‘People turned to me in the last resort to fix computers‘

Ramesh D Grover set up CMS Computers Limited 25 years ago as a computer maintenance company, with two colleagues. Today employing almost 2500 people world-wide, the managing director of the premier system integration company tells Sudipta Dev about his vision of creating an IT power house

1947 the tumultuous times of India’s partition. Ramesh D Grover still recalls how his family of 12 arrived from Lahore, part of the exodus who were lucky to survive, making it to India by travelling atop a train. Grover in fact had learned very early in life how to rise over adverse situations and always emerge as a winner.

A meritorious student, he got admission at the Birla Institute of Technology (BITS), Pilani on a scholarship. “I joined college in Electrical Engineering, a 5 year degree class. The first two years were a piece of cake for me , studies were simple. Then I changed to Mechanical Engineering as per my brother’s wishes and electronics became my hobby. For pocket money I started assembling radios for my co students. Every weekend I used to travel to Delhi to buy one radio kit, assemble it during the week and save some pocket money also. This way I must have assembled 200 radios over two to three years,” says he, adding that unable to afford the costly books, his friends would call him to study in their room, give him the books and expected him to teach them also. It was a bargain, which benefited all quite fine.

Following the completion of his BE in Mechanical Engineering, he had three offers in his pocket - with IBM in customer engineering, Simplex Mills and Larsen and Toubro. “Although I wanted to join IBM, my father advised me to join L&T which I did and after eight months of working there got bored as there was no electronics. I went back to IBM and asked if they would take me. They took my test again and readily agreed,” he recollects. Then followed his decade long stint with IBM India - from trainee engineer to technical support manager (national). It was also the period during which he got the maximum number of awards for services.

“When I left IBM, people turned to me in the last resort to fix computers,” says the man matter-of-factly. The IBM monopoly was broken with the introduction of FERA (Foreign Exchange Regulation Act), in 1974. It was in 1976 that IBM made its exit strategy. “The first thing they threw open was the new business they took under government pressure of maintaining systems which some non-resident Indians had brought here. These customers got panicky. They knew about my strength in maintenance and offered me to start a maintenance company and support them. They gave me 5 years salary as advance.” That was 25 years ago, when Grover started his company with two more colleagues whom he had asked to join.

“At that time we had started acquiring knowledge of digital. The word system integration was not coined but we were doing it. As time elapsed we became one point support,” comes the addition. Today there are 2500 people working for him, spread across continents. Essentially a technocrat, Grover acknowledges that the last two and a half decades have made him a techno commercial businessman. The advantage for him, he believes, is his technical orientation to solving problems - looking at it from a technical angle, how the job will get done and how the sale will happen.

A premier system integration and networking company, the core divisions of CMS today encompasses all segments of IT - from manufacturing, to software development through its fully owned subsidiary Systine, customised product development, support, distribution and high-end training. At the R&D centres in Mumbai, Pune and Trivandrum, 70 engineers are engaged in design and developing innovative IT empowered products. Its R&D initiatives have included touch screen point-of-sale, time attendance, access control and traffic control systems. The 50 centres of CMS institute all over India provide hardware, system engineering, telecom and corporate training. For a company which believes in being “not just technology but customer driven”, Grover’s philosophy is simple, “strong orientation to customer service, according to the customer’s point of view.”

His vision for the company includes further expansion in its niche areas. “Each has a potential to become a large company making the group a large IT power house. My vision is to see the areas expand individually.”

Very much a family man, Grover’s children are both in the US - daughter doing her MBA and son looking after the company’s operations in San Francisco. His wife is also suitably engaged helping with the travel plans of the company. “I have to keep her busy,” he says with a smile.