H A N D I M A N S E R V I C E S L I M I T E D , DIRECTOR

December 9, 2008

Porus Irani
35,HOUSEHOLD SERVICES PROVIDER
DIRECTOR, H A N D I M A N S E R V I C E S L I M I T E D
INITIAL INVESTMENT : IN 1998 Rs 20 lakh
CURRENT TURNOVER: Rs 35 crore

SUCCESS MANTRA: Being positive and believing everything is possible.
ROLE MODEL:"His father Behram Irani who gave him the opportunity to make his own mistakes and learn."
BIGGEST OBSTACLE: Getting the apt people and building the right team for his company.

So the party last night was a blast, but have you considered the clean-up? If you’ve been wondering whether someone could do it for you, call for the dust-buster plan of Porus Irani, director, Bangalore-based,Handiman Services."We provide post-party cleaning services and even shampoo the carpets if a customer wants,” says Irani. That’s not all. One of India’s biggest facility management firms, Handiman maintains big housing and office complexes and offers a host of services that range from housekeeping to interior fitouts.Ten years ago, Porus Irani was going door to door in his neighbourhood in Central

Porus irani and his team of workers at handiman on the job

Bangalore, offering electrical and plumbing services. Today, he is the Director of a facilities management and home-maintenance company, Handiman Services.with about 5,500 employees. The journey, which began with the real estate meltdown of 1997, has been long and hard. Irani set up Handiman in 1998. His father Behram Irani had an electrical contracting business, but Porus thought bigger. "Back then, my father had a wiring business, and the crash had left our electricians idle, as most projects had stalled. We needed to do something if we were to stay afloat, and that’s when I thought of starting a home-maintenance company. I knew from experience that it was hard to find an electrician or a plumber in Bangalore," he says. More importantly, he wanted to start a venture that would not be affected by the vagaries of the real estate or stock markets, which had left his family’s wiring business struggling.Irani pooled in money with his father and two other partners, raising about Rs 20 lakh in capital he set up a 1,500-sq-ft office on Brunton Road in Bangaloreand started supplying electricians, plumbers and carpenters in his neighbourhood. Thus was born Handiman Services, which would soon change the way homes and offices were maintained in the Garden City. Handiman started off by sending electricians and plumbers to whoever called. Initially, Irani and his team would make direct marketing calls and distribute handouts at street corners. Irani studied at night college (Baldwin Methodist College) so that he could run his business by the day. He soon realised that he needed bigger clients than his neighbours.Within months, they had figured out the gap in the market, and started adding more services. Gradually, the company went beyond cleaning and electrical problems, and began handling everything from fixing a leaking tap and nailing a picture frame to renovating bathrooms and cleaning up after parties. Despite the home services being a hit, Irani realised that the big money would come only from corporates and housing complexes. So, he began by talking to big firms in Bangalore, offering to do everything from providing security guards to cleaning the insides and outsides of buildings and taking care of gardens.

Slow start:

The journey wasn’t easy. "Like any start-up, we too started off with just one client and one person running the show. We had to sell the very idea of property maintenance," he says. Handiman’s first corporate client was real estate major Raheja Group, which had four buildings in Bangalore that needed maintaining. Since the Rahejas had never outsourced this sort of work to a third party, Handiman had to pass a little test before bagging the maintenance contract. The company was told to clean and maintain a road divider sponsored by Raheja on St Mark’s Road, a busy intersection in the city. "This was a real test since traffic on that road was very heavy. We could only scrub the divider in the middle of the night," reminisces Irani.Irani took seven nights to do it and under-quoted himself, so finally didn’t make any money.But his team pulled it off, and the Raheja contract was in the bag.The Rahejas offered him maintenance of three of their housing complexes, where handymen would take care of security, housekeeping, engineering services, electrical and plumbing services, carpentry and landscape maintenance.

Despite this initial success, the going was slow. Although Handiman managed to pick up a few clients, revenues were low. The big break came in 2000, when Texas Instruments asked the company to manage all its facilities. This, and some other big names, helped the company expand its customer list. Today, it counts 400 companies, retail outlets and banks, as well as 80 housing colonies and 3,000 households in Bangalore alone among its clients. "TI was the turning point. Today, we have about 100 people working onsite at the company, managing everything from housekeeping to maintaining gardens," Irani explains.

Home delivery:

"We do charge a premium. It’s for delivering good workmanship and taking full
responsibility for our work"
Porus Irani
Director, Handiman

In 2000, Handiman launched a plan for households, called the Handihome plan. Under the scheme, a household would have a plumber, electrician and carpenter at its disposal 24X7 for an annual charge of Rs 2,000. At Rs 200 apiece for every service thereafter, the services are quite steep. "We do charge a premium, but you get a lot in return for that—good workmanship, reliability and complete responsibility from the time the worker enters your house to the time he finishes the work," says Irani.

But consumers in Bangalore aren’t really cribbing. "Although they charge more than the neighbourhood plumber, at least they are on call day and night. For a working couple, that is a big boon," says Shruti Sharma who has been using the Handihome plan for the last three years.

Today, Handiman has 3,000 households subscribing to its services. But most of them belong to the high-income group, a tiny segment of the population. Most of them live in gated communities or high-end apartment blocks.

Still, Irani is confident he can expand his business beyond this small group: "We are already seeing an increase in the household services segment. People are becoming more and more conscious of the surroundings that they live in. For example, houses today are painted at least once in two years if not more often, unlike earlier." Handiman also has a dedicated 25-member team that goes out and gets business.

Competition has sprung up in the local market, and Handiman has even fallen prey to impostors, who have tweaked their names and claim to be associated with the company. In the home segment, most of its rivals are small local players that have cropped up and started sending electricians to people’s homes. "But we have an edge since we are the only comprehensive property management business. Unlike the competition, we don’t outsource a single function of our business," he clarifies.

Most of the company’s 5,500-odd employees are blue-collar staff like plumbers, cleaners, security officers, gardeners, painters, electricians, tile layers and masons. However, with such a large employee base, the cost of providing benefits such as PF, pension, etc, is very high, accounting for 30% of the cost of operations. In addition, there is the difficulty of finding skilled people, and then training and retaining them.

. Handiman has annual maintenance contracts of housing complexes in Bangalore and corporate clients including Volvo, Caterpillar and Vodafone. It has a 24/7 toll free number, on which anybody can call up for any kind of job, from fixing a leaking tap to polishing a floor. The company has a team of 4,500 technicians and engineers and is present in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune.

Expansion plans

"We started making profits within 16 months of commencing operations," says Irani. In 2007, the company had revenues of close to Rs 30 crore and is looking to double this in 2009. It is also in an aggressive expansion mode. Handiman opened its first branch in Mumbai in 2003, another in Chennai(2006). By the end of 2008, it will be operating out of Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mysore and Pune. The company is now focusing on the aviation sector to provide ground-handling and support services for airlines, including aircraft cleaning and baggage handling. Irani also wants to open offices in Dubai, Bangkok and Colombo by 2012. And if all goes as planned, Handiman will go public in 2015. The business opportunity is huge, says Irani: "Every door in every city presents a business opportunity for us."

“In a couple of years, we’re looking at a pan-Indian presence in 23 locations and by 2012, I’ll be expanding to Dubai and Colombo. Also, I have to realise my dream of launching an IPO,” he says. A fitness freak, Irani doesn’t believe in late hours and spends free time with his wife Natasha and sons, Yohan, 7, and Zaran, 4. But at work, everyday is a battle to organise his 5,500 employees to provide quality service. “My products are people. Goodwill, therefore, is very important.” He’s certainly earned it.

7 comments to “H A N D I M A N S E R V I C E S L I M I T E D , DIRECTOR”

Harry Pasakoglou

July 30, 2012 at 2:42 PM

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H A N D I M A N S E R V I C E S L I M I T E D , DIRECTOR

December 9, 2008

7 comments to “H A N D I M A N S E R V I C E S L I M I T E D , DIRECTOR”

Harry Pasakoglou

www.aishvaryaservices.com

www.aishvaryaservices.com

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