Shalabh Kumar: Innovating his way to outstanding entrepreneurial success

Shalabh Kumar with his son's Vikram Aditya anb Arjun

Mr. Shalabh Kumar, Chairman and CEO of AVG group of companies is an NRI from Punjab, who has combined innovation and profits in business with a social conscience.

Apart from being a highly successful businessman, he is an inventor, holds more than 10 US patents and has created many new industries in North America. His success as an inventor, a highly successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, is a result of dedication, hard work and foresight, in addition to an ability to take calculated risks.

The company he heads, the AVG group is a Chicago based m u l t i n a t i o n a l group of companies involved in many facets of electronics industry with particular emphasis on industrial automation. The group has world wide operations with its European headquarters in Germany and Asian headquarters in Bangalore, India. It also has franchise operations all over the globe.

AVG was founded in 1975, and has, over the years, acquired many other companies. It is a mini-conglomerate of electronics companies operating world wide, with a total installed base of over one billion dollars. AVG is into automation controls, semiconductors, telecommunications, thick-film hybrids, electronic component manufacturing and distribution.

Mr Kumar’s story began years earlier as an immigrant who had the courage to come to a new land, with a totally new culture and way of life. When he boarded a plane to pursue higher education in the United States, it was, by all accounts a journey into an uncertain future for the young man. “I had no friends in the US. But I adapted easily” recalled Mr Kumar in an interview with NRI Today. Even as a student he showed the promise of his ability to be resourceful, a trait which was to pay him rich dividends later on.

Assimilation into mainstream America came naturally to Mr Kumar. “In a little over two months, my Indian accent began to change” he said. Mr. Kumar’s success story traces its origin to Punjab. Born in an Aryasmaji middle class family, Mr. Kumar along with his older brother and two younger sisters quickly realized the value of good solid education. He ranked 2nd in Punjab University in 1965, and through the grant of a merit scholarship, proceeded to get his Bachelor of Science in Electronics Engineering from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, in 1969.

Unlike today’s well heeled students who come to the US from India, and who land on the shores armed with enough foreign exchange and a scholarship, Mr Kumar arrived in the US with a negative account balance of $3000 since his tuition even after the scholarship, exceeded what he was able to borrow from family and relatives. Despite the financial setbacks

, hard work and perseverance won – he was able to obtain his masters degree in a record 9 months and went on to work for a very small high technology company called NanoFast . The pace of Mr Kumar’s success over the years has been impressive and hectic. “I had a new invention almost every six months,” he recalled. Despite his success, he still keeps a frenetic pace. “I work almost 100 hours a week” he said. At AVG, the then owners decided to reward him for his inventions and his hard work by making him a partner. Two years later when they retired they sold the company to him.
<blockquote>“We are designing products, that can not only be manufactured in the US, but we can also do it in a way which is competitive in the global market.”</blockquote>

Now the company is set to enter a new phase of growth with the taking over of its reins by Mr Kumar’s son, Vikram Aditya Kumar, who has also studied electrical engineering at his father’s favorite university, the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Vikram earlier attended Rumsey boarding school in Connecticut, where he learnt the virtues of hard work and discipline and had the singular honor of being the Valedictorian at the Rumsey graduation ceremony. At the Illinois Institute of Technology, Vikram graduated suma-cum-laude before joining his father’s business, where he now handles the company’s international operations.

Brimming with new ideas and raring to go, Vikram wants to expand the company to new frontiers, both technologically and geographically. His father became the company’s CEO at 28, a record Vikram wants to beat. “He wants to retire me in five years,” laughs Mr. Kumar with fatherly indulgence, adding, “he has imbibed the virtue of patience, but wants to leave his own footprint.”

Pooja, Vikram’s bride, matches him in both talent and ambition. Crowned Miss India in 2007, she had offers to join Bollywood which she rejected. Explaining her decision she told a magazine that the worldwide attention and modeling offers she got subsequent to the crown were rigorous and fun, but her heart and soul remained in the field of medicine.

Born in Manchester, England, Pooja received her Bachelor’s in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Auckland. She attended the Diocesan School for Girls, which has as its motto Ut Serviamus (we live to serve) which she seems to have imbibed in herself. Pooja intends to specialize in cosmetic surgery after moving to Chicago. The senior Kumar’s corporate journey began in 1972 when he joined a ‘very entrepreneurial’ company, the National Controls Corporation, where he designed a new product almost every two weeks, including the now world famous French Fry Computer for McDonalds. Here he was also credited for the first use of the very first microprocessor, Intel 4004, in an Automation control device. In 1975, he invented the first microprocessor based replacement for a rotary cam limit switch used in the metal forming presses of General Motors. He named it Programmable Limit Switch or PLS for short, which created a brand new industry which is still a major industry today. This was the start of Autotech, the ‘a” of AVG.

The PLS was able to solve 20000 three digit set points in an unbelievable 57 microseconds, as a result of which, AVG still controls more than 70% of the world’s two piece can manufacturing lines. Mr. Kumar is one of the top most electronic hardware designers in the world specializing in high speed operations.

“Every invention is a risk as much as entrepreneurship,” says Mr Kumar “and I have never shied away from risks.”

Education has been the key to Mr. Kumar’s professional advancement. One of his laments is that the education system in the United States-a country he loves as much as the land of his birth, India – has ended up making graduates lazier. They are content to outsource manufacturing to other counties, he said. “Why can’t we keep manufacturing in the United States itself ?'' he asks, “I am designing products that can not only be manufactured in the US, but can also be done in a way which is competitive in the global market.”

The world is flat, notes Mr Kumar. “We must have the ability in the US to manufacture products here and sell it to India or China.”

Apart from his roles as a businessman, philanthropist and loving father, Mr Kumar is involved in a variety of social and political issues. “I have no political ambitions,” he said, “but I am a Reagan Democrat and have been involved with Nikki Haley, as well as issues that affect Indo-US relations, the Unites States and the future of mankind.”

Few inventors have made a success of themselves in business, Mr Kumar being one of the rare exceptions.

“Every invention is a risk as much as entrepreneurship'', explains Mr Kumar “and I have never shied away from risks.” The secret of his success is a grueling work pace, as well as the well known exhortation from the Bhagwad Gita:

“I believe in duty but I also believe that destiny is made,” Mr Kumar said. The guiding maxim of his life is “Karmani ava adhikarasthe Ma faleshu kadachana, Ma karma fala heturbhu, Ma te sangaha astu swa karmani.”
(The advice given by Lord Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield, which paraphrases as ‘You have a right to action but not to the fruit thereof’)

[ BY DEV ]