in by the VVDN founders to collaborate with us were phenomenal. They are the founders of a company called VVDN, and they visited my RnD and wanted to collaborate with us on many projects. I was also interested in doing the same, but in our RnD, the culture of collaboration needed to be added, and today, VVDN has become such a big company.

The Rise of Su-Kam from a Crisis

Up till 2002, we created a sizable market. I wasn’t aware our brand was built in the market until the excise department raided us one day. The Excise teams went to dealers and distributors and seized the goods. They took all the raw materials and finished goods in the factory too.

The business was stopped at that moment.

During the raids, we realized that it was influenced by one of our competitors. They even took 50% of our highly trained workforce then, spreading the rumour that Su-Kam was closed down.

This was a massive lesson for me, I learned that the company needs to be done in a solid finance control department with robust systems and processes in place, and I started learning in-depth about excise laws as I had to fight my case.

My staff called by the Excise department started leaving one by one. Even my so-called CFO stopped coming to the office and left the job without informing me. It was a tough time for me, but I learnt a lot during that tough time. As I faced the questions from Excise people, my knowledge about the laws of excise became quite good, and it helped me all my life as I understand the taxation part quite well and keep myself updated from time to time.

One of the inspectors who were part of the team told me that now your company will progress very fast and I couldn’t understand his comments back then. He was so accurate in his remarks.

I still remember very clearly strategizing with my small staff that we would be finished if we didn’t take any drastic steps to restore the confidence of dealers, employees, and suppliers. So, we decided to take massive action by dropping the price.

We made a scheme and advertised in prominent areas where we brought down the price to 50% discount on our products. However, we needed cash flows as all our money and stocks were stuck, and dealers stopped our payments as they thought we could not revive this business.

I clearly remember it was on 15th August 2002 we dropped that bombshell in the market, which helped us revive, and that single stroke destroyed our competitors.

They couldn’t think of a price drop, and they started losing market confidence, and we told the dealers that we would compensate them for the existing stocks as well.

That strategy worked so well that we had three months’ orders in advance. This helped us avoid the financial crunch. We had the money to make the products and could start production again with the advance money. We had excessive cash in our hands to advertise. This was another big lesson on surviving in such adverse situations.

Most employees who left us at this difficult time now wanted to return. We took only the selected ones and the rest of them we refused to take them back.

This was my first strategy game, which taught me how to convert a challenge into an opportunity. I used this principle in various challenges I faced in my life, and most of the time, I was successful in doing the same under different circumstances. I realized from my experiences that I have risen higher and higher whenever there was a crisis. So God gives us concern as an opportunity to learn, and one has to fight it out to get out of the situation to become a better person.

Employees meet by Su-kam

The First Plastic Inverter model

After August 2002, the company’s brand was etched into dealers’ minds. So we increased Invertering and successfully converted the market with increased pricing by making small changes in the product’s aesthetics and features. We will launch new models in the next couple of months.

We had so many memorable experiences regarding the development of the Plastic Inverter.

Inverter – Inverter across a customer whose daughter was shocked by the metal inverter while trying to wipe the Inverter, a common tendency in Indian households to clean all appliances.

I got various complaints from the customers, and especially on rainy days, people were gettinInverter touching the metal body as the earthing in the house Inverter lily weak, or people don’t use earth points at all in the Inverter, which I could not solve. So, I thought of designing the Plastic Inverter.

My RnD guys were not in favour of the same. They were not convinced that plastic inverters could take the heat generated inside our Inverters. So we changed a lot of circuitry inside the Inverter as we put a temperature sensor. So if someone keeps the Inverter inside the cabinet without ventilation, the temperature sensor can switch off the inverter circuitry and stop functioning until the temperature comes down. We also improved the Inverter circuitry in other areas to fit into the plastic casing, as I was adamant about developing the same. The GE plastic head at that time in India also supported us in this venture. It was also one of their most successful products with the PC ABS material, which was hardly used in India then as everyone used ABS or other cheaper plastic granules.

The name I gave was Chic; at that time, people used to call Chic any beautiful girl around them, and that was the term used by the young boys of that time. This was the first model name I thought of for my product category, and after that, there was no stopping as the model names became more popular than brands. Finally, StiInverter was made and launched in the market; it was a bombshell.

Chic inverter model by Su-kam idea of Mr. Kunwer Sachdev

First plastic Inverter by Su-kam

Whenever I created any product or model, I always gave a name to it. So I made a lot of model names, and a few of the models acted as brands in themselves. This Chic Inverter became such a big hit inverter model that India Today gave us an innovation award. It was said to be the decade’s innovation in India. We launched this Inverter in 2003; most customers have used it for over 20 years.

Now another situation arrived: plastic granules were being imported from outside India, and metal was becoming very cheap. It was getting out of our hands, and margins were shrinking, so we wanted to shift to metal which became a challenge as our identity became plastic InverterInverter.

In 2003, I started working on a plastic inverter called Chic. It took one year for me to develop that model with the help of the international company GE Plastics. After many designs and changes, we made a superior-grade plastic that could withstand 120 degrees Celsius.

Here I want to mention another fact, when we launched this product, one of our competitors found the exact look inverter in Plastic by copying our design, which started burning into the market. He got a bad name, and later on, we filed a case against them in court, and we lost as they proved in court that we filed the design patent after launching the product, which was the first lesson learnt by me in the Intellectual Property rights as this was my first direct fight on IP.

Inverter – FairyQueen

After the success story of Chic, I tried another model in Plastic called FairyQueen. It was an engine body made with much artwork and planning, as I wanted people to have Inverter in their bedrooms. It was like a toy that looked like a Locomotive Engine model. I chose the brand also from the most famous engine in history. The product was validated and tested for six months before launching.

We could have done better on the first attempt, but our team needed better packaging, which was a big blunder. The company size was increasing, and I started trusting the responsibility of new launches and left the details to my team at that time.

Success was converted into failure because of this small mistake.

The first shipment sent to the dealer distributors was broken into pieces. Most of the amounts received by the distributors were broken, so unfortunately, the FairyQueen model failed to succeed.

Despite the failure, Su-Kam’s FairyQueen Inverter model was one of the most good-looking models of that time and a train engine model that attracted kids at home. I was very bullish that this would create waves in the market, but it failed, and it was a big learning lesson for me that a small mistake can shatter your dreams. Unfortunately, we couldn’t revive that model again once we failed, losing money and all the effort.

Beautiful Fairy Queen Inverter in the image and also Point of Sales I made in the year 2004 as all thePoint of Sales POS were being imported at that time, and I wanted to make it in India and sell it at a cost-effective pricing with Indian customized features and sold more than 100 pieces but somehow couldn’t make it a success.

First Sinewave Inverter Made in india

This is the first Sinewave Inverter made in India, and this has an exciting story as the Inverters we made were making a humming noise in fans and tube lights, which was an irritation for the customer as the Inverters used to give Square wave Output and the market used to say this is trapezoidal or Sinusoidal waveform. Still, all these inverters had THD of more than 40%, which was very risky for the appliance’s life because, along with the noise, any equipment like a fan or cooler their motor used to get heated beyond the limit and the wear and tear was very high compare to grid power. So I was always thinking about how to make Sinewave Inverter as we didn’t have any working model of national or International players. I hired one engineer who was selling components to me from one component supplier who used to come and talk to me about the DSP and benefits of DSP in the Inverters. But he never designed a single product in his lifetime. I gave him a chance, and we made two teams in the Rnd as his acceptance in the existing RnD team was not happening. I gave both the Rnds the same task and told them the same reward as well. This new guy I hired made the prototype of the first Sinewave Inverter, based on the DSP technology, the latest processor technology and was used in high-end technologies. This Sinewave Inverter had many shortcomings, such as the MOSFETs used to blow on short circuits, and the design was based on two batteries and other challenges. But I was so involved in this project that I made sure that the existing team also developed the same technology faster, and that happened as they made a sinewave Inverter on a single battery and much more reliable within the next year of making this DSP sinewave and this design was a costly one as it was based on DSP and the subsequent design we created was on the standard microcontroller. It was the same microcontroller we were using to manufacture Square wave inverters. I was on top of the world as we designed this in 2003, and there was no competition. Still, the awareness and marketing of this Inverter was another challenge as the dealer was unaware of the Sinewave technology and its benefits. I knew the dealer needed to get convinced.https://indiaesa.info/iesa-contacts-menu/771-kunwer-sachdeva-founder-md-su-kam-business-leader

From there, I started doing small dealer meets where I used to take the Oscilloscopes and other testing equipment to show the dealers the difference between the two products. I also started using that testing equipment myself. I could offer the dealers the noise and heating in the motors, especially as it was a significant achievement for India that we developed the Sinewave Inverter without any external help or funding from any external source. Sometimes, I wonder how I could motivate those ordinary engineers who are not from any IIT, etc., and get the projects done. Later, I realized that my aura was such that I could motivate them and never discourage them from their failures. Doing RnD is not easy as it needs a mindset of investment and continuous looking for small achievements and significant shortcomings, and we need to continue doing what we are failing until we succeed. We need to have the mindset to buy the testing equipment and need components in time and motivation of our team even though they have failed several times as in India, the culture of RnD is brutal to achieve, especially in those days when we started doing the RnD were risk averse by nature. In the families, they were brought up not to do something new and follow the standard path. Not many people ask me how I take such significant risks, and I realize now that I have the mindset to look for something new and not follow the standard pattern, which is a risk for others. That’s my life pattern, and I can’t live without that. This became our stepping stone for exports to neighbouring countries, as China was lagging in this technology then. When I look back, I realize that I had no interest in anything other than developing new technologies all the time and making big factories and big offices to show the developed world that we are no lesser than you. I think this was my pattern, established in my work all these years. When designing my home or farmhouse, I probably never took so much interest as those things never bothered and left to the people around me. After this technology, there was no looking back as we started developing higher capacity Inverters, and again, I was before time there. The Su-Kam Legacy: A Brand that Will Stand the Test of Time

Small UPS for Desktop computers

We developed the small UPS for computers specially the Long back up UPS which could give back up to the normal computer quite early like 2003 and kept on developing models for normal computers. We made first Pure Sinewave UPS in India but never got any recognition as we failed to create separate channel for UPS other than Inverter sellers so remained in the backdrop even after developing indigenous technology and made good technology in the field.

Solar Home Lighting System

On one of my foreign visits, I realized that the Chinese had made small solar Home Lighting systems sold in high volumes worldwide with no light or power cuts for more than 10 to 12 hours. But these Chinese systems were not very reliable. So when I returned to India, I immediately met with my RnD team and gave them the sample I brought. We planned to design a better and more reliable system, and we thought of a design where the user can have two small lights and run the radio along with the same. We designed a reliable product within no time, but the challenge was the light’s looks and design, which were not attractive then. Then developed a beautiful plastic light and the leading solar Home Lighting System, and it almost took one year to keep changing the design. We faced various challenges as the ecosystem of suppliers was always challenging. No one was ready to do the new developments, and the company had to spend all the parts developed at our own cost.

Nevertheless, I was very bullish on this product and thought this would be a big hit in the market. I kept on improving this product and later on added a mobile phone charging option as well into this product. Still, it remained like any other product, which could not be sold in numbers because sales and marketing people were not taking much interest as the company started, big people used to join in positions to take advantage of the brand rather than working for the company’s goals. Instead, the company was working for the growth of its carrier. When the Solar was made successfully, there was a demand from the international market that we could run it on Mains also, so we developed an SMPS charger to charge it through the Grid. This was an ordinary man’s product and could have created an image for India, but somehow failed to market this product correctly.

Birth of Home UPS

I was bullish on my ideas and worked aggressively on various new technologies.

One such technology that again changed the course of the industry was the launching of Home UPS.

Another major challenge I faced was that the suppliers hiked plastic raw material prices as the Plastic granule we were using was being imported, so the cost compared to metal chassis was different.

We started losing profits as the metal chassis was less than half the price at that time, and already, we were commanding a premium in the pricing. But, there was a limit to how much compensation we could take, so I took a call and introduced a new model called Home UPS in a metal chassis with a Plastic front.

This name was given by me to the industry in the year 2005 as I asked my RnD engineers to change the switchover time to such a level that computers and TVs keep working in case of a power failure and when the power comes back. This technology lets our customers run computers on our Home UPS Inverters.

My Research and development team was very much against this idea as they feared it would backfire, but I took the risk.

We launched that product with the UPS as a category of UPS, where the sales tax was 4% as the UPS was sold under a different HSN code. The Inverter was sold at another HSN code; we reduced the sales tax to 4 % compared to 12% in the inverter category. This was another success story in the history of Su-kam.

Initially, all companies worked against Su-kam, trying to educate that 4% is not the proper sales tax, and didn’t realize the Inverter’s changed the technology, and it’s working perfectly fine. Dealers can sell home UPS to IT dealers with our new model. Also, TVs and set-top boxes at that time were working seamlessly.

Even fans and lights were working without any blinking, etc. So, ultimately, the manufacturers in the industry started declaring their models Home UPS to compete with us in the market. Within one year, the Inverter’s name changed to Home UPS in the Inverter market.

We added two conditions in the Home UPS: one for running the computer and IT load and another for running standard fan and light loads. The switch was in the back of a UPS for wide and Narrow UPS modes.

Sometimes, when I browse on the Internet and find that Invertergory’s name has shifted from Inverter to Home UPS, I feel pride when I see the industry using Home UPS instead of InInverter. The Su-Kam Legacy: A Brand that Will Stand the Test of Time

Innovation with LED indications

The Front LED indication in our Inverter used simple LEDs, so why can’t we use Inverter technology to show charging and load/battery condition?

Then we approached one of the technical staff in the airline and got one sample from them. We worked hard to make it cost-effective because we couldn’t use the same technology as it was used in the aircraft, so we worked on several prototypes and then used Inverter technology.

Once we launched the Inverter with innovative, user-friendly lights, everyone copied us, and it became the industry norm. So, whatever I did in the industry, the competition started copying me.

People used to say you take a cheap or local battery but use a Su-kam Inverter, Unique Charging technology.

The battery’s life will be there as the Inverter takes care of the battery. But earlier, that was not the case; people used to say that if you take a good battery and any ordinary Inverter, that will work. It was only because of Artificial intelligence, which we incorporated in our Inverter, which helped us keep improving our products. The charging technology used in our inverters was unique from the beginning. We kept improving the charging algorithm in the various designs of Inverters. All the battery manufacturers always preferred Su-kam Inverter/UPS on their batteries because they realized the system got a better life than competitors when inverters from Su-kam were used. Hardly any evaporation of battery water was there. As we learned a lot about the battery, we created many promising technologies by adding AI to our software for charging techniques, and we remained ahead of the industry. I used to read a lot on the Internet and gave a lot of new technology documents being developed by different universities across the world. We used to test the battery in a very different way. We had many data points on how the battery behaves in other conditions that kept improving the charging technology and filed a few patents based on charging technology only. The latest one was ATC-based charging for Lead Acid batteries, which few companies used. We tried making the algorithm in the Inverters we created but could not master the technology as it had few challenges left. At times, it was misbehaving at the lower temperatures. Still, I was the person who was always working in the RnD team to make any technology successful till the end. Unfortunately, I left so many technologies incomplete as the RnD people were full of day-to-day issues, and at times, innovation took the back seat.

We created a reputation in the market by designing very high-quality products and standardizing the raw material suppliers to manufacture inverters at the most reasonable cost.

Our products, once installed, didn’t break down, and no maintenance was required; dealers, at times, were quite unhappy with us as now they can’t get an AMC on our products since the failure in the market was so low. The Su-Kam Legacy: A Brand that Will Stand the Test of Time

Power guard for homes and offices

This was another product on which I worked hard and was a replacement for stabilizers for homes and offices. It can save the devices from surges and low- and high- and beautiful gadgets. It could replace the stabilizer for Fridges, TVs, Aircondiotioers and any expensive device installed at homes and offices. We developed this technology, and it was ahead of its timing, and we sold quite a few numbers and created demand in National and International markets. Later, we developed a product based on wifi-based Power Guard, which remained in the RnD lab only. We made this product before time as this is required by all the metros and big cities as the power conditions have improved drastically over the last few years. There are hardly any voltage variations, and the user needs protection from high and Low voltages and spikes and surges, which this unit takes care of. So we created two models. One is 6 Amp which can be installed in small sockets and used with computers. lapLaptopsVs fridges etc. and another one was for Air Conditioners for 16 Amps loads.

Designing of high-capacity inverters

Once we were through with the small capacity inverters where the small generators manufacturers like Honda and Yamaha had to change their plans as small Genset from 500 Watt to 1.5 KW market taken over by the Inverters as there was no challenge of petrol or diesel bringing to run the diesel generators and there is no one going to switch on and switch off the Generator and lot of other benefits user got by installing inverters so people shifted from the Generator to inverter technology gradually and the market changed very rapidly for us. So now my next journey was to replace the big Generators. I started working towards creating the technology for the High-Capacity inverters as this was a more arduous journey than making the small Inverters. Again, there was no sample or product in front of us from where we could take any hint of technology. So I told my RnD guys to look for the technology in the Online UPS, which we designed, which differed from the Inverters. We somehow met a lot of component suppliers to get some designs to make the IGBT-based Inverters but failed to get any help from big players who were making IGBTs then. So somehow, we designed our first IGBT Inverter with a lot of scepticism with the Online UPS driver card and making our control card which could drive the IGBTs after a few failures, we could run our first 5KVA Inverter on IGBT, and that was a big breakthrough for us. We started developing higher ranges after that, and the biggest challenge we faced was in batteries. As for big Inverters, we needed more batteries and then more space and filling water into the batteries was another challenge. We used to install ten batteries with an initial 5KVA inverter design, but that size, maintenance issues, and battery water spilt over the floor. The biggest challenge was the small inverter dealer couldn’t install big inverters, and they were scared of installing ten batteries with an Inverter of 5 KVA size.

Once we launched these products, we had to send our engineers to install these products and our existing engineers were not equipped to handle this inverter installation and maintenance. So, we started building a separate service team that could address these Inverters’ installation and servicing. We tried to train the dealer’s service engineers, but it was always a failed attempt. Suppose the dealers and our service engineer install any high-Capacity Inverter used to visit. In that case, we always find that he has used the wrong wires to install the product, and the brawl for installation continues between dealers and the company. As the dealer wanted to install the product at the customer’s place ASAP, and our engineers used to take time to reach the site, the dealer couldn’t wait for the time as he was losing the customer. But during all these struggles, we kept developing higher capacity Inverters, which had to switch timing, so computers or TVs used to get rebooted. I could not finish that project in Su-kam for many reasons around me. Initially, we designed these Inverters in the pure metal front and later on improved the looks by putting a plastic front, which gave it a better look.

Battery Equalization for Lead Acid Batteries and called BMS for Lead Acid Battery

BMS for the Lead Acid battery

This was another excellent product developed for the Inverter UPS industry, and it was created because, in 2008, I installed four battery 2 KVA inverters at my home for testing as it was my standard practice to use the product at my house to get the direct feedback. I realized that the battery bank was changed at my place twice in 8 months as the batteries were mixed. So my engineers installed two old and two new batteries at my home. Then I realized that it is a common problem in the industry to mix the batteries. When two or more two batteries are installed in any house or office, they need to install this product to maintain a healthy life as batteries need to be equalized; otherwise, after one year of operation, one or more batteries get de-equalized and must be replaced. This was made by us in the year 2005 when there was no sign of a Lithium battery, and it was very tough to convince the dealer that it affects lead acid battery life as it equalizes the battery when charging or discharging, improving the storm’s life. As dealers unconsciously prefer to use a single battery of Lead Acid with inverters as one of the batteries goes terribly in case he uses two or more batteries for which this product was to install later on, we developed this product for golf cart batteries and telecom batteries as well where 6V and 2V battery is being used.

Early in 2008, we installed one of the telecom towers for a 2V battery bank to equalise a 2V Lead Acid battery bank, which used to have 48 cells. We realized it worked very well and collated the data to prove that battery life would increase by at least two years by installing these Equalizers with 2V batteries, but we could not convince the people at the site, and the project remained in limbo. Since we had an investment from Reliance, ADAG group tried to meet the technical head, but they were averse to Indian technology and always looking for foreign technologies. The Su-Kam Legacy: A Brand that Will Stand the Test of Time

Power On Wheels demo Truck for showing high capacity Inverter.

Power On wheels

I made a truck for a 100 KVA inverter demo Power on Wheels to showcase the technology in the market. The demo became challenging as the battery was 30 numbers, and the truck chassis had a limited load capacity. However, we made it a showpiece and ran the truck in All of India, covering small and more significant cities to make people aware that this big Inverter can also work. However, I knew that if people asked for an actual demo, that was not possible, but still, that gave a lot of brand image in the market. As people were unaware that the big Inverter could run big loads, we tried to inform the dealer and distributors by sending this truck to various locations. As the batteries were repeatedly failing, and we were facing many other issues, I never stopped this truck from visiting the All-India locations, and it created a lot of branding for us. This truck had the brochures, and one team used to stand in any place to distribute the pamphlets and make people aware of ample inverter availability. I aimed to attract generator sellers to see this working model, but somehow this truck was not functional most of the time for one reason or another, so I could not fulfil my ultimate goal of designing this truck.

Touch Screen PCU

This touch screen Solar PCU was designed by us when no one could think of a touch screen in our industry. Still, this product failed miserably due to one silly mistake made by our RnD engineers, and they didn’t rectify otherwise, we would have made the name in the international world. This product was developed after much effort as I was convinced that the touch screen would change the world. That is what happened with Apple as their phones were very successful once they made the touch screen successful, and I was very much after my rnD to make touchscreen products and ultimately make all our products on the touch screen. We took help from outside to design the same, but the drive to make it successful was missing, so we failed to make this successful, and I had to leave this project in between as I had other serious issues at hand at that time. This product took almost one year to develop, and we installed around 20 pieces, and it could have been the best product internationally had we sorted out the software issue. But I was involved in too much then, so I could not make it successful.

We made a lot of screens on touch screen PCU and this was a touch based product and I was ahead of time in this development.

Matrix Inbuilt Inverter

We designed an Inverter with a builtin SMF battery and this model was very heavy as it had 150AH SMF battery was built in and transportation was a challenge and batteries didn’t last long.

Tractor Inverter

I knew the MD of Escorts Tractor, and he visited our factory one day and asked whether we could make an Inverter which could fit into the Tractor and tractor battery works for the same, which can give back up to the farmer in his fields as having electricity in the area was a challenging issue and availability of electricity in most of the villages and fields was a big challenge at that time. So we both agreed on that, and work started on this project. We designed this inverter in association with Escorts for one of their model tractors. We created this inverter which was IP67 compliant and made a lot of changes as this was to be fitted in the tractor, and the tractor will be in the dust and mud environment. These electronics must be saved from that and direct heat on the inverter as it’s in direct sunlight. This inverter used to work for the farmer as he can light up power in his field or home when he docks up the tractor and the tractor battery used to power the inverter. He can power his home from the tractor battery and inverter anywhere he wants.

Lauch Of Automotive batteries

Automotive batteries

We launched an automotive battery range with full fanfare and captured the market share also but failed in servicing. We made a different technology to design the automotive batteries and it took almost 1 year to design the complete range of automotive batteries from different car models to tractor and truck and bus batteries. Once tested and validated we launched these batteries and created a separate vertical in the company to manage this business but failed on the service front. The company always suffered in the servicing as service team was consisted of old people and some new people joined and old people were not ready to learn, and they did not cooperate with the new people and the tussle continued and the leader was always missing in servicing. Whenever I brought a new guy, he failed may be because of system failure. The system and processes were very loose in the company as my involvement started in my divorce slowly my grip on the company loosened.

Automate Truck and Tractor Brochure

Telecom inverter

We made a telecom inverter for telecom towers where the Generator could be avoided and installed inverters on telecom tower sites. Still, unfortunately, the batteries supplied with them were SMF batteries manufactured in our Baddi factory, which started failing, and that was the end of that story. It could have been a powerful story had we continued with the project.

The Easyday stores power backup, a joint venture between Bharti and Walmart.

We have made Inverter for Walmart stores with Generator as a backup. We designed three stores where the heavy capacity Inverter was there, a small Generator was installed at the back, and the load was divided into three sides. The bag was controlled per the store’s requirement, so the essential gear was working 24 hours with the help of a generator. The challenge was that we could not create a project team separately, and the same dealer distributor team needed to be equipped to handle the institutional business. So that project also stayed on.

We got to execute this unique project where space was a problem, and they wanted to avoid big generators. So we designed a unique power backup system where we gave them four priority lines, and the small generator was used to back up the big inverter, and the Inverter drove the generator. This was another milestone as we designed the system, and the requirement of the client was done. Still, when it came to small challenges, our coordination between the sales service and RnD team came to challenge as I started traveling from one country to another and one city to another at that time as my business was growing, so this project was installed in 3 locations. Still, the rest order was canceled as our teams blamed each other, and we lost the reputation as well. I tried my best to revive the project but couldn’t do it. Had we made this successful, then we would be in a different league.

Electroscopie for comparison of two UPS/Solar products

As we progressed in technology, the major challenge we faced all the time was comparing our technology with the competitors. The whole industry knew that we had superior quality, which was troubling me as I used to tell everyone that our technology was different. We have unique technology, and quality is another thing. So we considered making one comparison tester to show the people our various parameters compared to competitor products. If we had to show the comparison, we needed four pieces of equipment. Even if we took that equipment to the dealer’s end, then operating that testing equipment was another challenge, so we thought of designing one piece of equipment which could show all those parameters to dealers and distributors and could be used by the sales and service people quickly on the computer. So, we started designing this equipment in our RnD and within one year of the efforts of our engineers, we created this equipment, and it had hardware and software to show those parameters on the computer. As this was intended, another challenge was to convince my sales and service team to train them, and they went to the market and showed the difference. As happened to the other projects, the same fate also happened to this project. I could not make it successful.

Later, I realized this was an ideal tool to show the White goods sellers their fridges and Air conditioners to convince the customer to star rating the different product categories. This instrument could tell the customer how much money will be saved if a person buys a fridge or air conditioner from 3 to 5 stars by just entering the current power pricing. This could have been a game changer for many industries, but anyway, I knew my idea could revolutionize the industry, and I could also get such products developed by the teams. So I failed in several projects at various stages, but my confidence kept improving over time, and I know what mistakes I made that I should not have made.

Solar water Pumping System

We were developing the Solar Water Pumping Solutions for the villages as that was the big saving for the Utility companies as the electricity is almost free for the farms in most of the states in India and we were almost in the final stages of this development where the water pumping system which could work on AC as well small one on DC system and can run water pumping system without the battery and can run one pump on the solar panels directly through the Inverter system and later on we kept the provision to grid feed the solar power in case there is no requirement of water system for the water pumping. This could be also a product which was ahead of it’s time. But before we could finish the project NCLT happened, and this project remained unfinished.

Battery Water Topping Kit

Battery Water Topping Kit

The battery water topping kit, which was very important for the industry, was developed by me from an outside vendor, as pouring the battery into the battery was tedious. After the filling of the storm, acidic water comes out on the floor. People suffer as it destroys the base in houses and offices. It was a significant hazard for the industry, so I got one sample from the USA. I made design changes and then developed it in India and brought down the price, which was affordable in India but failed to market that product. I created this product after a lot of effort and investment.

Water Topping Kit Brochure

Online UPS

We developed Online UPS quite early as in 2006 and kept developing different models and made up to 80 KVA with galvanic isolation but the world was shifting towards High Frequency Technology and it was very light weight and efficiency was very high and we were having double conversion technology where the efficiency was quite low comparison to Triple conversion developed by the International players and we kept on making this technology but the demand was not there much and our people never focused on this

technology for selling so we kept selling in small numbers in Su-kam. We could have improved the technology as per the changing times, but we were not able to do the same.

Investment from Reliance and Tamesk

In 2005 Su-kam got an investment from Reliance and Tamesk, a joint venture company called Reliance Power Fund which was a big turning point for the organization as Su-kam got the attraction from investors in a big way. Su-kam invested by this fund of $10 million funding which was unheard of at that time in the Inverter industry. The investment culture in small companies in India had just started then, and many investment companies were looking for investment after the dot com bubble failed. Investment companies realized that manufacturing companies with a brand could be the future, and they were right.

At that time, investors told me to go and acquire one US company in the same space.

I went with one of the investor team members to the US. I saw a US company functioning for the first time and realized that we are good in certain aspects but must improve in other areas. I got a lot of sample documents to help me create better standards in the organization, especially in the RnD.

Our deal didn’t mature, but my learning was tremendous as I got so much exposure to how the Western world thinks and functions. It always helped me, and I kept learning things from the people I made friends with during my visit.

Solar PCU for Offgrid Solar application

We were the first company in India to produce solar electronics and solar batteries in India and made a lot of good products and sold them to dealers and distributors and created a brand to be a solar company. As there was continuous development happening so we worked with various state govts to create the specifications of the projects like TEDA, UPNEDA, and other state govts along with the MNRE which was under central govt trusted our company to give them the innovative products required by different state govts.Also made solar charge controllers for different capacities using PWM and MPPT technology before any one else could make it in India but somehow we couldn’t make it successful in India offgrid solar systems as showing savings to the customer with Lead Acid battery was not possible. Still most of the companies are selling these systems in India with a lot of dissatisfaction of the customer where customers want to save the money.

These systems were developed by us 10 years back for various State Govt projects and that time the requirement was for increasing the back up through solar and in PCU the battery is charged through Solar and discharged when the back up is required so the battery life comes in to the picture and the solar power is stored in to the battery and than utilized from the battery only and in this process battery cycle is reduced. As it’s the Lead Acid battery can give you limited no of cycles and maintenance of Lead Acid battery is another headache.

So this technology is useless in the present timing for the Indian conditions as the power has improved in most of the areas and customer want to save the power bill through the solar system which is not possible by this technology.

SMD based- Inverter and UPS PCBs

As I sensed the future technologies in 2007, I realized that the world was shifting to SMD technology. The TV and computer industry had already moved to this technology as it was more reliable. The cost will also be reduced in the future, and the current technology will not be able to compete with this.
We started changing the SMD technology in the boards, and the product’s reliability improved drastically, and eFront flourished. On the domestic front, competitors spread the rumors that this board was not repairable and dented our market to some level. Still, after waiting a few years, our competitors also shifted to the same technology. This was one of my very successful initiatives of that time as people thought that SMD technology couldn’t work in the Inverter industry as the Inverters are used in rough conditions, and it could damage the inverter life. But it was obvious that the world is shifting towards SMD technology, and one day the existing components will vanish from the market, and the cost will also be higher, and I was so right in my prediction. If you see the Indian Industry, we realize that local manufacturers who can’t afford to design SMD boards use old technology. The rest of everyone has shifted to SMD technology. I was ahead of time in bringing this technology to India. Still, this technology helped us in exports in a big way as the Chinese had already shifted to SMD, and when the people compared us with the Chinese, they could appreciate India and Indian technology. People in our industry probably took 5 to 6 years to shift to this industry and kept telling people that this technology is not repairable. But all these things never deterred me from doing new things, and this reduced our market share in India as such rumors affected the Indian market, but we gained the international market.

Aluminum Transformer Design for inverters and UPS

The Aluminium transformer design was another turning point for Su-kam. While traveling extensively, I realized that the Chinese had shifted the transformer industry to Aluminium.

Even the Indian industry distribution transformers for DISCOMS have already moved to Aluminium as the Heating has reduced. Cooling is done much faster, so we also designed our transformers with an Aluminium and copper combination where the life of the transformer is further increased as we had the reputation of transformer failure to zero and the burning transformer was unheard of.

So, we launched the Inverter with Copper-Aluminum Transformer, and the competitors reacted by spreading rumors again that we have made aluminum transformers. They tried to harm by spreading wrong information, but despite that, the whole industry ultimately shifted to Aluminum transformers inside the Inverter and UPS because of the benefits. Even I changed one crucial area, another small invention in the industry as we used to fix the battery terminal on top of the transformer terminal. I gave the idea to my people why not make this by the transformer wire by pressing the aluminum wire, which I think was possible. We made the dies and the particular pressing machine and changed the whole concept into the industry, and it became more sturdy, and soldering was a headache. At times, the Heating melted the soldering on the tips of the transformer.

Even these transformer lugs were made directly

pressing the lugs and making them as a single piece and avoiding the joints by soldering.

Automatic testing Jigs for Testing of complete Product Range

Automatic Testing Jigs
I made testing automation in su-kam for the Testing of PCB, Transformer, and testing setup of the final Inverter /UPS through computer-based Testing. Still, I failed to run it as the project needed to be planned and executed correctly. I continued this project for three years but ultimately left it unfinished as I needed help to develop my real idea. Our RnD had 30 people, a separate building, and a completely independent setup, so their interaction with the production people was sometimes minimal. They designed the product but failed to make it successful at the production level as they did not own the product’s responsibility. I was unable to bring that culture to Su-kam where RnD should hold the project as it was my idea to make a product and my continuous pressure on them to make the prototype once the prototype was made, then went to production marketing sales and service training, etc. had a considerable gap. Hence, we made a range of products but failed to launch them properly and convince the dealer or distributors for various reasons, as the prototype stage was sound. Still, at the production level, we needed changes that RnD should have made in time. We designed the testing set up for testing our own products like Functional PCB testing Transformer Testing jigs and Complete Inverter Testing Machines and all these machines were designed like this as they need continuous upgradation. Whenever i go to visit various units, people will show me as they are testing on these machines and the moment, I’m out they were testing on manual machines. The RnD designed these machines in house and there was no provision to validate these machines secondly there was no calibration mechanism, and these machines were used initially and after that people shifted to manual testing. I wanted these machines to work so that our dependence on the tester is reduced as people used to leave after training or asking for hikes and it was a big headache and also product passed by them can’t be reliable and i wanted that machines should test these products as computers have more speed and reliability compared to humans.

A small inverter for the lower middle class was designed

100VA with internal SMF battery so that a person who has very low income can also buy this inverter for his home and also people who are having small shop or rickshaw pullers can install it at their home, so price was kept below Rs 1500 in Indian Rupee. This Inverter was very successful, but the battery failed with in 2 years or in certain cases less than 1 year. We sold this in East and northeast of India and exported to few countries and the only challenge we faced was 7 Ah SMF battery.

Sales Ka Bazigar TV program based on hunt for sales people without the MBA degree

The Sales ka baazigar TV program

I conceptualized the whole concept with a lot of hard work. I organized a Sales ka Bazigar talent hunt show which was a hit show on the ETV channel. It gave us a strong branding in the North States as this TV was top-rated in North Indian states. The ETV team was also involved in giving it a final show, and we took an actor who is a Member of Parliament now to lead the show. I went personally to the different places where the exhibition was organized to choose the best candidates as the show was organized mainly in UP and Uttaranchal, so traveling and staying and interacting with youngsters was significant learning and fun. And many big brands were later ready to sponsor that show.

Setting up a Company Board for making the company professional company

Setting up a New Board

I established a distinguished board where Mr. S B Ganguly, the Ex-Chairman of Exide, agreed to join the company’s board. After that, Mr. Biplab Majumdar, MD and Chairman of ABB India, also joined the board.https://engineering.industry-report.net/su-kam-power-systems-ltd/

In the board meeting, I learned how to conduct the board meetings. What is the importance of an internal audit? I learnt a lot in these board meetings and interaction with the distinguished board members.

Sometimes I feel God has given me so many opportunities to learn that very few get in their life.

Battery Tester for Testing of the Lead Acid battery

We use this product we developed in-house to test the battery parameters. I had a dream to give the dealer and distributors a testing machine by which they can test the battery, whether new or old, as the industry is facing a big challenge of substandard batteries being sold in the market. Dealers cannot identify whether they are selling the actual Ah battery or the local manufacturers are conning them. Another challenge was how much Ah was left in the battery once the battery went wrong. If the battery is at 50% 0r 75% level, then the battery can be utilized in other applications. The battery manufacturers also faced a big issue of replacement as there is no instrument which can give the exact parameters of the battery in the market> So we developed this instrument which will function with the computer. The software was produced to drive this hardware. There was a memory card also built in to store the data. This was also the project which still needed to be completed due to my other engagements. I named this product BatteryScopie as an ECG for the Lead Acid Battery.This tester could be used for the manufacturing plants as well as there was no Indian testing machine which can give computer based validation and test the battery and give the results and all foreign machines come for testing which are very expensive.

Designing of tubular battery for Solar

We were the first company to design the solar Tubular battery which had the more cycle life and could withstand the higher discharge current and tried to educate the market for the Solar Tubular battery and the cost was higher than the normal battery as Solar battery need more cycles compare to the normal Tubular battery. I realized that solar off grid Inverter or Solar PCU system need a different battery which has more discharge current and can be charged faster compared to the normal Inverter battery.

Solar Tubular Battery

Developed the Gel battery as well which was a tough thing to do in the same factory. Specially for the gel battery I worked very hard to make it successful and personally supervised the RnD and installation of few batteries and the results were quite encouraging but the process of making Gel battery was completely different and required some additional machinery and somehow I didn’t invest in that machinery. there is no one in the company to tell the history of all these developments and lot of the products were not launched at all and Gel battery was one of those product which was not launched in the market.

Hawk Gel Tubular battery brochure

IOT based Inverters and UPS

Incomplete IOT Project

We should have made Bluetooth inverters and home UPS as the collaborative approach needed to be included in our RnD. We worked on this for a year but failed to make it an operating model.
Made battery equalizer for the lead acid industry, necessary if the customer used two or more batteries, but that product failed to market appropriately. I created a Youtube channel dedicated to the company. This channel was subscribed to by more than 1 lakh people only after my involvement, which needed to be higher for me to consider as an achievement. I made an educational series on the solar Inverter UPS and our products, how to install and repair etc.
I tried making a lead acid battery tester for life cycle testing and finding the exact AH value of the battery, which is computer-based software and can get you graphs etc. The Lead Acid battery can be tested automatically without human intervention. I worked hard on this, and I couldn’t make it successful.
I tried running big inverters online on the GSM module. Still, I could have done better. The team needed more motivation to continue the project without my intervention, even making a house GSM module.
Working on Grid feed technology in India was very important for India to establish India as a player in that field because the Chinese entirely dominated that field. I finished that project after NCLT happened, which was my last dream project. I was working aggressively and made India proud by stopping the Chinese. Still, today, the world is dominated by the Chinese players. In India, 100% dominance is of Chinese players only, which is the future technology. The world has entirely shifted to that in the solar industry. Off-grid Solar is dying its death.

Filing of Technology and Design Patents

Technology Patents
We filed around 60 technology patents but could get a grant of 6 patents only till the time I was running the company.
We developed the Sine Wave technology in 2002, and it became prevalent. Squarewave technology was an old technology in the Inverter industry. It had a problem making noise, and appliances were failing on these Inverters. The price difference was also brought down to a very minimal level. Still, all the competitors wanted to promote the square wave as they had more failures in Sine Wave technology than Square Wave technology. Hence, they kept the squarewave alive in the market, and I tried my best to change the need to sine wave completely but somehow failed, which I will do now in my new role.
In the export market, we get the edge as the competition focuses on squarewave. We have mastered the sine wave front, so Su-kam dominated the export market.

international Joint Ventures

During my tenure, I tried to do a lot of joint ventures, but somehow my luck would have it not a single joint venture work out, so I would like to put on record for the same. Each joint venture has a story, but I will try to be crisp and short on this. I will write more on each joint venture in detail once I get time.

1. First was to tie up with GE Power to sell their UPS in India

2. Joint venture with Israel company Gamatronic to manufacture Online UPS in India

3. Trojan Battery USA, which is one of the largest Lead Acid battery manufacturers and specializes in the Golf Cart batteries.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/cons-products/durables/su-kam-plans-joint-venture-with-us-based-trojan-for-batteries/articleshow/26801743.cms?from=mdr

4. Kohler Generators of USA, and you can see the picture of Mr David Kohler, who was in India to meet me personally and wanted to invest in Su-kam then.

Emerging technologies USA for making E rickshaw motors and DC Generators in India

Employees Training and Motivation Activities

Employee meets and Training.

This was another area where I spent a lot of time and money to train and motivate my employees. We organized. Training meets inside the office factories and outdoor Training, T.

All the factories had separate training halls to impart the Training to the employees. At times dealers were also called to these training halls to impart Training. As I took over as a strong trainer, I and a few outside trainers used to train our employees. Once a year, we used to have Manthan as an outdoor training camp where we used to plan for the following year’s activities and how the year went by, and these events were also given names like Lakshya and Manthan and year written on each occasion. We used to have these events outside; whichever venue was chosen, there was branding. Generally, the hotel looked full of branding. All India sales and service employees were called along with the International sales and service team, which was given the Training for products and Training for sales and motivational classes alongside the team building exercises.

Sports Week and Family Day

We created a sports week in Su-kam, which was a big hit. All the departments and factories used to come together for a week and play games like badminton, chess, cricket, volleyball, etc. Its factories, etc., and the employees practised winning those games after working hours. It was a very binding event for all the departments. This was a significant motivating factor for people working in su-kam.

A lot of training sessions for the education of employees used to be organized, and Training was my passion. I used to train people myself, especially in technical sales, marketing, and service areas.
Dealer education meets one of my pet projects. I was very particular about training program schedules as my passion for products was very high, and I wanted to convert that passion into the dealers. In addition, since we used to drive the industry in technology, dealers needed to be trained for that, and the consistent effort of educating the dealers was necessary so issues between the employees could be reduced.
Employee family parties are organized so that people come together more often. They work in harmony and people when they meet with families, creating a different bond. At the family parties, no one was allowed to take pictures as women danced without any inhibition, and I was very particular about letting everyone enjoy themselves. Even the wife’s role helps the company to retain the employee as they are happy they would not let him change the company. The company parties were very famous, and people used to wait when is Going to be the next party, and I would love to throw a party for any small achievement, and I knew that help reduce the company’s politics. Few marriages happened between the families, and many families came together because of this party culture.

Training of Dealer and Distributors through Dealer Meets

Started the training of Dealers and Distributors

I started dealer distributor training by travelling in India to each district myself and used to have dealer meets across India. In one year, my minimum target was to conduct 100 dealer meets, and for that, we created a special team which used to go with me, and we used to make special arrangements. I was very particular about the discipline, and the stage had to be set in a specific fashion and product display and the live demo of the latest developments; I was personally giving Training to the dealer and distributors. I must have done over 1000 dealer meets across India and almost covered each corner of India, whether Kashmir or Kanyakumari. I have travelled to all seven states of the Northeast and covered all the southern states, and dealers used to love our meets, and whenever I launched a new product, there was always a sales boost. I always acted like a teacher, making them aware of future technologies and trends. Sometimes it was very frustrating as the knowledge was difficult to impart to our employees as there were very few employees eager to learn technology and product features; the same was true for dealers. I remember when I started the solar products, it was tough to make our employees understand those products, and dealers were unaware of solar even today. I feel that we couldn’t educate our people and dealers to the level we should have done whenever I created a good team that the competitors always took. You go to any solar company and will find people from Su-kam, so I am satisfied that I trained many people in the industry, and all these people meet me and value what I taught them personally. I learnt a lot about conducting these meets and how the psyche of dealer and distributor works, and I realized that once people started approaching me for Training for the creation of dealers and distribution channels as I got a request from multinational companies to give a talk to their employees about the product of a distribution channel. I did a few of them and realized I had become a hero of this concept. I’m looking for my old pictures and once I get I will upload them here. I started doing dealer meets from 2003 onwards and till 2017 I continued those meets in the company and it kept on improving over a period of time.

Creating a Distribution network is one area where I can write a book, as when I started as a small company. I used to go myself and make dealers and later did many things to create distribution in each nook and corner of India. One day I will write a book on building a distribution network.

Focus on Branding

I always thought about how to spend my marketing budget. Then, I started service vans with the su-kam branding. This confidence-building measure helped customers receive better services. So, service vans were one of the marketing budgets and service branding.

This ad was a game changer for the company as we used to sell small Inverters, and there was an image created in the mind of people that we sell small inverters using this campaign; we changed the mindset of customers and dealers distributors.

Branding was one of my biggest strengths, and I never realized this fact till I saw everyone copying my ideas from small to big companies.

I made sure that Su-kam boards were seen everywhere people travelled. As I monitored that activity from my office, all famous religious places in the North, Southeast, West, and Northeast of India were covered with Su-kam boards.
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My Secretary Chetna and I used to review the installation of boards in the strategic locations every week. People in my company and dealer distributors wanted me to write inverter words with the brand Su-kam, which I never allowed.

There are a lot of stories around that, as I used to travel a lot. Once, I was eating in one of the Dhaba on my way to Jaipur; he had excellent food but needed to write the name of the Dhaba outside his Dhaba correctly. So, I instructed my people to design the boards so that his name was written correctly under our brand.

It became a big hit for dhabas across India, and I kept putting boards wherever I could lay my hands on them.

We did similar branding even outside India. The brand was a pride for me, and I used to transfer this thought to my employees and dealer distributors. People wear branded clothes, and my idea was to design my shirts with Su-kam written on them. So I had 12 shirts where the Su-kam was written on them, and they were designer shirts. I never promoted someone else’s brand as I always thought my brand was more significant than any other brand, and that was my thought process.

You can see in the image below the branding we started on the trucks.

Kunwer Sachdev brand Su-kam

This was the car rally we did in Banaras, where 100 cars had Su-kam branding, and I still remember the brand image it created in people’s minds then.

On one of my visits to Srinagar, I saw that Shikaras were in bad shape and needed more money to cover them adequately. So, I converted all the Shikaras to Su-kam. Later on, I realized that Airtel and other companies followed the same strategy, and they overtook Shikara branding in Kashmir in a big way. The employee meets and dealer meets branding was done on a big scale. If we used to hire a hotel for any meeting, then that hotel was full of branding, and anyone visiting that hotel would know that some big event was happening and the brand was itched in people’s minds.

Pictures show that any event I did had strong branding, and the brand was itched in people’s minds.

I started a newspaper advertisement for Running 3 Air Conditioners on a 10KVA Inverter. People in my company told me to let us advertise for small inverters which were selling at that time. Still, I did not listen to them as I knew what I was doing. After two years, one of my competitors started advertising the same slogan, which gave me a lot of pride that people copy what I do and dealers and distributors. My employees could not understand my thoughts when I started something new. Still, later on, they realized the benefits of doing all this. I tried a lot of advertising companies, and there were very few simple ideas. The rest just wanted to show me, for which I was not convinced, so most of the time, I realized getting a suitable advertising company and the right marketing guys in the organization was the most formidable challenge for me, which continued all through. Advertisement companies, when pitching for the contract, are impressive. Still, regarding reality, they were too slow in their actions, and their ideas were not convincing. The Su-Kam Legacy: A Brand that Will Stand the Test of Time

Creation of Export business from India

Export business

When I started the export business from India than there was a craze of foreign goods in India, and we used to think in India that India can export garments and handicrafts and outside India there was a same image and software industry was just coming and didn’t create any impact at that time and we were importing most of the electronics from outside and there was no question that India can export Electronics. In my industry there was no one who could dare to dream of exports. Today most of the big companies are exporting because of my initial efforts and creating a brand for India.

The first export to SriLankan in 2003 and export which we did and it was the first export for our company, and the papers made to export were wrong by our Inverter department as no one knew what documents to make and what is the importance of Inverter, but anyhow we started exports with SriLankan and after that, I focused my energies on exports, and we made a small team and personally went to countries like Nigeria and Kenya in the first phase, and it was a horrible experience to start with as Nigerians was a tough country and I carried the Inverter with me while traveling for the first time so I was not allowed to release the Inverter which I brought with me, and the corruption level was very high at that time, but somehow I clicked with one person who had a position in Nigeria and he installed my Inverter with a car battery and that’s how the Journey started in Nigeria where the person made a lot of money by selling inverters directly to the customer, and he was getting the inverters through the Air route rather than sea route and the quantity was small but he was getting good margins and demand started increasing slowly and he didn’t have money to order for a container and then so many people began asking for distributor ship and we made one strong party as our distributor and went personally to visit 4 states in Nigeria with him and travelling inside the Nigeria was tough and the planes were poorly managed and the way people boarded the plane is like people board the buses in small city and accessible for all so it was a very different experience for me but people gave me so much of respect being the inverter manufacturer from India. Slowly we started with other countries as well, and the team consisted of service guys who went and supported the distributors in installation, Training, and repairs, as sending back for repairs was not a possibility.
Once we started exporting, we learned much about quality standards, packaging, etc., as the product couldn’t return for repairs. Once the product failed, the brand’s reputation and the distributors suffered. Lots of complaints were there initially, and we realized there were better ways to do it, so we sent people to each country with a service background and asked them to stay there for an extended period. That worked well for distributors and us. Buses branding for employees and how I learned all good and bad experiences.
Tried hard to sell UPS to take on the foreign players.

Participation in the International Exhibitions

International Exhibitions

We started taking part in international exhibitions which slowly created a brand outside India as we made it sure that every year we have to stand in those exhibitions. Initially I was going to each and every exhibition and then I gave this responsibility to my export head who was mentored by me in the company. There is a story of each exhibition participation which I will describe later as I have to upload the smaller portion for the time being. in these pictures we can see the distributor showrooms which we created and sponsored few events in different countries in association with the local distributor.

Social Media Use for branding and advertisement along with communication

Social Media

Using social media to the company’s advantage was one of my most tremendous successes when it was unpopular. I used Google Location and Google to upload my office and factories videos which was a novel way of showing myself on Google withoutGoogle page without spending a penny. I instructed all my factories to put pictures and videos of any invention they made. We ensured all our factories had a Google location and the photos and videos uploaded. Spreading the knowledge within the organization was the most challenging job. People needed to learn how to apply the inside, and marketing guys failed repeatedly. The processes were not there, and I needed to create the right strategies to monitor my people in the organization. Still, I failed continuously. We used a Facebook page when no one thought of using it for commercial purposes and asked the dealer and distributors to post pictures of projects. All vital information about the company was posted regularly, and it was a big hit. The whole dealer and distributor community in India and outside India is there, and it has become a medium for exchanging information.

Su-Kam Solar brand creation

I created a new brand called Su-kam Solar and created the boards and website around it. We started solar quite early as in 2006 onwards we were making solar PCU and solar Inverters, but our brand was only recognized as inverter brand only. So one day i thought why not change the brand looks and feel so i called for different type of designs and then kept the brand Su-kam with Solar logo in the yellow color and also started doing coloring on the product as well and made brochures in yellow color so that our solar branding is seen differently. We started putting boards on dealer ends also to yellow color with Solar written on them also designed posters to be pasted at dealer’s end and slowly it changed the perception in the mind of people, and I was amazed to see that all my competitors started writing solar along with their brand with in 2 year of my writing Su-kam . Whatever I do in the industry people start following and now I’m so confident that people will follow whatever I do right or wrong. I changed the background also Yellow from the background blue color.

On one of my visits to Srinagar, I saw that Shikaras were in bad shape and needed more money to cover them shikaris adequately. I converted all the Shikaras to Su-kam. Later on, I realized that Airtlel and other companies followed the same strategy, and they overtook Shikara branding in Kashmir in a big way. The employee meets and dealer meets branding was done on a big scale. If we used to hire a hotel for any meeting, then that hotel was full of branding, and anyone visiting that hotel would know that some big event was happening and the brand was itched in the mind of people.

Unique Trolley design for big Inverter Installations

We designed one trolley that can be combined to look like a single trolley in Plastic. But, unfortunately, the batteries seemed very shabby when we were installing our 10,20KVA inverters.
The trolley bank could be converted to look like single trolley banks in Plastic, and one could add as many as possible so that when batteries are kept, they look good as one stack. This project was done with one of my vendors Bhurji Electronics whose owner took a lot of interest in designing and manufacturing the trolley. And many changes were done over a while, but my team still needs to sell that in sizable nos.

Developed tread Mill in year. 2003

Made In India treadmill.

I also tried making a treadmill in 2004, as all the treadmills were being imported back then. Why not make an indigenous Treadmill, as we are power electronics people?

Electronics was not a problem for us, but making a structure from the outsourced companies became the hurdle. We can export rather than import from the world. We can make it cheaper, and the Make in India treadmill will be more acceptable.

I tried many vendors but failed to make a mechanically sound treadmill. Although there was good demand in the market, the structure had many issues as the belt and mechanical play a significant role in the treadmill functioning. trying to find the images of this product and once i get these images I will upload for your reference.

Most of the time people read about the success stories of an entrepreneur. But, in reality, many failures happen to all of us, during our journey as an entrepreneur. We hardly pen down our failures.

So once I started writing my story than I forgot to eat and continuously started writing what i did in all these 30 years of creating Su-kam. Once I saw any pictures or any of my earlier files than I realized that I made this product. I can write stories about each and every development in length but I want to finish this story first somehow. Writing this story is an exciting job for me as I learnt first how to write in WordPress and I’m writing and designing this page myself which is giving me so much satisfaction at this stage.

Making of the grand Corporate Office

This is the corporate office and this was built on a 1000-meter plot in Gurgaon and it took 2.5 years to construct this building and it was the facility which was a world class facility where more than 150 people seating was created and I spent lot of time in designing and overseeing the construction of this building as the interiors took lot of time and now, I realize the wastage of time and money. There was a proper canteen where we used to have an outsource agency to provide the food for at least 100 people. When I was designing this corporate office, I used to dream about this office and when the building was being constructed, I used to visit even at midnight, and this was made with all my heart and soul and one day came when I was made to realize that I can’t enter into this building. One can realize the heart break I felt that day and have felt about all that I created was gone in one day and you are on road. It took lot of time to accept the reality and the best thing is that I accepted the reality and moved on.

This is the grand reception created at the entrance of the building.

Building of 6 Factories from the plotted Land

After 2000, I built new factories one after the other as the company grew so I took the land in Gurgaon and built two factories and an RnD building. Initially I built my office in the RnD building, later made a new one, and shifted my corporate office there. Then I got to work in Baddi, where the Himachal Govt gave subsidies, so I started building factories in Baddi and built 4 units there from scratch.

So I built the first manufacturing unit of Inverters there. Then the battery unit, and then the transformer unit, and at last, I made the palatial SMF battery factory. Now I realize that the 15 years I spent building all these units from scratch, getting involved with

various Govt agencies, taking approvals, and dealing with Architects and contractors was a hell of a job. Now I realize how much of my prime time I wasted constructing these factories and offices as I was personally involved in drawing approvals and the construction happening in

Front of me of each unit.

The SMF battery factory was made in Katha with lot of grand planning and investment as this was my biggest investment ever and we took the land from the Himachal Govt and it was a raw land and lot of challenges as there was no factory nearby at that time and we started the project even roads were not constructed by the State Govt that time and it was all dust around and I had the dust allergy and whenever I used to visit the site i used to get sick but I had to visit once a week going in the car from Gurgaon to Katha and used to stay in a very local hotel as there were no good hotels that time and I used to oversee the construction myself as the contractor was slow in the construction and the bills used to get pass by the management without my knowledge and I was struggling to get the right people for the organization and if you are not involved than the construction of that scale could give you huge losses. As the timely construction was not done and the local authorities handling was another big issue. The local politicians also used to have interference in the area as those people wanted to have their say in the project and ultimately they wanted their people to be inducted in the construction and those people were not the right people and sometimes I used to get bogged down with the problems so much that used to think that I have unnecessarily taken this panga of putting up factory in such a far place where I have very limited control. My personal and professional life was affected as traveling every week to the construction site for almost 3 years was very tough and after this project another project of transformer unit started and before that i already built two units there which were small in size.

Now I realize that what a waste of life that I constructed so many factories and set up the management and had so many local issues as there were strikes in the factories as management in the factories was not the right management.

I used to go and settle with the workers personally as the strike was called in inverter unit which was in the heart of the commercial belt and had the strength of 150 workers and transformer unit where the strength of 100 people used to have strikes once in two or three years and local goons were behind these strikes and our HR people used to give me unreasonable demands and I always used to go personally and settled those disputes. The local media also used to cover those strikes and sometimes it became a political issue as well.

This was the grand factory layout plan where more than 1 lakh square foot area was covered area and the basement was designed in such a way that from one side a truck can enter, and it can get out from the exit entrance as the raw material and finished goods can be transported through the factory at a scale.

When this factory was built i had other problems at hand as distribution was increasing and customer complaints were also increasing, and we were hiring for service engineers and salespeople and hiring was at full swing and our HR was always a weak link, so I had to oversee lot of issues personally and then people were leaving or always asking for raise without any basis as our systems and processes were not robust.

The katha battery unit was inaugurated by the CM Himachal Pradesh Mr. Dhumal

The Solar Projects

I started the Solar project division, where we were one of the pioneer companies to install megawatt projects. I got selected people who didn’t have any solar background, as solar was non-existent then, and started bidding for projects. So we initially got the SECI first phase 2 MW allocation for installing Solar projects and started installing Solar projects one by one.

The Punjab Engineering College project was executed in probably 2011 by us, and this was the first Megaproject we did. It was an Ongrid project, and there were a lot of issues in installation as the installation agencies were not there at the time. So there were a lot of shadow issues we faced after the building, and the audit agencies were not there who could audit the projects at that time, so we asked my team to audit the project, which was not the right thing, but we learned a lot after doing this project, and there was no looking back.

Another project was the Chennai metro which was completed in 2013, and installation in Chennai at the location we installed was a tough job. This is because so many changes happened before and after the installation started for this project. But it was also an experience.

IFFCO HO in Gurgaon This was installed in Gurgaon the IFFCO has its headquarters in Gurgaon, a prestigious building. Getting this project implementation was a new challenge as we supplied the material. It took a few days to install the project. In the meantime, we learned that a few of our panels and other material went missing as it was a prestigious project, so we did not raise the issue. Still, we started the enquiry internally and later realized that one of our team members was involved in the theft, and we fired the person but did not give the complaint to the police. So this was the first car shed we designed for any corporate, and then we started doing it for other corporates. We know how to install cars and sheds with maximum power and give the best shadow for vehicles.

SBI Academy Gurgaon has a training facility for the SBI, and we solarized the whole building and saved the electricity bill almost 70% of the consumption University. We made a car park as a solar shed and utilized the Energy to reduce the power bill in the University. And it shielded the car parking and multiple uses of the space. Another project we did at Rani Polymers where we proved to them that electricity saving could reduce the bill and this power is genuinely cheaper than Utility Power. When we were installing these projects, there were hardly any prominent players, and we got a lot of experience. We kept increasing the team and training the people as hardly any people were in the solar project field.

And solar Energy is stored in the same batteries, and the output is standard for the load as this was around a coastal area, so

we were supplied by a Pune supplier. The rest were provided by us in 2010, and we made a standard Electronics wind energy.

One could get bioenergy through solar and wind both. This project is working even today as we reached the experience of running wind and solar together, and we also tried one of these projects in India.

I duplicated this project at my farmhouse as well, where there was a windmill was windmill and solar. Both were working as I see this as the future of many countries, including India.

I visited this site personally for this project and was very proud to execute this project outside India.

This was the Up govt project called Lohia Vikas, where we installed DC systems. There was no light in these houses, and the light was provided through the DC system having a capacity of 100 watts, and this had the facility to run one fan and two lights and mobile charging facility. Making the DC system for this project was a big challenge as it was time bound. We designed the product in time and was approved by the approving agency, executed the project almost in time and installed it in different remote villages of the UP. We made teams who could go and install it remotely, and we also tried to outsource the project to two agencies. Still, we had a bad experience as they were very slow, and in some cases, our material used to get stolen, as getting the project done and getting out the money was another challenge we faced. This project has caused us a loss to the company. There were five years of maintenance, and our service people made money by claiming batteries from the company and other stuff. Handling engineers remotely was stressful as the management was done correctly. As the company increased, the HR department remained unstable as whoever became the HR head; performance was significantly below average. I can say that company was growing quite haphazardly. We could not create systems and processes as my involvement in RnD sales and marketing was the highest. I thought anyone could see the HR, which was a big mistake as my interest in finance was also missing, so the company’s finances were also very loose.

Arunachal Pradesh was the first north East solar project done of 600KW grid feed, and this was our very successful project in the Northeast as we did several projects in the Northeast covering all seven states.

This is the Assam Rifles Grid project, where we installed it in 7 different locations in the Northeast. It was done in a joint venture of REIL, a Rajasthan State Govt company, and 100 and 150 Kw off-grid solar projects were done. The REIL and the rest batteries supplied by the solar panels and Electronics were provided and installed by us. We designed the remote monitoring system as well for these seven projects. So this was a very successful project where we installed these systems. There was a massive benefit to the Assam Rifles as taking the diesel to these far-flung areas was very tough and costly. So we made this system successful, where they hardly used diesel generators after installing the solar off-grid system. We got two distributors also during the installation of these projects in the Northeast.

The Mini-Grid 250KW project at UP had three installations done by us, which was very challenging as there was no electricity in that area. State Govt connected 5 to 6 villages through this 250KW project, and the execution of this project was a tremendous task as we had to distribute the power. Power was free for people, and everyone wanted more and more power. They installed the new fans and lights in their homes and were given only a 100 W connection for each home. We had put the load controllers for that purpose, but people came to know of that. They made direct connections, and all the pumps for irrigation purposes were running on this. People kept increasing the pumps, and the battery bank was installed for three days of backup in case no solar was available. The batteries started giving us problems as this system was overloaded, and controlling the people in that area was next to impossible. Villagers had fights with our people daily, and no staff was ready to stay there as this project we were to maintain for five years, so we kept struggling as our people kept changing at the site, and all three areas had significant issues with maintenance. We were the early people to learn to install the off-grid Mini project in India. Other projects also came along similar lines, but we didn’t bid for them.

We made a unique solar panel trolley for the Indian army and a movable Inverter truck so that Army can open the Solar panels anywhere while travelling, get solar power, and run the equipment. this project took more than 1 year to make ready, and Army officials are here to inspect the system in the below pictures.

Solar Project Division

Made solar PCUs and sold them to various state Govt. departments for solar installations. We kept on designing new technologies in the solar field and made DC systems for running the appliances directly on the DC as devices also came which can run now on DC as I realized that in the future, DC would be more popular as all the appliances coming these days are based on DC like mobile phone TV computers LED lights and Solar is also DC energy so why to convert into AC and make so many losses in the system and DC systems are more efficient, so if we run Air Conditioner made on DC compressor, it takes 800 Watt in comparison to 2000 Watt which the existing Air conditioner consumes. So, I worked hard to make DC systems and make them famous. We convinced the UP Govt dept UPNEDA and sold 30k units for their low-income houses, which they installed free of cost with small solar panels. The Warranty offered was five years. It was a big hit, and other state Governments followed that project. Still, working with the Govt is challenging as the payments are struck, and we needed a big team to run and maintain the show.
This also became one of the reasons for our downfall, as our 125 Cr was struck in various state government solar projects. The solar industry always poached the teams created as different big solar companies came to do solar projects in India and foreign, and they didn’t have a trained workforce, so Su-kam was easy to disrupt. This money became the major reason for the company going into bankruptcy, and no one looked at the reasons for the company’s financial reasons. There should be a provision in the banking sector to look into the reasons for the company losses before they recommend the company for the NCLT admission so that everyone is clear why the company came to this position and whether it can banks recover those losses with the help of an Entrepreneur or some other agency before recommending the company for the liquidation process.
I created a solar project team to start the solar installations at the MW level. We installed one of the first 1 MW solar projects in India when SECI awarded the first phase of the auction, and India started with a solar boom in 2011.
We created DC systems to run the load directly on the DC system.
I made my RnD run on the DC system. We did many solar projects as we were the first company to start a megawatt project in India when the SECI awarded the first 5 MW projects in India. We took 2 MW and installed it at Punjab Engineering College and Chennai Metro. There is a story for each project, how it started, and what challenges I face in particular. The Su-Kam Legacy: A Brand that Will Stand the Test of Time

Solar Projects Brochure

The major Decision to convert Service Employees to Outsourcing of Services for the Company

The service was a big failure in su-kam as the stability of people was a big question mark. Su-kam became a big training house for the newcomers, and they used to join to learn and move on to the industry as our HR department needed to be more vital to come to the expectation of the company. We could not hold on to people even after much Training was organized, and I failed in this area repeatedly. The service team became as big as 1200 people, and the running cost of salary spares and travelling expenses became one of the most significant reasons for the company. The service calls were not attended by the engineers on time and there were spare parts theft was rampant in the team. Our service team used to log the fraudulent complaints to get spare parts and used to make extra money with the dealers. As the service had a lot of complaints as created mainly by our service people, we thought of one solution to make our service people Service providers. Hence, we gave 600 service people a golden handshake and created a team of the same service people as outsourcing our services. We created a model where 6-month service salaries supported them. They started making the groups an independent setup, and service people were to leave the company and provide service to the company as outsourced servicing. it was one of the major decisions of my life as distributors were not convinced and service people were also very sceptic about this decision and started rumors in the industry that the company is closing down but I remained adamant on my decision and slowly the market became stabilized and today all those service providers are giving services to all the major brands and the industry is using their services.

Once we outsourced our service slowly, the competitors followed the same model, and the same people provided services for other companies. Few of the service providers have become millionaires because of my that step taken at that time.

Personal Front affected the Company.

Personal Front
My personal life was not very typical as I had a love marriage with one of my juniors at a very early age. I was not settled and got married, and from day one, my marriage had challenges, but I kept ignoring all those years, and our fights were very common. She used to work in a school as a teacher, and somehow, we kept the marriage going, and we were blessed with two sons, Kanav and Shourya. As I was busy building the company, I forgot my personal life completely and focused all my energies on building this brand and company.
The primary trouble started when she left the job, and I accommodated her in the company as HR head. However, she started using her position to influence the hiring and firing culture. Front slowly destroyed my image in front of employees, which no one, including me, noticed, and she joined the company in 2005. Our divorce started in 2009, and initially, I thought everything would be normal again, but coming 2010, it became apparent that we couldn’t live together, so I left the house after it, and my sons also went along with me. I didn’t realize that my emotional dependency was entirely on her by that time. I was busy building the company all these years and lost all my friends and relatives, so I became pretty lonely in my personal life. This relationship problem made the company as I was not interested in going home and used to spend a lot of time working and travelling. This also became the reason for the company’s downfall, as the moment I became emotionally weak due to the separation and could not understand my partner’s true colours, I got discouraged with life for a while. So once my divorce started with her, my emotional balance was shaken. I lost interest in the company for two years and tried my best to understand life. My kids also became quite insecure after this episode. I left the company for them for those two years, and the company was doing well and still running on its old strength, but a lot of politics seeped into the company internally.
Employees were confused, and my ex-wife filed cases against me in the police and courts. I got embroiled in that and could not handle the situation emotionally and otherwise. This brought the company down and became the ground for personal insolvency.

My Ex-Wife entered the business.

I never involved my family or friends in the company’s affairs, which has been my strength since its inception. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this strength till my ex-wife came into the organization as the HR head of the company. This was also one of my costly mistakes, as she wanted importance from the employees and created a lot of commotion. From there onwards, I realized I hardly knew her all these years.

In dealers and distributors, rumours were floated that I have a terrible temper and keep hiring and firing people. I did not realize that she was the one who was pushing me to do the same, and she had an agenda to do it purposefully. The organization also did not accept her as her understanding of the organization was limited, and all my technical people tried to avoid her. She was interfering in all the areas without much experience and technical people who were there and were very close to me felt threatened by her. A few of my close people had to leave the company as she created the situation, which was beyond my understanding. She started such a politics in the company that I was also helpless to understand what was happening around me.

Then one fine day, one of my CFO was found doing fund embezzlement, and an audit report was in front of me, and we filed a police complaint against him, and he was fired from the company. I remember clearly that he pointed a countercase against me that he was having a relationship with my ex-wife. He showed the emails and proofs in the police case, which was a significant blow to me, and the whole organization learned of this episode. I went into depression and stopped going to the office, and she went to the office without any hesitation and interacted with people normally. I realize that she is here to destroy. Slowly our relationship went from bad to worse, and in 2010 I left the house as I was pretty upset with her actions. That was the end of the story of the relationship as I left my house, which I had built for two years and had the comfort of life. Still, I had no choice, as staying with her was impossible and stayed at hotels and then rented a house and started staying separately. As things were going around, I learned much about her past, and she started threatening me with police cases. She started filing frivolous police cases in different police stations to harass me. She created a blog and started going to the press and media to tarnish my reputation. I lost the company’s focus in those two years, from 2010 to 2012. I started living a very different life and didn’t want to meet people or attend phone calls. I tried to be away from my professional life. I met a lot of gurus and read many books on spirituality and psychology, which gave me a lot of different perspectives on life. I focused on my health and used my morning time to do swimming, yoga and going to the gym. My routine was to spend 5 hours in the club in the morning to do these activities and build my body those days.

That was the worst time of my life but probably the best as I learnt a lot about psychological problems and my personal feelings, which I wasn’t aware of at all. She created a big issue of salary mismatch, giving handsome salaries to those closest to her. As a result, most of my trusted people and those who played a significant role in creating Su-kam started leaving the company. The management kept changing, and she projected me as a villain in my organization, which I could not understand initially.

She made a gang of people who were her followers, and the politics in the company became the rule of the day. She joined the company in 2005 and left in 2010.

After leaving the company, she worked even more aggressively against the organization.

I lived 20 years with her, but I feel I failed to understand her. Even during the divorce period and after the divorce period, she kept fighting with me.

She was so manipulative that everything she was doing was acting most of the time, and she was trying to avoid her but never understood her. As I got married again to an ordinary girl now, I realized more that she was not an ordinary girl as there was no resolution to our fights; we never sat to resolve the disagreement, and it was always my fault, and that’s it.

She kept filing police complaints and court cases against me until today; I’m fighting court cases she filed on various charges even after the divorce settlement.

Unfortunately, I could not settle my children after having so much knowledge and strength. I realized that our destiny governs us, and no one can make or destroy any individual’s destiny. Fate takes you to places, and it creates situations where you meet the right people or wrong people and make the right or bad decisions in those situations.

Since I was hardly going to the office and trying to avoid people interaction, the company was managed by professionals who showed me sales. Still, the company had mounting debt as the profitability was on paper only.

In the meantime, my kids also came to me, and they didn’t want to stay with my ex-wife; their emotional challenges were there, and we all stayed together. They started taking an interest in the company but had no experience running it. They got such a big company to run, which became another challenge for me to handle as they created their teams and were driven by the manipulative people in the company. Another level of politics started in the company, as I had hardly any trusted people left. Professionals ran the company, so it was very tough for me to manage the management. I was trying to escape those problems and did not want to run the company. Seeing the destruction in front of me, and felt helpless at times. Since my interest was lost to some extent, I was looking for a purpose in life and could not stabilize to find the same.

Anyway, one day, enough was enough, and I took back the command again and again, started again started working aggressively and put my kids behind and changed the scenario again in the next year, bringing the company back to its strengths and firing people fired lit if people and hired new guys and led from the front. Now another challenge was waiting for me the mounted debt in the company. I made significant changes and showed the losses to the banks, which was shown for the first time in the history of Su-Kam. I didn’t realize this would change my life, as banks didn’t want me to show the losses. The Indian banking system is such that when you establish the losses, they don’t want to lend you and want their money back. So rather than supporting them in bad times, they want their money back which is impossible. So I went for raising private investment and asked banks for the time to restructure the loan, and they took a lot of time to decide. In the meantime, one bank went for bankruptcy proceedings against the company in the new law in NCLT, and another ordeal started for me.

My divorce proceedings continued for seven years, with much mudslinging in various police and court cases fought these seven years. Last, I got a divorce in 2016 after she accepted a financial settlement. A new chapter of my life started after marrying Khushboo and getting a new lease on life from God. We are blessed with twins, Swastika and Advait, and luck would have it that the company went bankrupt on 5th April 2018. My twins were born on 23rd April 2018, and Khushboo was going through trauma as I was busy saving my company from bankruptcy.
I tried my best to save the company, but God didn’t want that to happen, and he had other plans for me that I could not understand then.
After the bankruptcy proceedings started, banks started filing cases against me. They declared the accounting fraud one after another, and the CBI filed an FIR against me. The CBI raided me, and I remember being hospitalized for corona treatment. My lungs were 80% damaged, and I came back home. The next day, CBI people came to raid my house in 2021, and another harassment era was started as this was another way of creating patience in me by the GOD.
After 2016, God settled my Front by giving me Khushboo as my partner, but my professional act was in the doldrums, and I didn’t know which direction to take. Our finances were very tight, and much money was spent on all my legal cases. The cars my family and I were using were in the company name, so I had to return those cars after the bankruptcy started. I had no other source of income as I had never made any investments in my life, and even life insurance still needed to be done. No policies, rental income, shares investment, FDs, etc., as people often suggested that I should invest in some other areas for the future, but I was only interested in my company. I never thought one day, this attitude would be very costly.
After the closure of Su-kam in 2019, I was offered a job by one of the multinationals to sell Chinese-made products in India, and they provided me with the MD position with a handsome salary; it took three months to say no as it took a lot of struggles to decide on such a minor issue if one can understand my mental condition of that time.https://www.mid-day.com/brand-media/article/how-kunwer-sachdev-is-once-again-revolutionising-the-power-backup-sector-in-india-23266225

In the meantime, Khushboo started a company with the help of ex-employees of su-kam. The company left a lot of su-kam complaints as the company was closed down by the Resolution Professional, and all the employees, dealer distributors, and suppliers got into trouble as all the employees got not even salaries and were told one day that the company was closed. So while I was unsure what to do in life and many complaints started pouring on my mobile, a few distributors came home to fight for compensation, and a few suppliers also came home for their payments for which the company had to pay. She started this new company Su-svastika after taking loans from friends and family. Somehow, God gave her the courage to start this new venture without my involvement initially, as I was in a deep depression and could not decide what to do next. Many distributors outside India supported the new company Su-svastika, and this company started taking shape. I only became active in 2021 when I realized I must keep her new initiative to the next level.

A new Company in the making Su-vastika

After su-kam, my new passion is again the same technology but with a difference. Here I want to create a management and make managers who can run the organization and take on the responsibilities.

The one major thing I have corrected is Testing the products we are making and designing here has done complete automation. Right from the transformer manufacturing to the PCB manufacturing to the final assembly, we have done all Testing on computers with our hardware and software. As I had the whole experience of failures in Su-kam here, I adopted a new concept of designing these hardware and software and the data generated are all pushed to the cloud. We have developed cloud-based software to keep all data in store and link the data to our CRM portal to track each product sold. These testing platforms are the state of technology and have removed the dependence on the testing Engineers as anyone can test these computer-based sets up. After each automatic testing barcode is generated, the tester must paste on the product tested, so no manual intervention or tester is required.

Another significant achievement is that the whole new management is set up, and no one is from Su-kam. Here, I’m trying to create an entirely new culture and direction with a new thought process, and again, no one is from the industry, so they don’t have the baggage of the sector. I’m mentoring this new team, and the new life has begun with new technologies under development. Significant development is in the Front of Lithium batteries as this is the future. Developing the UPS Inverters and Solar technologies around the Lithium battery as the Lead Acid battery will not survive after five years. The factories will start closing in the next 3 to 4 years. Newer technologies like battery Energy Storage Systems are the future, not inverter and UPS technology.

A brand can only be built if the product is good, the customer is satisfied with owning the product, and the service is good.

After my initiative, we started filing patents and making new technologies in this venture. The first thing I did was automate the complete Testing Online by collaborating with many RnD people from outside.

A new Management has been established again as Mr Pallav Aggarwal has joined as a founder and CTO Chirag Chawla as founder and CFO, and my wife Khushboo is driving the team under my mentorship. This new team is not from the industry and has no connection with my earlier company. I’m happy to work with a fresh set of people, and creating a new team has already occurred. For any venture’s success, we need to have a strong team that has cohesiveness in working and tries to make a good product, give good service to the user and take care of their team. I have worked with Pallav Aggarwal, who has joined as a founder member for the last two years.

This is our second-level team, and no one from Su-kam is there in the team. Once you start a new organization, you must have a new mindset. That’s only possible if we have fresh people; otherwise, the same thing will be repeated.

We Have made an automatic set-up for Testing products, and quality control is done by the machines rather than people and the first thing we have avoided here is a dependency on technical staff. As I learned from my earlier experience, you train people, and they will leave in the next one or two years, and you have to reinvest in teaching new people. When building the organization, our focus was automation, which helped us standardize the product and services. Battery energy Storage Systems is the future of storage and Solar and Wind energy with Lithium battery.

We have started developing iot in each product category, especially for the Solar Hybrid PCU and the Energy Storage Systems, and this is designed in such a fashion that all our products can be attached to Bluetooth, Wifi, or GSM platforms. The UI remains the same as the future is to control and monitor the developments through mobile phones or computers. That our vision is here, and we are working hard with a new team to make it happen. We are designing our ESS that has computer compatibility to test through the computer for Testing by the dealers or distributors without having any other testing equipment like multimeter clamp meters, etc., and see all the parameters on the screen by just plugging in the hardware we provide to them and attaching with our software.https://www.pv-magazine-india.com/2023/05/02/whats-cooking-in-a-farmhouse-factory/

This is the 125KVA Energy Storage system we have installed at our factory, and the Diesel Generator is installed at the back of this. We hardly use our Generator as the diesel bill has come down from 1.75 lac to Rs5,000 only, and the saving is so much that within the next 2.5 to 3 years the cost is out, As this charges in 3 hours and ready to give back up in case of intermittent power cuts which is the case in Gurgaon. We are developing 500 KVA Energy Storage Systems for big factories with Lithium battery LifePo4-based technology.

This is our Automatic test set-up on which our UPS and Solar Hybrid UPS are being tested. Then the printer gives the QR code, and there is no engineer-driven testing. Each product is tested on Power Analyser as the testing set-up has Power Analyser for the measurements.

In Su-kam, throughout my entire career, we never got ten patents granted. Within three years of filing technology patents, we received 10 out of 60 technology patents filed by us. All these patents are related to Lithium batteries, Solar and EV technologies associated patents.