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On your childhood, education...
After finishing my primary education in Vilampatti school, I joined Victoria school in Sivakasi for my secondary education, and PSG in Coimbatore for my engineering. After engineering I joined XLRI Jamshedpur and completed my MBA degree. I took a loan, from Canara Bank, to take care of the expenses for my education, right through. I managed to complete my education with some scholarships and the Hindustan Lever Award supplementing the loan. I did personnel management in my MBA. I was placed on campus. I joined the British Oxygen Company (BOC) in 1984. After 6 years of service, I became a manager. After this, I joined 'Idea' in Chennai and worked for three years in Exports and HRD. Half of what I earned in 9 years of my service went towards clearing my loans. I started Mafoi in 1992 with an investment of Rs. 60,000. How did you make Mafoi this big?
What are the services offered by Mafoi?
Our job doesn't end with supplying manpower. We monitor their productivity and submit periodic reports to the management. This helps the companies to achieve their targets. So far 1300 people have benefitted, through our outsourcing services. We have branches in 11 locations across India. In Chennai, we have three branches. We also have branches in Dubai and London. We have placed about 10,500 people in different companies. This includes 34 people, placed as Managing directors. Mafoi Industrial consultancy centre is right at the top in India. We have served 122 Fortune 500 companies. When did you think of starting an organisation like this?
On Mafoi's future plans... Our goal is to become the most respected HR firm in the world. We are opening a branch office in New Jersey, US, next year, followed by a branch in Singapore. Our current growth rate is 82% per year. We want to maintain this and improve on this rate. Published on 4th April 2002 Interview: Saravanan
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Started with an investment of
Rs. 60,000, Mafoi Management Consultants Ltd., is today one of the most well known companies in India.
K. Pandiarajan, the MD, who hails from a village, Vilampatti, in TamilNadu, has almost single handedly taken this organisation to great heights. What does Mafoi mean we ask and Pandiarajan says it means confidence, in French. In an exclusive interview to Chennaionline, Pandiarajan talks in detail about his childhood, early days of Mafoi, the services offered and future plans. Excerpts from the interview:
I was born in a village called Vilampatti. It is 5 km. from Sivakasi. My father, Karupuswamy, was a daily wage earner in a match factory. My mother, Sivakami, was 17 when I was born. I lost my father when I was 3 months old. After my father's death, my mother took me along with her to my grandmother's house, due to lack of support from her relatives. My entire childhood, education, everything was in my grandma's place.
When I started this I never borrowed any money for the overheads. I
persuaded friends and relatives to invest Rs. 5,000/10,000 and managed. This helped the organisation grow and the
investors also benefitted. Today there are 270 shareholders in the company. The
shareholders range from government servants to agriculture labour. My wife, Hemalatha, a chartered accountant, quit her job in 1994 and has been a Director in Mafoi, since. Incorporated as a
Pvt. Ltd. company in 1992, Mafoi became a Public Limited Company in 1996. In 2001, three companies invested 8.5 crores. The company is currently valued at
Rs. 52 crores. Our income for 2001-02 was 23.5
crores.
Recruitment, HR and HR outsourcing. Today there are 40 crore employees in India. Out of this, about 2.8 crores are in the unorganised sector. Neither these employees nor their
employers are bothered about their pay, or whether they get pay
slips. We take care of employee needs on behalf of organisations. Take the case of FMCGs. There are about 2.5 lakh
workers who are not on the payrolls. These workers are paid between Rs. 400 and
Rs. 650, as salary. No labour laws are followed. The government also turns a blind eye. The top management is not even aware of this. They do not even know how many people are employed. These
workers work under 'middlemen' called dealers. We call candidates for interviews, assess them and then place them with the
companies/dealers. The appointments are made as per rules. They get all the benefits, they are eligible for. Both the company and the employees benefit.
Even while I was an MBA student, I was thinking of starting something on my own. After 9
years in service, this thought got reinforced. A particular incident triggered a thought process that led to a quick decision to start my own company. I was working in 'Idea' then. A very big oil well in Rajamundhry, Andhra Pradesh caught fire. To put out this fire, an Australian company, Techni Skill, collected 35 Indian experts from around the world and brought them to AP for fighting the fire and dousing it. A big company in India, whose annual turnover was
Rs. 5 crores, was a silent spectator. This Australian company, earned Rs. 5 crores in just one month and walked away. This company was also founded by Indians! This affected me greatly. I asked myself why don't I start a company? The answer -
Mafoi.
