'Find your own way' – A.T.E. scion advices young textile leaders

09 Dec '11

9 min read

A.T.E is currently in the process of acquiring the textile component division of SKF, the leaders in bearings, and will soon start the process of relocating machinery of SKF from Pune to near Ahmedabad. Anuj hopes to begin commercial operations in March 2012.

Anuj joined the family business in 1994 and first got his training like his father at Trützschler in Germany. His involvement in the A.T.E business began with sales and marketing of spinning machinery and later in the marketing and information technology department and has had to work his way up from the bottom and earn his spurs before he moved on to the next level.

His main lessons were learnt from his father, who always believed that if you want to run a business, you should learn to become independent and look for answers oneself. His uncle, Mr Prakash Bhagwati, was yet another important mentor who tutored him on the finer points of manufacturing.

Apart from his family members, Anuj also credits other colleagues in the A.T.E group. Mr Aras - Director - Textile Engineering Group at A.T.E who taught him the finer nuances of sales, Mr Vora and later Mr Naik both senior officials, who taught him the ropes of finance.

Despite A.T.E being a family managed business, the organisation has astute professionals in its fold, which eliminates the need for Anuj to delve in to the day-to-day management of the group. He prefers to focus on new projects, product development, providing strategic directions and interacting with and understanding the needs of all A.T.E.’s principals.

The biggest achievement that Anuj credits himself for is the fruition of the joint venture with Zinser Textile Systems set up in 2002. He says, “I took the responsibility for the JV project, took it forward, started commercial operations, which was a very satisfactory experience for me”.

When asked if he felt missed out doing a business management course, he replies, “In the initial years, I did feel the need to have done a course in business management. But to make up for it, I did various small courses in accounting and finance. Secondly, my first interest lies in technology and engineering related activities”.

Sharing his plans for the A.T.E Group, he informs, “We have a lot of things on our plate currently, so we would now like to consolidate our existing companies and take them to even greater heights, rather than incorporate or buy new companies in the next 2-3 years. However, we would definitely like to expand our current textile machinery agency portfolio.”

He added, “We are strong in spinning machinery for cotton based products and now would like to focus on manmade fibre products and nonwovens. We would like to double our revenues every year in our ‘Cleantech’ vertical. We would also like to now employ our own technology, whether it is for cooling, water treatment, energy, etc”.

Speaking about the growth of the Indian textile sector and its impact on the machinery business, he optimistically replied by saying, “I expect the industry to grow pretty quickly in the next few years as, since personal incomes will grow, the textiles and clothing industry will be one of the beneficiaries, within which MMF based, knitwear and nonwovens should grow faster. This in turn, will definitely bring growth for the Indian textile engineering sector”.

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