Case Study on Mahalaxmi Group of

Industries

Assignment-III

Subject: Case Study of Entrepreneurs

Group Members:

Kanika Jain (094223)

Parth Mair (094240)

Sweta Patel (094255)

Submitted to:

Prof. Gopalakrishnan and Prof. Satish Nair

Institute of Management, Nirma University

12th November 2010

Entrepreneurial Journey

After finishing B.Com., Jeetmalji came to Ahmedabad in search of job. He joined M/s
Mankad & Company (located near ‘Teen Darwaza’) which was engaged in auditing trust
firms only. He worked there for 6 months. Meanwhile an old friend suggested him to come to
Calcutta (in 1962) and to pursue his CA studies while doing job. He found the option worthy
and so he shifted to Calcutta. He was offered a job of an accounts clerk in an engineering
firm with two options, to work at factory or at the office. He chose the factory as it offered a
higher salary. He started his CA study simultaneously and went to the classes scheduled in
the night after 9 pm. For the next 2 years this became his routine. Just then Jeetmalji’s family
contacted him and informed about his engagement. He was called back to Ahmedabad and
persuaded to join his brother’s business of selling sarees. The year was then 1965. He joined
his brother’s business and looked after the accounts of the shop. He got married in Dec. 1965
but refused to stay in Rajasthan and came back to Ahmedabad.

Jeetmalji’s mind was always thinking about new business opportunities. In 1966, one such
opportunity arrived when he came to know about a processing unit of textiles wanted to sell
off. He bought that unit for Rs.11000 and started Printing and Dyeing of cloth. But his
knowledge about the process was almost zero and didn’t know what to do. He hired a
technician who was expert in dyeing of cloth. But the problems didn’t stop there; he had
issues with working capital as the raw material suppliers operated only on cash and the
suppliers wanted to sell in big lots so it became very difficult for Jeetmalji to arrange for
money. He saw profits only if volumes were created and so he arranged for loans from
friends and family and bought cloth in lots. Meanwhile, he setup 4 printing tables and started
printing designs on cloth. The bleaching and finishing part, which was before and after
printing process, was then outsourced while the packing was done by hand in ‘takas’.

The production remained in full bloom for the season time (4 months), but his factory had
very less work in the remaining 8 months. So he thought of doing job work for big mills
which would give him volumes and his plant capacity can be utilized. The first such customer
was Nagri Mills, who outsourced its printing of cloth to Jeetmalji’s unit. The Mill provided
design samples and he had approve his samples against it before starting the processing the
whole lot. To pass his samples, He had to pay Rs.40 as commission to the matching officer.
He increased the quality of the printing done at his unit by using the best colours available in
market as he didn’t wanted to lose customer on quality grounds. The challenging part of the
work was that it had to be completed and returned back to mill within 15 days. He worked in
two shifts to achieve the target in 15 days. Gradually the job work grew and he got occupied
for the whole year. Electricity was a major problem those days and was not available to the
factories at night, so he bought 24 petromax/lanterns to work at night. Simultaneously, he
was unable to provided printing services to his brother’s saree shop which discontented his
brothers. The dispute grew big and he separated from his brother’s business in 1970 along
with other two brothers. His work was increasing day by day and so thought of expansion.

He got a piece of land near his original factory and setup an additional printing facility there.
The technology had advanced and roller printers came, so he decided to invest in roller
printers to speed up and improve quality of production. To support his printing business, he
wanted to start trading of grey cloth. For this he rented a shop in new cloth market and started
a firm called “Jeetmal Trading” with the help of funds from his savings and friends.