Gaurav Rungta, 7th gen biz leader, takes family venture to newer heights

JAIPUR: When Gaurav Rungta walked into the family business, his father told him, “You have inherited the surname, but you have to earn it. If you cannot glorify it further with higher eminence, that’s fine, but you have no scope to tarnish it a bit.” In the 20 years he has spent, Gaurav says he has lived with the principles and value systems even though it sometimes comes at a cost.
With an illustrious pedigree cemented over seven generations of entrepreneurship and businesses spread over several sectors, Gaurav has come up as a consummate artist both in the art and heart of doing business.
“My great grandfather and his brothers used to run 16 businesses. My grandfather was a president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India who ran RCA for decades. We used to have a family bank which through a couple of mergers became a nationalized bank (Bank of Baroda). We were the first in India to manufacture power transmission and telecom towers. My father is a proud upholder of that celebrated family surname. That’s why, I was not surprised to hear that from him when I stepped into the family business,” he says.
Gaurav, 45, is now the managing director of Man Structurals Pvt. Ltd. which makes transmission and telecom towers, carries out electrification of Railway lines, manufactures solar structures, and also doubles up as Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) in these businesses.
But Gaurav says that starting from the entry to elevation in the family business has been a rigorous process despite the privilege that a son gets naturally. In fact, after his graduation and an advanced course in computer science from ISB Hyderabad, Gaurav started a trading company in China in 1999.
“Actually, I wanted to learn the nuances of entrepreneurship and what goes behind starting a successful company. I ran it for four years importing and exporting various commodities, chemicals, dimensional stones, etc. But later, when the competition started forcing us to compromise with the quality, I decided otherwise. By then, my father had also nudged me to join the family business,” recalls Gaurav.
Although he joined as a trainee in the family business, Gaurav had to go through a series of apprenticeships. First, he spent six months in a law firm, then another six months in a CA firm. As if that was not enough, he was sent to work with a company vendor.
“I could have daintily taken over one of the corner rooms without these basecamps. But our approach to business is different. In those exposures, I had a grooming that made my entry easy and informed,” says Gaurav.
After the family separation, the transmission and telecom towers business came to his father Kishore Rungta, who modernized the manufacturing process and brought in design excellency with the help of technology. But as Gaurav grew up in experience, he had a few new ideas on his sleeve to add new capabilities to the existing business.
“We forayed into railway electrification in 2014. It became a new source of revenue. Similarly, I had a keen interest in green energy. About 15 years ago, we had the largest rooftop plant in Rajasthan. The learnings were with me. So, I started manufacturing solar structures where the panels are mounted. In addition, we ventured into the EPC business,” says Gaurav.
Today, out of the Rs 300 crore annual revenue, transmission towers vertical contributes close to 40%, while 30% is from the turnkey or EPC business. Gaurav says they get 10-15% revenue from railway electrification and the rest is from solar. “We expect the railway electrification business to grow faster as the government has redirected its focus to electrify all the tracks by 2025. The deadline may have been pushed down due to Covid, but it will gain momentum generating huge orders for companies like us.
Similarly, the company exported to 20 countries and used to have a revenue share of about 10%. It expects the contribution to rise exponentially. “The share will go up to 60% from the current financial year. We have bagged a lot of orders from countries like Tanzania, Nepal, Bhutan, Nigeria, Cambodia, etc. to supply transmission towers. Domestically also, the transmission business will expand rapidly because of the government’s focus on solar energy. Transmission lines would be key to evacuating power from generation stations to supplying in load centres. Green corridor is an example of that,” says Gaurav.
While the opportunities are there to seize the momentum, the growth has to be sustainable, feels Gaurav. “We want to build a team for the next 20 years. We want to empower and support them even when they make a wrong decision. If I have to take each and every decision, I cannot build a company for the future,” says Gaurav.
But he believes that businesses need to give back to society. He says, “We set aside 20% of our profits for social and cultural causes. While we support meritorious students and their sports activities, we also give back to society for preservation of our cultural heritage.”
Gaurav has been active in helping the government in policy making. Currently, he is chairman of CII-Rajasthan. Before that, he headed Young Presidents’ Organization as president and is a board member of Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO-Jaipur).