Achieving an unheard feat

Rajiv Malhotra
DIRECTOR, Malhotra Cables P ltd
Years of experience: 20 years

Mr. Rajiv Malhotra is a focused and humble person since his childhood. His inner conscious was always very active and he used to see the world with kindness and gratitude. Besides being good in studies, he was a sincere and ambitious child and socially active within his friends circle. He always had a great regard for his parents and love for his younger brother. He worked with full sincerity in all these 20 years at every position of his company. He has always been a very good learner, whether from his own experience, his customers or his associates. He has seen many Automotive Industries globally and tried to transform the best points to his own company. His life goal is to build world class organisation which is recognised globally with best business practices and high moral values. He always believes in “One should always be Motivated by the people close to you and also from your Competition.

Charting The Path
After completing his education in 1998, Mr. Malhotra joined his family business of manufacturing automotive cables for after-market or Tier 2 automotive suppliers run by his father Mr. Jagdish Malhotra. Businesses in India in the 90s were unorganised and person–centric. Mr. Rajiv Malhotra strived to change this way and after intense training under the guidance of his father for 2 years, he started reforming his company from a typical family-owned business to a corporate, professional organisation. His primary focus was to transform his company from person-driven to system– driven. In 2000, he achieved his primary goal by certifying his organisation as ISO 9001 & QS 9000 company, a feat that was unheard of in those days, especially for after-market suppliers.

After creating robust systems in manufacturing with latest technology and building efficient teams, he slowly moved towards marketing. He understood the need of the hour is to remain in the main stream supply chain of OEM Business as after-market business did not offer much potential due to technical changes and changing customer demands. He formulated a strategy by approaching automotive makers (four wheelers, two wheelers and commercial vehicles) as well as OEM wiring harness makers at the same time. He built the very best R&D Centre with help of few customers to cater to the technical demand of all new age vehicles. He created excellent relationships with his direct customers as well as automobile manufacturers by building a team, which focused only on new age products and cost-effectiveness by maintaining the highest grade of quality and customer satisfaction. Under his leadership, Malhotra Cables Pvt Ltd achieved great heights in terms of revenue and profitability.

Revenue of the company, which was Rs. 36 million per annum in 1998 increased to Rs. 10800 Million per annum in 2018 from one plant to five plants at Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Chennai. Under his leadership, the company achieved many customer approvals from various automobile manufacturers like Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen, Mahindra, Renault Nissan, Toyota, Honda Cars, Fiat Chrysler, Volvo, Ashok Leyland, Hero Motors, Honda Two wheelers, Bajaj Motors, TVS Motors and many more and supplying directly through the Wiring Harness makers like Yazaki, Aptive (formerly Delphi), Furukawa, Dhoot Transmission, Minda Group, Fujikura, Lear, Napino Automotive and many more. Malhotra Cables Pvt Ltd is now ISO/ TS 16949, ISO 14000 & OHSAS 18000 Company. Apart from this, Mr. Malhotra is representing India as an expert for all International Standard Organisation (ISO) meetings for creating new standards that are more feasible and environment friendly for end users.

Life Lessons
One of the biggest risks that I have taken to achieve my goals, which finally turned out to be the biggest lesson is to step out of the comfort zone. When I joined my business, we were pretty well established in after sales market but I foresee growth in OEM supplies. There was a situation back in year 2000 that we need to choose one, as expectations of After Sales Market and OEM was totally different and with great courage I choose to focus only on OEM supplies and follow my passion. Today I can say very proudly, that my decision was right and we are the No 1 supplier of Automotive wires in India. With my experience of 20 years I have learnt many lessons but the outcome of these lessons are: