Are you looking for opportunities in service sector
Want to replicate success of an established brand
Want a franchise
Are you smitten by the entrepreneur bug and are clueless
Have you got customer centric communications skills….
Then the ideal opportunity to serve a larger base of customers through an innovate initiative that awaits you….interesting then this is the right opportunity.
SPEED FORCE, a multi-brand two-wheeler service station with value added services is an emerging startup that is looking up to create value added franchise network across the nation. With SPEED FORCE behind success is just within reach, proclaim the three friends from Baroda.
Not even a year old, SPEED FORCE has turned into a reckonable brand with 16 outlets, in Gujarat and Maharashtra. WAY2WORLD had been lucky enough to get a glimpse of the three brains behind this brands success mantra. Today we bring to you the interaction we hand with these three innovate individuals.
Pl give a brief of your traction for our readers? What is unique about SPEED FORCE?
We are into Consultancy and development of Multi-brand Two-Wheeler Service Stations\Workshops across the country. With the increasing numbers of two wheelers in India and growth rate of almost around 20% per year from last 5 to 6 years this is high earning potential business.
With added features like doorstep service, vehicle pickup & drop facility, on road breakdown support, AMC, accidental service, insurance renewal and support it’s becoming fast popular and more convenient among new generation with a single window service.
Low investment and high returns is the key success of this business. Our on line and off line support and training boost the confidence of business owner.
I don’t think it would have been an easy task in building your startup, can you explain individually about the hurdles faced…..
MOHAN M VAIDYA: I was working with one of the leading two-wheeler companies for 36 years in after sales service department. Owning a business was always a dream .Three more friends were of the same opinion. Therefore, it was a joint decision to form a new company. Other partners are from the same field.
In current market situation service provided by the available channels has own limitations, whereas customer’s expectations are increasing day-by-day. With new approach to service, we are trying to bridge a gap.
KAPIL BHINDI: I have an experience of around 16 years in Banking\Finance and insurance industry at middle management level. Then there came a time wherein I felt a need to start a business in service industry because in today’s scenario service industry plays a huge role in Indian Economy. In this endeavour and search of a service industry business, I found out that there is a huge vacuum in two-wheeler service segment.
There were majorly 2 types of service providers (OEMs & LGOs) in this sector. With both these providers, the customers of the industry were either dissatisfied or less satisfied due to various factors like time\costing and trust factor. So I started the survey amongst the local public of Baroda about the need that they actual want. This quest for perfection in the segment led to a new innovative idea with the support of my close friend who is also my colleague, now.
Here we started giving Free Pick Up & Drop Facility, On Road Breakdown Support and all the two wheeler related services under one roof. We worked on this model for almost five years individually and after developing a good satisfied customer base we decided to form a start-up and established a company under the name of SPEEDFORCE.
DEEPEN BARAI: After working in telecom, insurance and networking industry for more than 18 years I decided to start a venture where in I would enable myself to create Young Entrepreneurs and via them generate more and more skilled employment in my area and with this would support my nation. Being from a business family and serving in corporate sector, I decided to create a holistic model in two-wheeler service industry and started working on this path where I found out my old friend and now colleague.
We both got together and developed a chain of individual workshops in and around Baroda, which gave services to customers at their doorstep and would help them with breakdown support on the road in addition to all other services related to two wheelers under one roof. After creating almost around 70 entrepreneurs and more than 210 skilled employees, The we decided that this noble initiative must be replicated across the nation as a professional startup and then we founded SPEED FORCE.
Pl brief us about your experience in service sector and how did you manage to identify the key potential areas for customer satisfaction…. Why is the team uniquely capable to execute the company’s business plan?
MV: I am an automobile engineer and worked with Bajaj Auto Ltd for 26 years in service department as service engineer and then as regional manager for Maharashtra, Gujarat, MP and CG. In addition, the last 10 years I was into Network development. My job involves extensive travelling, service infrastructure development, training, spare parts management, customer handling, customer satisfaction, and product feedback. In Network development, dealer’s performance monitoring, Reviews, new appointments, terminations was the nature of job.
KB: A commerce graduate I have worked in various fields of banking\finance and insurance industry with companies like Standard Chartered Bank, Kotak Mahindra, Future Generali, and Bharti Axa & Dlf Pramerica. I started my journey from the lowest level to a middle management profile. During the tenure I was responsible for sales, recruitment & development of various departments. My core competency was man management and team development.
DB: Hailing from a small town I joined telecom industry and then subsequently moved on to the insurance and network industry. I have worked at different geographical peripheries in the country. I have established and developed a good potential network of various genres. In my professional journey of more than 18 years, I started at a very basic level and scaled to a substantial height of management level. I have worked with companies like Vodafone, Idea, Airtel, Bajaj Allianz and Reliance Life. My core functioning area included Recruitment of Dealers, Agents and Business Associates.
Where is your base and how did the place help you to think national……
Our start-up is based in Baroda (Gujarat). After the initial survey, we did in the local market as our first workshop we developed was in Baroda and there was a huge potential for the services that we provide in automobile market. More so, the local public of Baroda are majorly of service (Job) class and do not have spare time to service their vehicles.
After the success of our first workshop we developed the entire chain in an around the city and today we are very successful to develop the same in entire Gujarat.
As a start-up Founders, what are you paranoid about? What keeps you awake at night?
What I promised I must deliver.
Strong base Foundation with steady growth.
Create a good brand image in the industry.
Franchise Growth is our growth.
To become a pioneer in vehicle and customer service.
Pl brief us about how your overcame competition…..
If we see specifically the kind of business we do there is as such no competition in the market, which provides the entire package to a business prospect or to a customer. In addition, if there is a competition it is only limited to private business and the model that they provide is very costly as compared to our business solutions.
As Founders of a flourishing startup how do you balance professional and personal lives…..
It is always difficult for a businessperson to balance work and life. It is not only in the case of a start-up, Even successful entrepreneurs face similar crisis. However, we as a team are able to give equal justice to family and work as we plan our tasks and we have a specific entity in our team to perform a specific task. Therefore, the time devotion on each job is decided planned and executed very well until now.
From bootstrapping how do you plan further for funding……
Currently we are managing through our own funds .We are expecting a tie-up with MNC or leading brand. After this tie-up we may need funding from outside.
What are the biggest misconception people have about you? Why do they have that? What’s the reality?
Normally, we have two types of customers one is the gennext who want services to be done in one go with transparency. The other is the older customers who need service to be done in their vicinity. To satisfy both these types we have customised our methodology as per their demands.
However, the existing garage operators are reluctant to change their style of working. nor do they want to invest on new ideas. On the other hand, new young & qualified people are slightly hesitant to go for this business. At first sight, they feel it may not get the required profitability. Nevertheless, this is not true as our recently opened franchise started making profit from 1st quarter itself.
What gets you excited about this company? Why does your company have high growth potential?
Great satisfaction of providing solution to age- old business .It is a complete new approach to this kind of business. We are creating business opportunity for new entrepreneur and via this generating skilled employment opportunity. We are sure of successful business for any non-technical person through our guidance and continuous training and mentoring.
How does a startup Founder’s day schedule look like…pl give us a glimpse of it……
After finishing the daily personal routine, we start our day at 9:00 a.m. sharp at our office and start following up with the teams in the first hour regarding the franchise development and franchise tasks for the day. We have a dedicated business development as well as technical team to help the franchise in their day-to-day routine throughout the tenure.
Then we ourselves on our own start meeting the prospects of the day which are already scheduled a day prior. The sales meeting prospects are being done until 3:00 p.m. and after that, we break for lunch until 4:00 p.m.
Later we start meeting different vendors\opportunities of upcoming time, which we can accumulate in our model and help franchise to increase their revenue. Because we believe, we should keep changing with the time by adopting the new changes.
After finishing the day by 7:00, we again get together with the team and discuss on the entire day with the franchise if found some major points we try to clear them. After reaching home by around 8:30 pm, we spend our entire time with family till we sleep on our individual schedules.
How did you meet each other and when did you visualize similar vision for SPEEDFORCE…..
Me (Kapil) and Deepen, hail from the same town and being from the same industry vis. Insurance, were quite in touch with each other. Somewhere in the back of our minds, we were planning to do business in service industry as we belonged to this domain. Deepen came up with a brilliant idea of starting a multi-branded two-wheeler workshop and then after survey we started with one workshop and rest is history.
During our journey, we have a habit of meeting new people daily. That is how we came across Mr. Mohan Vaidya, who was very well experienced in the domain and had served in a giant automobile company. We explained him the concept and made him associate with us to play a key role in the organization.
With his experience and knowledge, the foundation of the organization has become very strong. While we both (Deepen and Kapil) are the face of the organization, Mr. Vaidya is the pillar of support at the backend.
Conclusion:
To summarize the journey of all three of us, it has been very exciting with eventful learning. We hope to continue the same in future and create new milestones in multi-brand two-wheeler service segment. We promise to provide best in class vehicle and customer service.
WAY2WORLD wishes the founders a very grand success and their team strengths must multiply by large numbers, with wide spread franchise network across the nation. (As narrated by the founders – RajKishan)