Pain & Pleasure - 4 - 148 Pages

` 499
Pain & Pleasure - 2019 1

Potential Service Consultants
Pvt. Ltd.
Partners in Success
2 Pain & Pleasure - 2019

PA I N
&
PLEASURE
By
B.R.V. MURTHY
2019


This book is dedicated to all the
Budding Entrepreneurs

Publisher Note
Disclaimer

Ashok Pavate
ForeWord

CONTENTS
A Word From The Author....... 01 Mutual Respect......................... 30
Preamble.................................... 02 Paper Engineers........................ 31
Targeted Readers...................... 03 Short Fuse.................................. 32
Consultant................................. 04 Template.................................... 33
Birth Of Potential..................... 05 Pain & Pleasure......................... 30
Trust Factor............................... 06 New Methods/Products........... 31
Partnership................................ 07 Problem Of Plenty.................... 32
Ego Or The Absence Of It....... 08 Deliverables............................... 33
Institution.................................. 09 Excuse........................................ 34
Exposure.................................... 10 I Have Had My Fill................... 35
Favours....................................... 12 Loner.......................................... 36
Employee Care.......................... 11 Body & Soul.............................. 37
Commitment Levels................. 14 Years Of Experience Vs
Listening.................................... 15 Compensation.......................... 38
Under One Roof....................... 16 Priority....................................... 39
The Name.................................. 17 Supportive Family.................... 40
Fire In The Belly....................... 18 Clarity........................................ 41
20th Anniversary...................... 19 Expression................................. 42
Strategic Investor...................... 20 English Language Skills........... 43
Sir................................................ 20 Own The Project -
A Fine Boss................................ 21 Feel The Pride.......................... 44
Pep Talk..................................... 22 Chewing..................................... 45
Timely Advice........................... 23 Partners...................................... 46
Well Prepared............................ 24 Embarrassment......................... 47
Long Hours................................ 25 Rarest Of Rare Opportunity.... 48
Saying NO................................. 26 Manager..................................... 49
C & T.......................................... 27 Acknowledgements.................. 50
Passion For Work..................... 28 Role Models............................... 51
Concern..................................... 29

A Word From The Author
I had penned a few of my Experiences
just a few months ago and the book was
released during the housewarming ceremony
of our farm house Kritvi in December
2018. Quite a few of my friends and
well wishers asked me as to why I have
not written anything about my erstwhile
company Potential Service Consultants
Private Limited (Potential) which they
said would make an interesting reading,
especially for the young gen. This book
entitled Potential is the outcome of the
same. It is heartening to note that even as of
today, people from different backgrounds
are asking me to write about my experi-
ences in running a company, especially I
being a first generation entrepreneur. One
or two have indeed said that the Experienc-
es is more about myself and my immediate

family and became a bit difficult to relate
as they read along. I am highly thankful to
them for their frank opinion.
I would like to put on record my grateful

thanks to such of those who read my Expe-
riences in the first place and also to those
who have expressed their whole hearted
appreciation either through WhatsApp or
through e-mail or orally.

Even before the release of Experiences,
Mr. Abhishek Dalmia, the strategic inves-
tor who ultimately bought Potential had
during one of the many breakfast meetings
that we had at Hotel Lalith Ashok suggest-
ed to me to write about my experiences
during the running of Potential which he
had said would benefit many youngsters in
the field.
This offer of mine mainly takes the read-
er through various pains and pleasures the
writer experienced while running a compa-
ny, about its staff, its welfare, some anec-
dotes related to work and some guidelines
that might be useful to those in the relat-
ed industry in particular and for others in
general.

As always, my wife Usha Murthy has been
an inspiration to me in whatever I do and I
am indebted to her.
I being an amateur writer, the reader might

come across some grammatical errors here
and there. I seek your indulgence.
Wish you a happy reading.
BRV Murthy

Preamble
As all of us know, it is still a male dominat-
ed world though changing fast and a per-
son is still referred to as he. In order that
I give a lady heads up, I have in this book
referred to a person as “she”. While read-
ing, please read as he or she as the situation
demands.
Also, I have used the word ‘consultant’ in

its larger perspective. The word also could
mean an Architect, an Interior Designer, a
Landscape Architect, etc.,
Unlike in my previous book titled Experi-

ences wherein I had chronicled the events
in a chronological manner, I have deviat-
ed from following any chronology in this
book and have put it down at random.

Many a time, even the events or the topics
do not occur in any sequence and it is in-
tentional.
Hope, the reader likes this format as much
as many did it and expressed it too in the
case of Experiences.
Thank you
BRV Murthy


Targeted Readers
This book is mainly intended to be of some
use to the young entrepreneurs, would-be
entrepreneurs, senior executives and prob-
ably anyone who wants to come up in life.
This book might also help engineering stu-
dents who would be graduating soon as
well as the management students. These
were the guide lines that the author prac-
ticed during his professional life who was
self taught, he being a first generation en-
trepreneur. It should be understood that
there is no short cut to success. A budding
entrepreneur has to have some of these vir-
tues such as hard work, passion, integrity,
truthfulness, sacrifice and more than any-
thing, ambition to succeed and of course a
little bit of luck. She is sure to succeed.

Consultant
Coming from a not so highly educated fam-
ily background, there were not many who
could guide me as to what course I should
take up after my Pre-University. As there
were no engineers in our immediate fam-
ily, my father wanted me to take up engi-
neering course and thus I became an en-
gineer. During those days, there were not
many jobs available for engineers more so
for electrical engineers and I had to wait
for more than a year before I could get one.
Since one of my uncles who was employed
in a public sector unit knew someone in a
private engineering company, he had ar-
ranged for an interview for me. Inciden-
tally, that company was dealing with engi-
neering consultancy related to the building
industry. I landed up with a job in a com-

pany where I attended my very first inter-
view. Since the company I joined was a
consulting firm, I ended up becoming a
consultant and not by any design or choice
of course, with no regrets whatsoever. Had
my first job been in a manufacturing or in a
service company, I might not have become
a consultant at all. May be, I was destined
to become a consultant. But one thing must
be said that I have thoroughly enjoyed ev-
ery bit of my professional life.

Birth Of Potential
While my friend Gururaj (Guru) and I were
working in Kuwaiti Engineers’ Office in
the State of Kuwait during the years 1982-
1986, a thought came to our minds as to
why not we start our own company in India
in the field of Design Engineering Services
related to Building Industry and this led to
the founding of Potential Service Consul-
tants Private Limited in the year 1986/87.
Since both of us hailed from the city of Ban-
galore, there was no question of locating
our office anywhere other than in namma
Bengaluru. Since I was the first to relocate
to Bangalore from Kuwait, I started func-
tioning from the 1st of November 1986 and
Guru joined me a month or so later. As we
obtained the Certificate of Registration on
the 16th of January the following year, we
gave 16th January 1987 as the official date

of birth for our company, Potential.
Both the families were accustomed to a
high profile living in Kuwait and it took a
while for us to get adjusted to the reality
in our city of Bengaluru; but since we had
taken a conscious call to return, there were
no regrets.
What started as a one man office on the 1st

of November1986 in a 1,000 sft of office
space in Jayanagar, went on to become a
400 people office occupying more than
25,000 sft by the year 2009.

A very interesting fact that I would like to
put down here is that even when Potential
was a 400 people company with top line
crossing few dozen crores of rupees, it
did not have either a department or a de-
partment head for Business Development
(BD), Finance and Human Relations (HR).
Excepting for a handful of non-technical
people, all others were technically quali-
fied engineers.

Trust Factor
I was from the Electrical Engineering
background and Guru was from Structural.
As all of us know, building services are not
complete without providing water and san-
itary services, in the year 1990 we roped
in Aswath Narayan (Aswath) who was a
Plumbing Services expert and who both of
us knew well, as our third partner. Aswath
at that time was working for a Saudi Ara-
bian Company in Jeddah and when we of-
fered him a position as an equal partner, he
took an instant decision to quit that compa-
ny and join Potential. One thing I must say
with a lot of pride that although we were
three, we worked as ONE till we brought
in a strategic investor in the year 2007.
Sometimes we used to differ on certain is-
sues on the table only to agree later and the
decision taken by one was automatically

agreed by the other two. Such was the un-
derstanding amongst the partners that led
to the enormous growth and the goodwill
of the company. The trust factor amongst
us in addition to the Integrity and loyalty
of each one of us was the foundation for
the unprecedented success Potential earned
and enjoyed in the market across the Coun-
try.

Partnership
Many a time, I have seen the partnership
companies break up after some years for
the fact that one partner starts feeling that
she is bringing in more business and hence,
more revenue as compared to the other and
as to why not quit and start her own. Not
to get trapped under this vicious logic, the
principals of Potential agreed from the day
one not to keep track as to which discipline
earned how much. There was one com-
mon account and one pool to which the fee
earned by anyone went in and no one ever
bothered as to who was bringing in how
much revenue to the company. Even the
admin head that was also looking after fi-
nance was instructed not to bother to keep
track of discipline wise earnings.


Ego Or The Absence Of It
Another big factor that bound us and the
company together was the absence of indi-
vidual ego.
In a nutshell, the absence of individual ego

and that of one- upmanship among the part-
ners and cashless dealings were the vari-
ous mantras for the longevity and success
of Potential. As one architect had called
the three of us Rahu Ketu and Shani in a
very lighter note, it turned out to be Bram-
ha Vishnu and Maheshwara.
A couple of things we as partners were

clear from the day one was that we would
neither accept nor give any sort of facilita-
tion money from and to any individual or
a company to promote Potential and sec-
ondly that all the payments that we receive

from our clients for the services rendered
would only be in the form of Cheque and
never in cash (those days, there was no
NEFT/RTGS). What I have seen in my
long period of association in the industry
or for that matter in any business, partners
start feeling uncertain once the cash com-
ponent gets involved and the trust factor
takes a beating leading to breakups. I have
observed any number of partnership com-
panies breaking up either due to the mis-
trust among the partners or due to the in-
dividual ego. Of course, there are always
exceptions.

Institution
Incidentally, all the three of us had worked
in a company called Semac Private Limited
at one time or the other for varying number
of years. Semac was the company promot-
ed by the famous architectural company
namely Chandavarkar & Thacker (C&T).
C & T was not only an architectural com-
pany; it was an institution by itself giv-
ing birth to many architectural companies
across the Country. It was a common un-
derstanding in the market that any architect
starting her practice should have worked in
C & T at one time or the other. The same
thing could be said of Potential. Potential
did not only provide exemplary consult-
ing services to its discerning clients, it also
gave birth to many small to medium con-
sulting services companies in Bangalore,
thus becoming an institution of sorts. One

thing must be said here that even years
after founding their own consulting com-
panies, the promoters and those working
in those companies still fondly remember
their pleasant stay in Potential. It is a mat-
ter of great pride for a parent to see its child
growing to become successful.

Exposure
The philosophy of the promoters of Poten-
tial was to give enough exposure and free-
dom to its senior employees so that they
could meet the clients directly and have
discussions with them without much in-
terference from the top management. This
aspect not only prepared them to become
good leaders but also the satisfaction of
working with Potential. Yes; working with
Potential and not for Potential. The big dif-
ference in the meaning of those two words
helped produce highly committed and loy-
al workers. Giving too much exposure and
freedom to some of the senior employees
was not without negative effect; but it real-
ly did good to the company in the long run.

Favours
While I talk on someone making a mistake,
one thing must be said here. There is more
than one type of mistake; one which is par-
donable and the other, not. One making a
technical mistake can be condoned and can
be corrected with proper guidance to see
that the same is not repeated. This is of
a minor nature. The other type is of huge
magnitude and does not deserve a second
chance. This is accepting favours in return
for showing some favours. There was one
such incident in Potential about one of the
senior engineers working in the Air-con-
ditioning department which was under my
umbrella. One (not so fine) day I received
a call from a managing director of one of
the manufacturing companies in New Del-
hi informing me that one of my engineers

was asking for some favours to recom-
mend his product for use in one of our on-
going projects and that, that was not the
first time that he had sought. I collected
whatever information that I wanted from
that gentleman and thanked him sufficient-
ly for having brought it to my notice. I
did not want to react immediately without
getting proper evidence. I had kept a vigil
on that engineer and made some discreet
inquiries with other related vendors/people
and to my shock; I heard that it was a fact
that my engineer was seeking favours. One
afternoon, I called that particular engineer
to my office and inquired with him wheth-
er what I heard was correct. Obviously,
at first, he refuted vehemently and upon
my persistence, admitted to his weakness
in seeking favours. May be the time was
around 4 pm or so when this occurred and

immediately I called my Admin head who
was also handling finance to settle the ac-
counts of that tainted engineer and instruct-
ed that engineer to just leave Potential then
and there. This came as a rude shock to
him and he started begging to retain him
and that he will not repeat the mistake
again. But as the saying goes, the dog’s
tail is always bent, I did not relent. By my
so doing, a clear message was sent to the
rest working in Potential. They could see
the other side to my being friendly and be-
nevolent. My partners were the first to
congratulate me on what I did and many
employees came to my office to express
their appreciation in the action taken. This
was the other category of mistake that did
not deserve a second chance.

Employee Care
I had heard one senior gentleman saying

that you take care of your employees; em-
ployees will automatically take care of your
client. How well said. Otherwise, what
can you expect out of a disgruntled em-
ployee? Potential followed this principle
to the letter and there were results for all to
see. It is very common to see the manage-
ment working overtime to please a client at
the cost of its own employee; it might work
for a short time, but not for long.
As all of us agree, staff retention is the big-

gest challenge that is faced by any employ-
er. There is always someone in the market
who is ready to poach. So, the employee
needs to be taken care of so that she does
not leave your company easily. So, what

does that entail? No questions asked;
money matters most. But will that alone be
sufficient to satisfy an employee? A defi-
nite NO. An ambitious employee would
always be on the lookout as how to aug-
ment her skills and hence, growth and that
is a very welcome sign both for her and for
the management. How one would make
another learn? It is just not enough if we
spoon feed them and make them do what
we want and not allowing them to do how
they want to do. Give them some space.
Trust them. Yes; there could be some mis-
takes made in the process. Who does not
make mistakes? So then why are we there?
Correct them and tell them where and how
they went wrong. I am positive, the result
of such process is very productive and the
employee feels very satisfied and is doubly
cautious not to repeat the mistake.

Continuing with Employee Care, while our
employees were paid probably higher than
any other related industry paid across the
Country, we also had quite a few benefits
offered to them to make their lives more
easily livable. Here are a few of them and
trust me, these benefits offered to the em-
ployees were never heard of, at least in the
Consulting arena. Come what may, the
salary was disbursed on the last working
day of the month and not in the first week
of the next month. It is a common practice
to see that many companies do not disburse
salaries on a definite day of the month and
many a time, they disburse the salaries to-
wards the end of the next month, that too
in parts. Knowing well that an employee
has her own commitments and she would
eagerly wait for the salary day, we had

pledged ourselves to make sure she gets her
salary on the last working day of the month
itself. Imagine the plight of an employee
when she does not receive the salary on a
particular date and her mental setup there-
after. If this happens frequently, she is sure
to look for a different employer.
Potential took pride in the fact that it dis-

bursed salary to every single employee on
the last working day of the same month for
all the months and years when the three
promoters were under control of the man-
agement without defaulting even on one
single month. This single factor was instru-
mental in Potential retaining its staff for a
longer period of time. I equally take pride
to write here that there were any number of
employees who worked in Potential for as
long as 10 to 20 years.

To continue with taking care, other benefits
offered to employees were:
A. Attendance Bonus: 7.5% of the gross

(basic + all allowances) salary was added
on to her monthly salary if she had clocked
in with a cumulative late coming not ex-
ceeding 60 minutes in any month with only
one rider that she should have not have
availed any kind of leave in that month.
There were more than a dozen employees
in any given month that utilized this bene-
fit. After a year or so, we brought it down to
5% as the numbers availing the benefit was
increasing and so also was our out flow.
B. Of course, the lady employees were

given the maternity leave of 3 months with
full payment and as a special gesture; the

male employees were given 1 month sal-
ary as paternity allowance to take care of
the expenses. But only rider was that this
facility was limited to 1 child only.
C. A onetime Rs. 5,000/ was given to

such of those employees whose children
were using the school van or bus to cover
the transport expenses and this allowance
was being disbursed in the beginning of
the academic year. Here again, this facility
was limited to one child per employee.
D. Contributory Provident Fund, as re-

quired by Statute.
E. Employees were covered under the

group insurance scheme for health as well
as for accidents.

F. Subsidised meal was served on all the
working days at the specially created roof
top cafeteria space which was extensively
used by many employees.
G. Anniversary parties were eagerly await-

ed by all the employees for the fact that Po-
tential used to conduct anniversary parties
in style with a lot of food, liquor and this
along with the families. This helped in cre-
ating bondage amongst the employees and
the employers. It was also the practice for
the management to recognize and honour
the well deserved employees in each disci-
pline and say a few words of appreciation
in front of their families and other employ-
ees. Small gestures go a long way in build-
ing relationships. Employees cherish it. I
recall one such anniversary when Potential
was celebrating its 10th anniversary at The

Oberoi Hotel in the year 1997 when com-
puters were still not that affordable. There
was one office assistant by name Sridhar
who had a photographic memory and a very
sharp mind and also that there was nothing
that he did not know of. I had called him
a mobile computer in that celebration. Not
only was he the first employee, he went on
to serve in Potential till its last day. For
that matter, he is still very much connected
with all the three of us in one way or the
other.
H. Probably for the first time in the Con-

sulting industry, employees were given the
stock option (ESOP). There were certain
eligibility criterion set to become eligible
to get that benefit; but there was no dis-
crimination made between any categories
of employees. Through the hefty dividends

that were distributed year after year, most
of the employees including draughts per-
sons, drivers, office boys not to talk about
the senior engineers, could buy homes for
themselves.
I. The biggest of all was the large

amounts of bonus that was disbursed at the
end of every financial year.
No wonder, there was such a low rate of

attrition in Potential.
While talking on the insurance scheme,

Potential had created a Trust with Life
Insurance Corporation of India for both
Insurance as well as for the Gratuity. So
whenever an employee left the company
after working in Potential for a minimum
of 5 years, she would automatically receive

the gratuity amount paid by the LIC Trust.
The employees were confident that their
gratuity amount was safe in the event of
their leaving Potential.
One another incident comes to mind re-

garding the insurance scheme that was
available to the employees. When two of
our engineers, one structural and the other
a plumbing engineer were travelling on a
bike to attend a site meeting on Bangalore
Mysore road, they were hit by a truck from
behind and most shockingly, our structural
engineer died on the spot and the plumbing
engineer suffered multiple fractures. We
rushed to the spot immediately upon re-
ceipt of the tragic news and made arrange-
ments for shifting the body of the deceased
engineer to his village and by then the in-
jured engineer was shifted to a hospital.

Although we could not bring back the life
of the budding engineer, the next best was
done by providing monetary support for
his parents. Since that engineer was very
young and had a lot of earning years ahead
of him, LIC compensated his parents con-
sidering the balance years of his earning
life (if I am not mistaken, at that time, the
retirement age was 58) and the amount was
not very small. These small gestures from
the management go a long way in earning
the respect and loyalty of the employees.
One another factor that I want to pen down
here is that an employee irrespective of her
rank does not relish to be admonished in
front of others or in public. We had made it
a point to summon such an employee who
was required to be admonished for what-
ever reason, into our enclosed office before
taking any action.

All these factors added enormously to the
growth of Potential with satisfied clients
and more so, with satisfied employees. No
wonder, Potential was looked upon as a
leader in the Industry. Even long after the
merger of Potential into another company,
people in the industry even today recollect
the golden days of Potential. And should
we (I) feel proud for having created one?

Commitment Levels
It was not uncommon to see any number of
employees including many women work-
ing beyond 8 pm on any working day as
well as on weekends. On many occasion,
I had asked them to wind up for the day
and to resume work the next day. That was
the level of commitment of those employ-
ees. Many a time, the credit for the success
of a company is given to its management
forgetting that the employees contribute as
much towards the success if not more. I
want to put it on record that the enormous
growth and success of Potential was equal-
ly due to the untiring dedication and hard
work put in by its loyal employees.
I am for one believed in the fact that every
person however low in her ranking knew
sometimes better than me. Here is one an-

ecdote that I want to narrate. On one of
my usual site inspections requiring me to
climb up to the 7th or 8th floor of an un-
der construction building off MG road to
inspect electrical conduit layout that was
laid out above the reinforcement steel, an
electrician working there came up with a
suggestion that an alternate routing (oth-
er than that was shown on the drawing is-
sued by my company) was not only shorter
but more beneficial for drawing the wires
therein. I could have just asked him to
follow the drawing, but felt that what he
was suggesting made more sense. He was
highly elated to know that his suggestion
was approved. That electrician was none
other than the son of the proprietor of the
famous Naseer Electricals, one of the most
respected and leading electrical contractors
during that period.

Listening
Being an electro mechanical and structural
engineering company, we had to send a big
team of engineers to the technical/progress
review meetings of projects. Those meet-
ings were attended by clients, project man-
agers, architects, contractors apart from
our team and generally the meetings used
to run for many hours. With so many in at-
tendance, our engineers including me used
to get hardly any chance to speak, some-
times nothing to speak at all.

My engineers used to complain to me that
their time was being wasted in attending
such meetings which otherwise they could
have put to better use. But my advice was:
what you don’t get to speak, make it up by
listening carefully to the specialists of oth-
er trades and hence improving your own
knowledge. Many times, listening rath-
er than speaking will help in augmenting
one’s own knowledge as well as the career.

Under One Roof
Potential was co founded by the writer and
his close friend Gururaj in the year 1987
with a one man company which went on
to become a 400 people company over the
next 20 odd years. It prided itself provid-
ing highly integrated services which in-
cluded Structural, Electrical, High Voltage
engineering, Air-Conditioning, Plumbing,
Sanitary, Storm Water, Electronic Securi-
ty, Fire Alarm-Fighting, Water and Sewage
Treatment Plants, Networking and so on,
all from one roof. There was hardly any
company which could provide all such ser-
vices from one roof and this became a USP
for Potential to be in the forefront. With
the advent of IT in the Country in the be-
ginning of 90s which needed a lot of com-
mercial spaces which also led to enormous
increase in the need for very large group

housing projects, Potential was at the right
place and at the right time. Both the cli-
ents as well as the architects were finding it
convenient to off load the entire engineer-
ing consultancy services to one agency in-
stead of running to different companies,
Potential cashed in on this aspect to its full
capacity.

The Name
Setting up of one’s own practice especially
when one is gainfully employed overseas
is difficult to fathom and more so when the
business does not run in the blood. For that
matter, both Guru and I were the first gen-
eration entrepreneurs who risked leaving a
very plush job to start Potential. It was not
easy sailing in the Initial days. We start-
ed slow with a lot of hope and confidence
and we were not wrong. Projects started
coming one after the other and there was
no looking back. Many had asked me as
to what was the rationale in naming the
company Potential. My answer was sim-
ple - we knew we had the potential in us
and hence the name.

Fire In The Belly
Starting any business and running it with-
out a godfather is quite challenging. Since
we had just started and did not have many
projects to talk about in the beginning, there
was meager income and we had to priori-
tise the pay outs from the available funds.
Our priority was to pay the building rent,
then pay electricity bill, pay for the statio-
nery, pay any other essentials, pay salary
for the staff (even if there were a few) and
then only think of taking any salary for our-
selves. Believe me or not, we went without
taking a rupee for any number of months.
But we were very satisfied and not taking
salary never depressed us. For that matter,
both of us started taking a princely sum of
Rupees two thousand from the beginning
of year 2 and hiked it to another princely
sum of rupees five thousand from the year

3! The point that I am trying to make here
is that sacrifices come first for the success
to follow. For that, one should have perse-
verance, ambition, fire in the belly to suc-
ceed and to sustain. It is said, reaching the
top is difficult; but, maintaining the pole
position is tougher. Who can appreciate it
better than the promoters of Potential? We
could have earned enough without growing
big and without having to make sacrifices;
but the satisfaction of being recognized as
an industry leader is altogether different
and one has to experience it to believe it.
Potential was a brand by itself and what
bigger satisfaction a promoter can ask for?

20th Anniversary
The company celebrated its 20th anniver-
sary in the year 2007 in the grandest scale
possible with most of the industry bigwigs
attending the celebrations which was held
on two different days and on two different
dates. The first celebration was a whole day
affair with the entire 250 staff along with
families, fun, frolic, food not to leave out
free flow of liquor. The second was held at
the Ball room of Taj West End, Bangalore.
Since the original logo of the company was
nothing much to talk about, we decided to
revamp the design of the entire stationery
including the logo and the tag line which
read Potential- Experience Excellence for
which experts in the field of advertising
were hired.

Strategic Investor
Due to succession issues, we had to look
for a strategic investor who could ultimate-
ly buy out the company as a whole. In this
direction, deal was struck with Revathy
Industries, having its registered office in
Coimbatore and its Chairman cum Manag-
ing Director, Mr. Abhishek Dalmia having
his office in New Delhi, in the month of
January 2007. Mergers and Acquisitions
are common in most other businesses; but
were not heard of in the field of consulting,
especially in India. But then, Potential had
many firsts to its credit and this was one
more.

Sir
I started my consulting engineering career
in early 1971 working in a company called
Semac Private Limited, a Consulting Com-
pany headquartered in Bangalore which
was of the offshoot of its mother company
Chandavarkar & Thacker, a very famous
architectural company. One Mr. Ashok Pa-
vate was its Managing Director. Surpris-
ingly, I was not calling him sir, but by his
name with a Mr. prefixed. So also was the
case with the other Director, Mr. Krishna
Prasad. So when I started Potential in the
year 1986, a clear 15 years later, I was ask-
ing my staff to address me by my name and
not as sir. Somehow, they were not com-
fortable calling me by my name and the
‘sir’ got stuck.

A Fine Boss
When it comes to standing-by of an em-
ployee, there cannot be a better example
set by my then MD, Mr. Ashok Pavate.
Semac was engaged as engineering con-
sultants for the ASIAD 1972 that was to be
held in New Delhi and I was transferred to
New Delhi towards mid 1971 to look af-
ter that project which was owned by Cen-
tral Public Works Department (CPWD) of
Govt. of India. During the course of one
of the progress review meetings with the
Executive Engineer (I do not want to take
his name) of CPWD, I found that he was
not making much sense and I said so to
him on a technical issue, without thinking
about the consequences. I was very much
a junior both by my experience and size as
compared to that Executive Engineer! That
gentleman was fairly high up in the hier-

archy and I started getting nervous with a
fear that he might cancel our engagement
as consultants with that project because
of my behavior. I went back to my of-
fice only to tell Mr. Pavate as to what had
happened in the meeting and I was literally
shaking as I spoke to him. He is by nature
a very calm and composed person and just
asked me whether I was correct and confi-
dent in what I had said during the meeting
with the EE to which I said, a definite yes.
I was expecting fireworks and a possible
demand for a resignation from him. To the
contrary, he asked me to just forget the in-
cident, to go back home and to have a glass
of chilled beer and to return to work the
next morning. He also said he will handle
the situation with that EE and asked me not
to worry. I wonder as to how many boss-
es take that stand and support a junior em-

ployee when possibly a highly prestigious
project is at stake. That was a big lesson
that gentleman taught me that day which
I never forgot during the course of my Po-
tential days. While Mr. Pavate was a fine
boss, his wife, Mrs. Tarini Pavate was an
exceptionally a fine lady and a very good
host at that.
Mr. T.K.Prasad was equally a highly re-

spectable Director and was very friendly
with some of us and I in particular thor-
oughly enjoyed working alongside him and
had a lot to learn from him.

Pep Talk
My philosophy while running Potential
was to not only impart technical training to
those working in the company but also to
make them aware of many aspects of life
which might prepare them for a better life.
A case in point is that involving a very
senior electrical engineer (here again, I will
not take his name) who was many years my
senior. While he was a good engineer and
used to represent Potential in many client
meetings, one thing was always bothering
me and that was his dress sense or the lack
of it. He used to come to office shabbi-
ly dressed and wearing slippers. Being an
elderly person, I was a bit reluctant to talk
to him in this regard. Since he was repre-
senting the company in many of the meet-
ings outside our office, I had to talk to him
one day or the other, keeping the image of

the company in mind. Hesitantly, one fine
day, I called him to my office and told him
about the importance of being well dressed
especially when one is representing the
company. I must give it to him that he
took it very positively and I could see the
change immediately thereafter. He never
ever came to office shabbily dressed and
that he was also always wearing the shoes.
Not only did he do this, he also told many
in the company as well as outside that the
transformation in his dress was due to my
pep talk and that he was thankful to me.

Timely Advice
By now those who know me know that I
am obsessed with punctuality. Like it is
said, old habits die hard; I am made like
this and I cannot (rather, do not want to)
change at this late age. Many contractors
and vendors used to fear coming late to the
meetings where I was also required to take
part expecting that they would be admon-
ished for coming late. My logic was sim-
ple; every one’s time is valuable including
your own. Why not honour it?
While on punctuality, an incident or two
comes to my mind. I was the consultant
for the PSU giant, BHEL and used to have
weekly progress review meetings sched-
uled at 10 am on Thursdays. There was
a common saying that they could set their
clocks/watches just by looking at the time
of my arrival for the meetings.

When I was the consultant for The Banga-
lore Hospital, the progress review meetings
were held (here again) at 10 am on Thurs-
days, of course in a different year. By habit,
I used to be at the meeting venue exactly at
10 am every Thursday; but to my great dis-
may, other participants such as the client,
architect, contractor and other consultants
used to come at their convenience and nev-
er at 10 am and I had to wait for them for
the meeting to commence. After observ-
ing for several weeks, I informed the then
chairman of the Hospital, Dr. M.N. Subra-
manya that henceforth I would also come
for the meetings late so that I do not have
to wait/waste my time. Even after the pas-
sage of a few decades, I still remember the
timely advice of a highly respected senior
surgeon asking me not to give up the rare
quality of being punctual just because of a

few people although I had to waste a little
bit of my time. What a timely advice!
Sometimes it so happens that in spite of
the best intensions and efforts, one gets de-
layed due to reasons beyond her control.
And it has happened to me a few times in
my long career. . What I used to do was to
call up the concerned and inform her that I
would be late and to please bear with me.
Just one phone call in such situations really
heightens your stature.
Extending the same logic, just making a

phone call in advance to the concerned in-
forming of the slight delay in the deliver-
able rather than delivering it late would be
highly appreciated.

But this cannot become a habit. It loses it
charm as well as the value.
It is my personal experience and also the
belief that when one is properly attired to
suit the occasion and is punctual, the confi-
dence level would definitely be higher.

Well Prepared
My philosophy during the practice of con-
sultancy was to go well prepared for the
meetings/discussions and not to take things
lightly although, sometimes they were rou-
tine matters. I would always look at the
agenda for the meetings, the names of the
attendees and accordingly prepare for such
meetings. And also it was my firm belief
that, if someone raised an issue and I was
not in the know of things or confident about
the right solution at that moment, I used
to say – please give me some time, I shall
revert, instead of giving some incorrect
advice/solution on the table itself. Here
again, this cannot be a habit.

Long Hours
I have always wondered as to why we, In-
dians work very long hours, day after day
without even bothering about the week-
ends, family life, social life etc., Are we
really that productive? if so, why are we
lagging behind most other countries? Or,
are we that inefficient that we need more
time to complete a particular task as com-
pared to those working in the advanced
countries? Forget my days; even today I
see people of all ages putting in extra long
hours in the office returning home after 8
or 9 pm only to get hooked on to the tele-
phone or the laptops again. The reasons
that I probably can assign are many: 1. Set-
ting far too ambitious time lines to please
the bosses (either in India or abroad) , 2.
Fixing far too smaller budgets and trying to
fit everything within it only to find that it is

not being possible and in the process, re do
the same, 3. Not being decisive (not risk-
ing to take decisions) and hence go round in
circles spending more time, 4. Not adher-
ing to the agenda points and letting cross
talks to go on during meetings prolonging
the meetings, 5. Discussing the same is-
sues closed during the previous meetings,
6. Not adhering to Design Brief Reports
(prepared and approved before the start of
the project) and changing many times but
without time extensions and so on. The list
can go on. But the bottom line remains,
we spend a lot of time which otherwise
could (should) have been spent with fami-
lies or for one’s own self. It is considered
(almost) a crime (in our Country) if an em-
ployee leaves the office on time or asks for
a vacation or takes even a day off. But can
we not change? Don’t we deserve better

life or don’t the children deserve more of
their parent’s time? I would say the deci-
sion making bosses have to change, be de-
cisive, be smart, guide those working un-
der them properly and allow them to enjoy
life apart from enjoying themselves. May
be it is a wishful thinking; but when would
we start appreciating and enjoying life? As
the legendary Mr. N.R.Narayana Murthy
has put it, the need of the hour is to work
smarter than working harder.
Taking the point 6 a little further, it is a very

common practice (at least in the construc-
tion industry) to make many design chang-
es during various stage of construction ei-
ther to make adjustments to suit changing
market demands or to meet the statutory
requirements. It is fine to make chang-
es if it is for the betterment of the project

provided the client accordingly enhances
the timelines to incorporate the required
changes. But more often than not, the time-
lines remain the same and the consultants
are required to meet the new demands. It
is altogether a different matter that many if
not most projects are delivered later than
the committed dates.
Another aspect related to working long

hours (here again, more applicable to the
construction industry) is the quantum of
professional fee that is generally paid to a
consultant In India. It is also a common
practice to learn that not only the fee agreed
is less, but also that very rarely that the to-
tal agreed fee is disbursed at the end of the
project in full. Although the consultants’
fee (as compared to that paid abroad) forms
a miniscule part of the total cost of the proj-

ect either in terms of percentage of project
cost or cost per square foot of the total con-
structed area, the expectations of the client
are always very high forcing a consultant
to take up more projects than she can han-
dle at any given time to be able to keep the
business running. This situation leads to
a situation where employees are forced to
work longer hours to meet deadlines for;
there would be a limitation to the employer
to engage more employees due to the lesser
fee that she receives. Inadequate compen-
sation in terms of professional fee that is
paid to a consultant has a twofold effect:
a. quality and timelines suffer and b. more
importantly, it might possibly make a con-
sultant look for other avenues to compen-
sate for what she has missed out on the fee.
I am not trying to generalize the issue here;
but there are greater chances for someone

taking an unethical route. This is more
akin to a government employee where her
salary levels are far lower as compared that
in a private sector and hence the tempta-
tion to earn more elsewhere. Like I have
already said earlier about the philosophy of
Potential, I am the last person to advocate
that the route a consultant possibly adopts
to earn more (through some other sources)
is right. On the other hand, it is very wrong
and not pardonable at all.
Another interesting (not very) part of the

construction industry is that very rarely a
consultant gets compensated for the varia-
tions (changes made in design after the sign
off) thereby adding to the financial burden.
While I am sharing the day to day problems
(shall I say, professional hazards) faced
by a consultant in terms of the inadequate

quantum of fee, many a time the completion
of the project gets inordinately delayed due
to various factors such as hostile site condi-
tions, strikes/bundhs (very common in our
country), non receipt of statutory approv-
als on time, casualties at construction sites
and so on forcing her to absorb the costs
not attributable to her straining the already
strained financial position.

Saying NO
Easier to preach than to practice, learn to
say NO. We Indians want to please anyone
and everyone and hesitate to say NO even
when she knows, she cannot handle a situ-
ation (or a project). This is a big difference
that I have noticed in my long career while
working alongside Americans or Europe-
ans. They do not hesitate to say no when
they think they are not in a position to ful-
fill the commitment, if made.

C&T
Speaking of the great architectural
company C & T, its partners Mrs.
Tara Chandavarkar as well as Mr. Pesi
M Thacker were so magnanimous that it
was occasionally awarding its own projects
to its ex employees only to make sure that
its ex employees also do well. I have nev-
er ever come across such big hearted boss-
es in my entire career. Likewise, Semac
the off shoot of C & T also used to pass
on some of its projects to its ex employees
and I was one of the beneficiaries. Hats
off to its bosses, Mr. Ashok Pavate and
Mr. T. K.Prasad.
C & T was celebrating its anniversary in

style on the second Saturday of July every
year to commensurate with the ladies finals
at Wimbledon. Even after leaving them

many years ago, they were inviting some of
its ex employees including me along with
my wife Usha for their parties. That was
the bond that existed between us. One had
to experience Mrs. Chandavarkar’s hospi-
tality to believe. She would go all out to
make sure its guests were properly taken
care of.

Passion For Work
Digressing a bit, I want to talk about how
dedication and love for profession can
change the fortunes of some individuals. A
case in point here is about Mr. Seetharam,
the man who built Micron Electricals a
leading Electrical Contracting firm. From
a young boy who had to resort to door to
door newspaper vending to support his
studies to become one of the most sought
after electrical contractors across the coun-
try is no mean achievement. Apart from
establishing an empire in the contracting
field, he has also built a few large state of
the art manufacturing companies to support
his contracting business. He may not hold
a bachelor or a post graduate degree in en-
gineering, but his hunger to acquire knowl-

edge in his chosen field is a well known
fact. Even at the age of 70, he is as active
as he was in his mid thirties.
Likewise, another electrical contractor

worth mentioning here is Mr. Dawood.
From being a lowly paid electrical techni-
cian in HMT Watch factory decades ago, he
went on to build Naseer Electricals, another
most sought after company in the electrical
contracting field. He was one of the most
humble contractors ever to be found in the
industry and a highly soft spoken person at
that. There was no way anyone could dis-
respect him any time.

Concern
Although I was well known in the consul-
tancy industry having very large number of
projects, my financial position was nothing
much to write about, having no other in-
come other than whatever I used to take as
salary from Potential, which was nothing
substantial for quite some years. One day
while Mr. Dawood and I were returning
from a meeting held at an IT company on
Bull Temple road in Basavanagudi, he ca-
sually enquired as to how my financial po-
sition was. I told him that whatever I took
from Potential was all that I had and there
was nothing beyond. I wondered why he
was asking me that impertinent question.
What he told me probably some 30 years

ago rings a bell even today and I salute that
man for the concern he had for me. He had
said, “sir, you have to somehow make sure
that you get at least Rs. 25,000 a month as
additional income as you have a family to
look after”. He was probably wondering as
to what would happen to my family in the
event of my untimely demise. That I could
not do any such thing was totally a differ-
ent matter and I really felt for the concern
he had for me and my family.
Potential being at the helm of consultancy,

both Micron and Naseer were the obvious
choice to receive tenders and they used to
fight tooth and nail to bag the orders, many
times at the risk of losing money. Even
though they used to bag the orders some-
times below par, I must mention that at no
time the quality was compromised.

Mutual Respect
It is a common feeling among the consul-
tants that they are a superior breed as com-
pared to the contractors which feeling I to-
tally detest and do not agree. I have found
many a time, the contractors are a better
informed lot due to their vast exposure to
practical site conditions, their technical
skills and of course, the riches.

I used to advice my people to keep those
aspects in mind whenever they speak to
any contractor and to give them the due re-
spect they deserve and not to look down
upon them just because they are contrac-
tors. Another factor that I have failed to
understand is that irrespective of the se-
niority in age, experience, riches, technical
skills, a contractor always addresses even
a junior consultant as madam where as
the consultant addresses the contractor by
name. Only India works this way, I sup-
pose. I have always stressed that there is
nothing inferior being a contractor and we
gain respect only by respecting others.

Paper Engineers
I have no hesitation in accepting that the
engineers in our country are more of paper
engineers barring a few and in fewer trades
as compared to those working in other
countries who are hands on. May be it is
to do with our system of education which
does not prepare an engineer to be work-
ready. Whatever one does is only after she

joins a company and starts learning the job
on site.
While I was a consultant for a multination-
al giant chip manufacturer on one of its
projects in Bangalore, an Israeli engineer
was called upon to conduct take-over tests.
He had no assistants like we have a doz-
en of them hovering around us and he did
every single test on his own and even he
climbed over a huge transformer to check
something there. All the pockets of his
trouser were packed with some tool or the
other and he did not even take the help of
so called ‘helper’ to finish his job. And he
was not a mechanic (in our terminology),
but a full fledged qualified engineer.
Believe me, in all my life, I am yet to climb

a transformer let alone carry tools.

Short Fuse
As I am known for my discipline, punctu-
ality and others, I am also known for hav-
ing a (selective) short fuse. I used to get an-
noyed at the irresponsible and sometimes
irrelevant answers while I was conducting
interviews and they were not far and few
between. It is understandable that the can-
didate seeking a job tends to be nervous
and sometimes, may not know the right
answer. Nothing wrong with that. During
one such interview, I asked a mid 20s hale,
healthy and well built candidate as to why
would he want a job in my company and
what made her apply for a job, her answer
was – the location suited where the office
of Potential was situated and that the com-
pany where he worked last was about 14

kM away and that it was too much of a
strain for him to go there (by bike!) and not
because he could earn or learn more in my
company. If this was to be his casual ap-
proach, why wouldn’t one lose patience?
Likewise, I used to get annoyed if during
an interview some one answered very ca-
sually or irresponsibly knowing fully well
that she needed the job very badly. I used
to take such candidates to task reminding
them of the sacrifices their parents would
have made for their education and that it
was their duty to be more responsible.

Template
The format, the contents, the precision and
clarity of the General Conditions of Con-
tact, Technical Specifications and the Bill
of Materials developed by us in Potential
had become a sort of bench mark in the in-
dustry so much so that some of the other
consulting companies used to blindly fol-
low our templates many times even forget-
ting to replace Potential with their compa-
ny names.


Pain & Pleasure
It is a common knowledge to know that the
doctors are on call at all hours of the day or
night to attend to emergencies. But many
a time, I have come across such situations
in my long career getting calls during mid-
night as well as in the early hours of the
morning. You may be wondering as to
what emergency a consultant like me had to
face. Potential was at the helm of consult-
ing for many IT companies for whom the
uptime of power source was of paramount
importance and any power breakdown was
considered suicidal and the losses due to
power outage was counted in millions of
dollars. Any small such incident in India
was flagged off to their head offices in ei-
ther US or in Europe and the hell would

break lose. As a result of that, I was getting
summons irrespective of the time of the
day, along with the contractor, the vendor
and many others connected. The tensions
would rise very high for everyone con-
cerned and all could breathe easy only af-
ter fixing the problem and restoring power
supply at the shortest possible time.
I would like to narrate a few of those in-

cidents where in I was called at some odd
hours of the day. In one of the towers occu-
pied by an American client in Subramanya
Arcade on Bannergatta Road, power had
tripped plunging the entire tower in dark-
ness in the middle of the night. The hell
broke loose and frantic calls were made by
the facility manager to all concerned to be
available at site to trouble shoot and to re-
store power almost immediately. As if con-

ducting a military drill, simultaneously all
the possible trouble areas/equipments were
checked one by one and nothing was found
to be wrong; but the problem still persisted.
After a thorough inspection of all possible
areas, the problem was traced to the ‘bus
duct rising mains’ from where the power
gets distributed to different floors of the
tower. It had so happened that some work-
man (labourer) had inadvertently pissed in
the electrical shaft where the bus duct ris-
ing main was run and the saline liquid had
entered the rising main shorting the con-
tacts. It was beyond any one’s wild guess
that such a thing could happen; but had
happened. The incident had taught me one
big lesson – think of the unthinkable cause
for the power outage problems.
Another incident that had happened in the

early hours on the Ugadi (Hindu New Year
Day) in a large IT campus on the Sarjapur
Outer Ring Road where the tower in ques-
tion had gone live for an American client.
The resin cast bus ducts laid in a built up
trench conveying power from the trans-
former to the main electrical power panel
had snapped cutting off the main power
supply to the tower. As usual, frantic calls
were made to the concerned contractor, the
consultant and many others to assemble at
site to rectify the problem and to restore
power supply to the building at the earli-
est possible time. As I have said earlier,
the power outages even for a few min-
utes could cause very heavy financial loss.
Since the damaged resin cast bus duct was
originally imported from Malaysia, it was
out of question getting the replacement,
forget minutes, not even in the next few

weeks. In such situations, the cost comes
last; the immediate solution to restore pow-
er would be of paramount importance and
the blame game could wait. The only solu-
tion that came to my mind at that critical
juncture was to procure cables and connect
the transformer and the power panel to re-
store power. There were two main hurdles
even in this solution; 1. Being Ugadi, it was
a holiday and all the cable dealers and the
godowns would not be open that day and
2. The requirement of cables was extreme-
ly huge to be available with any contractor
however big the contractor was. Thanks
to the resourcefulness and the commitment
of the contractor, Naseer Electricals could
somehow source the required quantity of
the cables in a matter of a couple of hours
and mobilize the necessary labour to lay
them and restore the power within reason-

able time. Here the cause for the snapping
of the bus ducts had nothing to do with the
quality of the bus duct as all thought at the
first instance, but it was due to the unequal
settlement of the soil in which the trench
had been built. The bus ducts being rigid
had snapped due to the settlement of the
soil. So the electrical problems could arise
not necessarily from the faulty electrical
system, but from many other sources and
only the presence of mind to think and act
fast, matters.
There were many such instances during the

course of my long journey and I have limit-
ed to only a few in my narration.
While these are some of the pain points,

there was no dearth for the pleasure points
as well. One appreciation mail or a good

word from the client makes the day of a
consultant. Notwithstanding the pain
which is a part and parcel of running any
high pressure business, nothing can replace
the pleasure of owning an enterprise and
that too when it is well accepted and ac-
knowledge by the industry. Unfortunately
we as Indians are a reluctant lot to appreci-
ate the other easily. It is just like clapping
only upon being asked to do so (let us have
a big round of applause, please) and not
spontaneously.

New Methods/Products
A consultant has to be bold and be willing
to try out new methods or new materials or
new techniques; but not at the cost of the
client who pays dearly for such new meth-
odologies. For introducing anything new
and much before recommending the same
for adaptation in the scheme of things, a
consultant has to make sure that what she
recommends, works and the client does not
suffer for her experimentations. A great
amount of due diligence has to be made
about the new product (I am talking of a
new product not tried out in our country) ,
pros and cons worked out, elaborate anal-
ysis be made if the new product costing
much higher than the existing one as com-
pared to the technical superiority that the

new product would bring in and so on. If
we play a safe route and keep using the
same old products without trying out the
new ones for the fear of inviting wrath
from the end user, then a consultant has to
question herself whether she is doing jus-
tice for the profession. Potential takes pride
in successfully introducing a large number
of such hitherto unused equipments and
materials into the main stream of electrical
system. It was a common knowledge that
many consultants in the industry would
recommend such products only after they
were duly approved by Potential.

Problem Of Plenty
In earlier years, if any one wanted to start
her own practice as a consultant, she would
not have ventured out to do so unless she
had put in a sizable number of years work-
ing under a senior and made sure that she
had learnt sufficiently enough to do so
without her senior being there to guide
her or support her. As a result of that, one
could see a well oiled consultant coming
out to start a new venture. I am a bit pained
to state here that the situation being prev-
alent of late is that any and every one hav-
ing worked in a similar field for just a year
or two would call herself a consultant and
start the practice. And there are all types
of clients in the market who are ready to
appoint them many a time because their

fee is almost negligible. The result of this
phenomenon is that there is a problem of
plenty in the Indian Market with ever so
many consultants in the field. I would like
to draw a parallel to the fact that although
our population is a huge 130 crore, when
we look at the number of really skilled peo-
ple available in various trades, that number
is not very encouraging at all. Having just
the numbers is not enough; what we need
is the quality people. But it is a free world
and probably nothing much could be done
to improve the situation.

Deliverables
The word ‘deliverable’ is sometimes not
fully understood (I am referring mainly in
the Indian Context) by many. It is just not
enough to deliver something on time. It is
(also) the quality of the delivered product
on an agreed date in the required format.
A product delivered which is not usable by
the recipient is as good as a product not de-
livered at all. So, delivering a product just
for the sake of keeping up the deadline is
an absolute waste of time and resources.
Here again, delivering an acceptable prod-
uct, but beyond the dead line also loses its
weight/charm.

Excuse
It has become a second nature to (most) In-
dians to cite some excuse or the other for
either not delivering a product on time or
not to reach a place on time or not to hon-
our a commitment made. What one for-
gets is that a client has engaged you at a
cost for you to perform and deliver as per
the timelines agreed and that she is not in-
terested in your excuses however genuine
they are. Young and budding entrepreneur
has to keep in mind that the commitments
made are to be treated as sacrosanct and all
out efforts are to be made to honour such
commitments. This enormously enhances
the credibility of an individual and paves
the way for success.

I Have Had My Fill
Since the time I have stopped either pro-
viding consultancy or being a mentor/advi-
sor, there have been any number of people
known or unknown to me who keep ask-
ing me even today as to how do I spend
my time or what do I do the whole day or
that whether I don’t miss the consultancy
etc., etc., I must admit that the God has be-
stowed upon me the gift of ‘switching off’
at my wish and I can do so without much
of a problem. I can extremely be busy the
whole day or totally do nothing the very
next day. I am happy with both the situa-
tions. During my hay days (to be read as
years), I was crazily busy and I must admit,
I have totally enjoyed it. Those who have
seen me from close quarters say that I have
earned my retirement and that I should en-
joy it to the hilt, which fortunately, I am

doing just that. Quoting famous cricketer
Sanjay Manjrekar, I must say, I have had
my fill. Actually, I even for a moment do
not regret not getting back to consultancy
in spite of a lot of pressure from the indus-
try.

Loner
Yes. I am a bit of a loner. I do not have
too many (good) friends and sometimes, I
feel the absence of it. But it is too late in
the day for me to change myself. I am nei-
ther an extrovert nor an introvert; may be
something in between. Sometimes, a book
is my best friend and that keeps me compa-
ny when I am alone.
I have the habit of taking morning walks

for years and given a choice, I would like
to walk alone. Mind being fresh in the ear-
ly hours of the morning, I generally use
that time to introspect the previous day’s
events, be it professional or personal.

I also use that time to plan out my work/
activity for the day and I am a big believ-
er in planning out activities for the day in
advance. This, I do it even today. This
habit of mine was especially fruitful in my
professional years.

Body & Soul
As all of us know, any building be it a sim-
ple house or a huge apartment complex or a
commercial building or an IT complex or a
hotel or a hospital, has spaces planned out
by an architect, is made to stand by a struc-
tural designer and other services like light-
ing, power, air conditioning, water supply,
sanitary, drainage and others provided by
consultants known as MEP consultants. In
short, any building worth the name requires
the services of many consultants to make it
functional and to serve the purpose it was
initially intended for.

While a well planned and beautifully de-
signed building (by an architect) made to
stand in all its glory (by a structural de-
signer) serves no purpose just like a human
body (having no life) until it is made to
breath. And this breathing (functioning) is
provided by a MEP consultant who makes
it work and instills life (SOUL) in to the
building. Hence the combined efforts of an
architect, a structural designer and a MEP
designer together make the building to be
brought to life, like a BODY & SOUL to-
gether.

Years Of Experience Vs Compensation
It is the general perception and strong be-
lief of many that the compensation (for a
specified category) is directly related to
the number of years of experience that a
person comes with. I for one would like
to differ on this theory. Many a time, an
employer comes across some brilliant em-
ployees whose compensation has no di-
rect relation with the number of years of
experience they might have. Many em-
ployees may have more number of years
behind them, but one with fewer years of
experience might perform much better.
Consultancy is a business to do more with
the intellect of the people and cannot be
compared to a manufacturing Unit which
produces a product for sale in the market.
And hence, it is always a bit tricky to at-
tach a figure to the number of years of ex-

perience. Take the case of an employee A
with about 6 to 7 years of experience get-
ting say Rs. 1, 00,000/ per month as com-
pensation. It may be wrong to say that one
can get a new employee B with the same
number of years of experience for half the
salary of A. If an employer were to work
out math and has the same number of em-
ployees but with half the wage bill, would
she be getting the same desired result? It
may not work out all the time. Because,
the consultancy business is to do more with
the intellect of the employee rather than the
number of years of experience that she has.

In consultancy, the major investment and
outflow for an employer is the people cost
in addition to the real estate expenses un-
like in a manufacturing unit where the
investments for machinery and the cost
of raw material are paramount. As said
earlier, the intellect of a person over rules
the number of years of experience. Many
fail to understand or accept this reality and
hence might run into trouble.

Priority
A consultant in her profession has to keep
herself abreast of the new developments,
new technology and new products being
made available worldwide for her to stay
on top. In this endeavour, the manufactur-
er, the distributor and the sales executives
keep wanting to meet the consultant to ap-
praise the consultant of the developments.
Apart from meeting, appraising and con-
ducting technical presentations, they also
offer to take them to their place of manu-
facturing or installation in India or abroad.
It is definitely a necessity for a consultant
to fully understand and get convinced about
the technical suitability of the product be-
fore recommending it to the client and it is
her moral responsibility as well. And such
requests are not few. This entails the con-
sultant spending large amount of her time

heeding to these requests and in the bar-
gain, the service to the client might take a
hit. It is also observed that some consul-
tants accept the offer to visit foreign sites
far too often. While it is very important
for a consultant to know what is happening
around the world, it is to be understood that
the client comes first and her time needs to
be prioritized. A workable balance has to
be struck between the two for a consultant
to be successful.

Supportive Family
For a business to succeed there has to be
a great amount of understanding between
the partners. It is a given. But what needs
more is the understanding between the
families of the partners as well. Unless the
families are supportive, it is difficult for the
growth of the organization. What better
ways there could be for the families of the
partners to come together and get to know each
other well than having outings now and
then? One another reason for the enormous
success of Potential was that the families
of all the three partners used to get away
once every year for a few days, be it within
the country or outside, thereby enhancing
the already existing good camaraderie.

It is my firm belief and experience that a
fully supportive family forms the back
bone for any success.
Supportive Family

Clarity
The role of a consultant is to advice a cli-
ent for which she is engaged and paid for.
Hence, first and foremost, the consultant
has to be clear in her mind as to what is she
going to advice and how. The advice so
given shall not have ambiguity and it shall
easily be understandable/readable and im-
plementable at site. Apart from being im-
plementable, it also should make sure that
the work so implemented is serviceable in
time to come. It should not be a case of
‘fit and forget’ as most of the work imple-
mented needs attention at a later date and
should easily be accessible and service-
able. Hence, the clarity of the advice is of
great significance.

Expression
A consultant has many modes of expres-
sion. It could be verbal or through text as
in the case of mails/Technical Specifica-
tions/ Bill of Materials or through drawings
or combination of all the above. An excel-
lent idea conceived by a consultant serves
little purpose unless it is expressed vividly
without any ambiguity. Expressing one’s
thoughts or responses through e-mails or
while describing how the work needs to be
carried out is of great importance as the in-
correct way of expression (may be due to
inadequate language skills) can sometimes
be detrimental to the work in question. So
it is just not enough if the consultant is
highly creative unless she is able to convert
her ideas into reality on the ground through
proper expression and communication.

English Language Skills
While the mother tongue of a miniscule
percentage of Indians is English, we all
know that English is The business language
of India and one has to be adept at it to con-
duct business in a meaningful way. I am
not saying this with any pride; but that is
the realty of the matter, at least as of now in
our Country. So to be able to express clear-
ly and correctly, a consultant is expected to
have a certain minimum English language
skills, more so while it comes to putting
down on paper. Unfortunately, that partic-
ular skill seems to be waning amongst the
not-so young gen. Many a time, it is a pain
even to read, let alone understand what is
written in a mail and that too coming from
a university degree holder. During my
engineering college days in early 60s, we

had one full paper dedicated to English
language and many of my fellow students
were wondering as to why one should un-
necessarily go through the hassles of pass-
ing that subject when they were studying
for engineering. Probably they could not
understand the importance of honing the
language skills at that time. Unfortunately,
in the later years, the Bangalore University
removed that subject from the curriculum
itself, may be thinking on the lines of such
of those students who did not want it as a
part of the curriculum.

While on this, I would like to reproduce
a paragraph from the book titled A Bet-
ter India A Better World by the legendary
Narayana Murthy emphasizing the impor-
tance of knowing correct English: “To-
day’s students are very likely to become
leaders in their chosen walks of life tomor-
row. Unless they are taught to write well
and speak correct English in a clear diction
and without a pronounced accent, all the
good things they learn in the class room
cannot be used by them to influence oth-
ers. I would institute a compulsory course
in English writing starting from the fifth
grade.”

Own The Project - Feel The Pride
This was the mantra I used to practice as
well as preach during my Potential days.
Irrespective of the level at which one is
engaged in a project, unless she feels that
she belongs to that project, the outcome is
always questionable. One has to in my
words, own the project and there would al-
ways be the pride to feel later. There would
be a marked difference in the quality of the
output if one takes the ownership for what-
ever she does. Doesn’t it apply in our daily
live as well?

Chewing
I am more like a cattle which grazes non-
stop for hours only to chew at its leisure.
This habit of mine to think (chew) later in
the day of all that had gone into that day’s
activity has helped me a great deal in recti-
fying what was not done to my satisfaction
or even to just think and feel everything
was done right. I would do that even for an
e-mail sent that day. I always used to tell
my wards to cultivate the habit of chew-
ing as against forgetting once the job was
done. It definitely improves the quality of
our service levels (at least, it has happened
in my case).

Partners
As was already mentioned earlier, Guru-
raj (Guru) and Aswath Narayan (Aswath)
were the other two who along with me ran
Potential to all its glory.
Guru is a workaholic and he just loves

what he does. Today he is an authority in
structural engineering in his own right. A
very bright student with masters from the
famous Indian Institute of Science, Banga-
lore, he enjoys what he designs and takes
pride when the building is built per his
design. He has to his credit many highly
complicated buildings standing tall in the
country.

Aswath the other partner is a highly orga-
nized person doing his job meticulously.
He has reached great heights in Plumbing
and he is a member on the World Plumb-
ing Council. He is an authority in his own
chosen field.


Embarrassment
One of the very popular builders of
Bangalore namely Mantri Devel-
opers headed by its dynamic leader
Mr. Sushil Mantri and his wife Mrs. Snehal
Mantri had invited all the three of us to
their house warming ceremony a few years
ago. Incidentally, we were the most sought
after consultants by Mantri Developers
for many of their projects and we had an
excellent rapport with them as well as
their engineering team. The invitation that
they had given us carried two messages in
addition to the normal information.

the designated time and the driver drove
off without them. Upon reaching the plant
minus those who did not accompany us, we
had to listen to their adverse remarks. I felt
like the whole world was caving in, more
so, when I am indeed particular about be-
ing punctual even in our own country. You
can very well imagine my fate of being ad-
monished by a foreigner. But I could hard-
ly do anything but to face it.

Rarest Of Rare Opportunity
I was appointed as the electrical consul-
tant by none other than Dr. Devi Shetty ,
a household name in conducting heart sur-
geries of Manipal Heart Foundation (MHF)
on old airport road, Bangalore. Although I
had worked as a consultant on many hos-
pitals earlier, I had not worked on a heart
hospital. Dr. Devi Shetty, before setting
up MHF was the chief cardiac surgeon in
Birla Heart Hospital in Kolkata and asked
me if I want to get familiarized with the
electrical requirements of an operation the-
atre and whether I had the courage to see
a live heart operation in progress. I was
just wonderstruck and could not believe
my own ears at the offer made to me. I
accompanied him into the OT wearing the
scrub suit, mask and what not and stood

1. RSVP and 2. No gifts, please
The first message had been taken care of
by calling their office. However, being
the consultants to many of their projects,
notwithstanding the specific message on
the card, we felt a bit awkward attending
the function without carrying a present
and so we carried a beautiful crystal glass
piece and upon seeing Mrs. Snehal Man-
tri, I along with my partners, handed over
the gift to her along with our greetings. To
our utter embarrassment, she immediately
made a big face and told us that the card
clearly had mentioned not to offer gifts and
in fact, she almost refused our gift. But,
being very magnanimous, she finally ac-
cepted it for having offered it. From that
day onwards, I have not repeated that mis-
take again in my life.

Another big embarrassing moment that I
had to face during my Potential days was
when we were in Wolfsburg, Germany.
We were the engineering consultants for
the Volkswagen car manufacturing plant in
Chakan, Pune and in that connection, the
manufacturer had invited a team of archi-
tects and us to visit their plant in Wolfsburg
to get acquainted with their expectations,
their methodology, standards and so on. We
were a team of seven or eight specialists
who had gone to Wolfsburg. They had or-
ganized a pick up from the hotel where we
had been accommodated, to take us to their
plant every morning. Being punctual to the
last minute, the car would come to the ho-
tel at the designated time for us to board the
vehicle. To my utter dismay, some of the
members of our team did not come down
to board the vehicle even 5 minutes after

very close to the operating table when the
surgery was in progress. The facilities pro-
vided inside the operating theatre in that
hospital in Kolkata helped me a lot when it
had to be replicated in MHF. It was once
in a life time opportunity for an engineer to
be inside the heart operation theatre, fortu-
nately not as a patient but as an observer.
Any amount of thanking Dr. Devi Shetty
for his gesture would not be enough.

Manager
A person irrespective of her profession
or qualification becomes a manager as
she progresses in her career. She tends to
spend her quality time managing ever so
many issues along with the work related to
her subject specialization. And most reput-
ed companies make sure that their senior
executives undergo training in managerial
courses/workshops to hone their skills in
that segment.

Especially when one is running a business,
it is also essential that she develops com-
mercial skills along with managerial skills
as she is more often than not required to
take active part in commercial discussions
and negotiations. So a good combination
of techno-commercial skill set becomes es-
sential for a consultant to be successful.

Acknowledgements
For a person to succeed in life, knowing-
ly or otherwise the contribution of ever so
many people around her would have had its
influence and it is no different in my case.
Taking a cue from the legendary Naraya-
na Murthy’s A Better India A Better World
wherein he has acknowledged so many
people, I would like to acknowledge the
contribution of these directly or indirectly
to my success.
Like I have already mentioned, my thanks

goes to my immediate family comprising
two sons, their wives and three grandsons
and especially to my wife Usha who has
been a pillar of strength for all the 46 years
of our happy marriage.
God has bestowed upon me the support of
extremely close and affectionate family

members comprising of parents, parents in
law, brother, sister, sisters in law, brothers
in law, cousins both from my parents’ side
as well as from my wife’s side and a large
number of friends.
I had the best of support from my dear part-

ners and their families alike.
No consultant or a company can prosper
without the patronage and support of ever
so many people in the industry such as the
ex employers, mentors, clients, architects,
interior designers, fellow consultants, con-
tractors, project managers, manufactures,
distributors, system integrators etc. I have
refrained from listing out the individual
names though I wish to, as it might run in
to hundreds and more importantly, I might
possibly miss out a few names.
My special acknowledgement goes to the

contractors who install what a consultant
designs. However good a design is, unless
it is installed properly, the end result will
never be acceptable. Good workmanship
brings laurels to the designer as well as the
installer and hence my special thanks to the
contractor fraternity.
I would like to place on record timely ad-

vice given by my ex MD, Mr. Ashok Pavate
who took pains to read through the roughs
and for giving me some invaluable sug-
gestions for the betterment of the contents.
Also, I would like to thank him from the
bottom of my heart for writing a foreword
for Pain & Pleasure. I cannot but acknowl-
edge the contribution of Dr. Simha Shastry
in designing the format, for the cover de-
sign and for the overall look and feel of the
book in its final form as the reader sees it.

Role Models
There have been a few persons in my life
who directly or indirectly are responsible
in shaping my life and my personality and
I am indebted to all of them.
First and foremost, it is my father (late) B.V.

Rama Krishna who led a highly disciplined
life all through with a lot of ethical values.
A man of few words, he was always well
dressed and was known for his hard work,
punctuality and integrity.
Mr. Ashok Pavate, ex Managing Director,

Semac Private Limited and my first em-
ployer. A tall, fare and a handsome man of
good leadership, integrity, composure and
wit. I hold him in the highest esteem.

Mr. T.K.Prasad, ex Director, Semac Pri-
vate Limited and my first employer. A
highly skilled engineer always willing to
support his juniors and colleagues and of
helpful nature. I had the innumerable num-
ber of opportunities to travel along with
him to many outstation project sites and he
never once had treated me as a junior. I
have a lot of respect for this gentleman.
Mr. Azim Premji, CMD, Wipro Limited,

a business tycoon and a real big philan-
thropist. In spite of his billions, he lives a
modest life and has contributed billions to
the social cause. I have had good fortune
to share the dais with him on a number of
occasions and even had one to one discus-
sion with him on some common topic. I
just salute this great Indian.

Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy, chairman
emeritus, Infosys Limited. Probably he is
the biggest role model for the entire coun-
try and look at where he has taken India
on the world map. Till today, I have the
biggest disappointment in not able to see
him in flesh and blood let alone meeting
him. Nevertheless, he is definitely my role
model too.
Mr. Rattan Tata of Tata Sons. Whatever

is written about him would still be insuffi-
cient. One of his kind in this generation,
he again is probably the role model for the
entire country and mine too.
I would like to end this book of mine with
the noble words of a great doctor, C. K.
Manjunath, Head of Jayadeva Cardiac
Hospital, Bangalore when he said in one of
the Award Ceremonies recently:

Dedication is more important than
Designation
Sincerity is more important than

Seniority
Values are more important than

Valuables
Loyalty is more important than

Royalty
I sincerely hope and pray that the youth of

our country follow these noble words at
least to some extent in letter and spirit for a
better tomorrow.
************************

A Few Words
from the
Top Industry Leaders

Sushil Mantri
CMD
Mantri Developers
It was always pleasure dealing cial, you have developed Tech-

and interacting with you profes- no-commercial skillsets, which
sionally and at personal levels. I are normally not seen in Con-
know you since Year 2001 when sultants.
you designed our residential
projects Mantri Elegance. That Thereafer I came across with
was our first assignment with you more closely when you took
Potential Consultants and there- retainer ship assignment with
after Potential has designed our Mantri Developers and prepared
several projects. electrical standards for mantri
Developers, that time I saw your
During my interactions with command in seeing through tha
all 3 senior partners of Ptential, future and draft electrical design
I had maximum interactions standards for our group, keeping
with you as you were handling futures 5-10 years in mind. I am
financial matters of yours group thankful for the same.
in addition to handling electri-
cal designing work. I found you Overall our all interactions in
possess unique qualities of great last - 18 years were very pro-
ability in designing (Electrical ductive and result oriented. That
area) as well as excellent grip on has helped both organizations to
financial / commercial angle of grow in mutual benefits.
each prject, due to your invol-
ment in group financial mat- I wish all the best and success to
ter. Due to your involvement in you in all your endeavors.
financial matters of Poten-

TM Thomas
Principle Architect
Thomas Associates
I am pleased to say that i have of Potential Services, illustrates

known Mr BRV Murthy, both his forward thinking approach,
professionally and personally for having foreseen the tremendous
the last three decades. growth possibilities in Consul-
tancy Services.
We have had the pleasure of
working on several types and I would go as far as to say that his
sizes of building projects where withdrawing from active consul-
his invaluable knowledge of tancy role has been detrimental
Electrical systems has been most to the availability of experienced
useful. Electrical Consultants in the
South,
His calm, cool and unflappable
approach to complex electrical However I do envy his
issues has helped solve seemingly decision to withdraw from active
intractable problems during practice and live a relaxed life...
planning execution and a fond hope that most of us
subsequent usage of projects. nurse secretly.
His presence when bidding I wish him all the best.

for new projects has mostly
swung projects in our favour the With great Regards and
client being assured due his sure affection,
knowledge of Services,
His Colleague T M Thomas.
Having been the Key founder

B S A Narayan
While congratulating you for and consultancy. I recall some of

having completed writing a book our Architect colleagues used to
on “Potential Service Consul- call us “Tri-Murthis” in the field
tants “ success from the incep- of consultancy.
tion to become one of the lead-
ing consultancy house in India. Potential service Consultants
achieved the goal with the ded-
In the year 2008, I was inter- icated leaders and the team of
viewed for a technical magazine people involved to take “poten-
and asked about Potential’s suc- tial” a name to recon with Na-
cess in the field of consultancy tionally.
and about the core competency
of Potential to achieve this suc- Myself and Manju thank all our
cess. I stated that the in-depth colleagues of Potential and take
experience of the founders of this opportunity to wish you a
Potential for twenty years in great success in bringing out this
the organisation, upgrading of book.
technologies, constant endeav-
our to comply with Codes and
standards with our visions and
Missions to become a Pan India
leader in the field of Engineering

A N Prakash
Construction Project
Management Consultants P. Ltd.
B R V MURTHY as I know him. This in itself is a reflection of

I affectionately call him, Murthy. his well-organized systematic
Our professional association and approach to anything he does.
friendship goes way back to mid
70s. Murthy to me is a well-en- Very gentle and generous human
trenched thorough professional. being with an eye for style, be it
his dress, house, cars or pens. I
His command over his subject have not seen him loosing his
is well known and respected by composure. Murthy has always
others in his domain and also conveyed his points through
other professionals who were assertion and not through
associated with him. arrogance.We have spent some
very memorable and hilarious
One of the first things I observed days together and will always
in Murthy and which I wanted to cherish it. He will remain one of
emulate and have not been able my best friends.
to do it despite best of my efforts,
is his well-organised life and life- My best wishes to Murthy and
style. He maintains a dairy (not his family.
electronic) in which he docu-
ments his every day activities
in his immaculate handwriting.

Najeeb Khan,
Managing Director
Khan Global Engineering Consultants P Ltd
I met BRV, that’s what we call so BRV arrived on the dot. His
him, during the struggling days entire persona, from his impec-
of my business. It had been cable body language and man-
a couple of years since I had nerisms to his listening and
moved to Bangalore after com- answering skills exuberated class
pleting a long stint at an ar- and charisma.
chitectural firm in the US and
I was running pillar to post At the end of the meeting, BRV
trying to set up a new practice took the initiative to connect
in a fiercely competitive market. me to one of his clients who was
Interestingly, at that same time looking for an architectural con-
BRV’s engineering firm, Poten- sultant. I was absolutely thrilled.
tial Service Consultancy, was at It was a huge university project
its peak. It was one of the biggest and referring that to small de-
engineering consultancy firm in sign firm was a huge risk for BRV.
the country, known for its strong The thing that had an everlasting
engineering capabilities and impact on me was that he put
delivery. his trust in me. I was inspired
and motivated and put all my
I still remember the meeting heart and soul in the project and
vividly. BRV’s punctuality is a Potential became our engineer-
well-known fact in the fraternity, ing partner for the job. That client

became one of the biggest anchor could help us grow just as he had
clients for us and over the years done with Potential Consultants.
has given us the opportunity to Within two years of joining our
design millions of square feet. company he completely changed
That 15 minute meeting, that the company. I witnessed
took place in a corner meeting the difference that bringing
room at the Potential Office, not discipline can make in a young
only changed my life but also company and the importance
started a lifelong business and of mentorship in a company.
personal relationship between BRV mentored numerous
BRV and me. people within our company
from the top level to mid-level
Over the course of our collab- to freshers, from technical staff
oration, I had the opportunity to administration staff to finan-
of witnessing and learning pro- cial staff. He cemented in me the
fessional acumen and wisdom importance of injecting three
from BRV. The connections and aspects namely trust, discipline
trust that he created with clients, and mentorship in a company.
employees, fellow consultants Over the years we have grown
and contractors was inspiring. tremendously and In a sus-
Whenever I think of BRV the tainable way. For that, a big
one word that comes to mind thank you and salute to BRV.
is trust. His trust in his design, I am so happy to see that BRV is
in his words, in his actions and writing a book on his experience
in the ability to trust others and of building successful compa-
empower people is magnificent. nies in the field of engineering
He was a kind and modest leader and consultancy. His wisdom
and it came across in all interac- will definitely help many people
tions. as it has helped me tremendous-
ly! I wish BRV the very best and
I have learned many things from success as he takes on this new
BRV, and hence when I wanted venture.
to grow my company further,
he was the obvious choice for
the role. I took the liberty and
convinced him to join my com-
pany as a Director. I knew he

T.S. Gururaj
Co-Founder
Potential
Extremely happy that you

have almost completed writ-
ing a book on ‘Potential Ser-
vice Consultants ‘ from its
inception to its success, to be
released in June 2019.
I am sure it reflects true spir-

it, determination and the ef-
forts of the people involved
and the contributions by
many generations of staff and
the important decision taken
during the history of PSC .
I and Suma take this oppor-

tunity to wish you a greater
success .

Potential Service Consultants
Pvt. Ltd.

BRV Murthy
About The Author
BRV Murthy is an electrical engineering graduate of

Bangalore University and was a practicing consultant till
recently. He has been instrumental in designing some of
the complicated electro mechanical systems for different
types of buildings, be it an IT campus, Data Center, Multi
Storied Residential/Commercial complex, Hospital,
Hotel, large industries etc., He was the co-founder of
a highly successful consulting engineering company,
Potential Service Consultants Private Limited and
Potential Project Managers Private Limited.
He now takes assignments only on request or on

selective basis to keep himself aligned to the industry.
He is also the founder President of Electrical Consultants
Association of India (ELCA). He has since retired from
active consultancy and lives with his wife Usha in
Bangalore.

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I would like to put on record my grateful

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I being an amateur writer, the reader might

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Also, I have used the word ‘consultant’ in

Unlike in my previous book titled Experi-

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What started as a one man office on the 1st

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In a nutshell, the absence of individual ego

A couple of things we as partners were

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I had heard one senior gentleman saying

As all of us agree, staff retention is the big-

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Potential took pride in the fact that it dis-

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A. Attendance Bonus: 7.5% of the gross

B. Of course, the lady employees were

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C. A onetime Rs. 5,000/ was given to

D. Contributory Provident Fund, as re-

E. Employees were covered under the

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G. Anniversary parties were eagerly await-

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H. Probably for the first time in the Con-

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I. The biggest of all was the large

No wonder, there was such a low rate of

While talking on the insurance scheme,

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One another incident comes to mind re-

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