"Garage start-up: Atul Hemani’s IT firm Omnitech InfoSolutions now in four continents"

Omnitech InfoSolutions Ltd.

The phrase 'garage start-up' seems to be synonymous with the technology world, and it's something we share with the likes of Google and Apple.

After all, Omnitech was born in a spare garage owned by my partner Avinash Pitale's father in Thane, Maharashtra, in 1987. We specialise in offering end-to-end IT solutions.

I was keen to start something of my own right from my engineering days. After graduating from Mumbai's VJTI Institute in 1985, I joined Hindustan Computers Limited(HCL) as a customer support engineer.

That's where I met Pitale, the co-founder and current joint managing director, who had similar entrepreneurial aspirations. But empty pockets can float no venture, so we had to hang on to our salaried jobs for nearly two more years. 

Finally in July 1987, we quit our jobs and put our careers at stake. By then we had managed to save Rs 20,000 each, for the seed capital and set up base in the 180 sq ft Thane garage.

I was 23 years old and Pitale was 25. Our technical background and experience in this field along with the perceived growth potential of the industry were the motivational factors behind starting the company.

Back then, the IT industry was at a nascent stage but it was slowly permeating various spheres of our lives through business and education. In fact, the name of our company reflects this omnipresence.

We were sure about the potential of the field, but my father was initially sceptical. Since Pitale and I had known each other for about 15 months only, he worried that we were being too hasty going into a 50:50 partnership.

Besides, he wasn't sold on my idea to chuck a well-paying job to start an uncertain venture.

Thankfully, he later came around and supported me. My other pillar of strength is my wife Amisha. We got married a year after starting the business and she is a constant motivation.

Thankfully, the venture got off to a flying start: We bagged two clients-a small computer institute and a data processing provider company-on the first day itself through personal contacts.

Our first assignments were to sell a personal computer and printer and we signed a PC maintenance contract. The entire seed capital of Rs 40,000 was used as working capital.

Before the year was out, we had hired around five employees and notched up around 15 clients. Our turnover after the first year was Rs 8 lakh. The entire amount was ploughed back into the business for further growth. 

In fact, we did not pay ourselves a salary for the first six years-we withdrew just about enough money to meet our basic personal requirements.

Of course, things got really tough at times. In August 1987, we made a sale of just Rs 4,000, which was a pittance compared to what we made in our jobs.

There were embarrassing moments galore. I particularly remember an instance when a client asked me to send across an invoice after an assignment. I went blank-I'd never heard of the term till then. I only learnt that it was similar to a plain vanilla 'bill' when my chartered accountant clarified matters.

The year 1990 was significant. We not only moved out of the garage to our own office, a 720 sq ft space in Byculla, we also came up with our biggest innovation in product development, diskless terminals. These were plug and play devices to be connected into LAN (local area network) and were very well accepted by the market.

We developed a diskless terminal right from conceptualisation to designing the electronic and mechanical (casing) aspects. It not only saved space but could also be deployed anywhere, including on shop floors, which helped in terms of convenience and reducing operating costs.

Such breakthroughs apart, Omnitech's growth was completely unplanned for the first five years. It was only in the years thereafter that we got around to making plans on structuring the organisation, concentrating on getting the right people and adapting to the rapidlychanging technology.

In 1995, we drafted our first full business plan. Over the next five years, we kept expanding, renting a few more units in the same complex and the vicinity.

When the dotcom bubble burst a few years later, things were tough for a while. Fortunately, in 2003, Canbank Venture Fund invested Rs 4 crore in us for a 28% stake (we gave them an exit three years later). This made it possible to move into our 20,000 sq ft head office, Omnitech House at Marol MIDC, Andheri, in 2006.

I'm proud of the fact that Omnitech was the first to introduce a state-of-the-art disaster recovery centre in the country at Mahape, Navi Mumbai, in February 2008. We also launched REVIVE-Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) on a cloud platform, a first of its kind IT solution based on the pay-per-use model, in September 2011. 

Today, we have a footprint in seven states in India as well as six international markets. Apart from the Mumbai head office, we have two technology centres and branch offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad.

Omnitech gained a foothold in the international markets by obtaining export orders from an American firm worth around $300,000 in 2005. Since then we have built up a presence in the USA, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia. Our current revenue generated from overseas markets is 25.5%.

Our turnover in 2010-11 was around Rs 346.34 crore. We currently employ approximately 1,200 people globally. I am now busy searching for someone smarter and more capable than myself whom I can entrust with the charge of the company. That will leave me free to focus on giving back to society while continuing to act as a mentor for Omnitech.