Ghodawat Group deals in food, agriculture, energy and in many more areas and earns a revenue of about 1000 crore.
Sounds strange…Never heard of this group..??????? The struggle started in 1988 when Sanjay Ghodawat now 45 years travelled in a tempo; to sell a pan masala called Quality, shop-to-shop across Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa. But in 1992, times started changing when he introduced his own Gutka brand- STAR and it did all the wonders for him. Today his Gutka brand is most favored in western India. The incredible thing about Ghodawat’s business empire is that its almost completely based and fully run from a small town KOLHAPUR.
Today only one-fifth of revenues are coming from Gutka and rest coming from a big basket of other products in which the group entered.
He is now referred to as VIJAY MALLYA of Maharashtra- he owns a chopper- Eurocopter and a range of more than 100 CARS which includes Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Vintage Plymouth, a Bentley and the list goes on and is being extended. This group is a perfect example of small town-Big business running from Kolhapur.
The group currently has a muscle power of more than 5000 employees and is growing as per the diversification.
THE GREEN INITIATIVE-
The group currently owns and operates about 150 wind turbines which generate about 100 MW of electricity. The group plans to invest Rs. 400 crore in next five years, in energy.
MANAGER’S PERSPECTIVE-
As these businesses are run from small-towns, they sometimes fail to attract good talent. The main reason is that the professionals don’t want to move to small towns.