Make the commitment visible before the top line

The higher revenue number was persuasive until we asked what the enterprise would have to own. In 2023 we compared an illustrative customer-retained-casing service with a buy-process-sell model. The service showed ₹1.9 crore fees and ₹1.3 crore direct costs, while trading showed ₹4.8 crore revenue and ₹4.1 crore direct costs. The corresponding working-capital assumptions were ₹0.4 crore and ₹2.2 crore. I recommended the smaller top line because the extra ownership commitment changed the strategic proposition more than the contribution difference justified.

I grew up in Coimbatore and completed a Bachelor of Arts in Economics at the fictional Neravthi Economics College in May 1994. I joined Pevnathi Market Studies in June in a nine-person research group. We gathered commercial evidence for senior colleagues and kept the source and limits of an estimate visible. I learned that a market description could be accurate without establishing the opportunity a particular enterprise could actually serve.

In April 2002 I became a commercial analyst leading twelve colleagues within ₹1.5 crore annual practice expense. Clients wanted recommendations from imperfect evidence. I learned to separate the size of an activity from the conditions required to participate in it. A forecast could become more persuasive each time it was repeated without acquiring any stronger basis. Client leaders retained investment decisions; my responsibility was to make the assumption and its consequence understandable before the proposal hardened into a preferred answer.

I joined Dershavi Wheel Services in April 2010 as strategy manager, with eighteen colleagues and ₹3.2 crore annual function expense. The move brought me into a business where the usable input depended on qualified technical assessment. Collected casings were not automatically eligible for the proposed process. Asha’s plant colleagues supplied judgements that strategy needed to respect without claiming the ability to make them. I could understand the commercial consequence of an exclusion while leaving the technical decision with its owner.

I became head of strategy in April 2016, leading twenty-two colleagues within ₹4.8 crore annual expense. Two years later I supported a ₹6.8 crore expansion proposal using a selected collection account of 2400 casings without adequately preserving eligibility. Qualified assessment accepted 1500 and excluded 900 from the proposed process. We spent ₹28 lakh over six weeks withdrawing the unsupported premise and rebuilding the case. I did not treat the selected result as a universal acceptance rate or claim that withdrawing a proposal proved an avoided loss of ₹6.8 crore.

I became CSO in April 2021. Twenty-seven colleagues now work through four heads within ₹6.7 crore annual expense, including ₹1.2 crore research. Manoj Delsarkar retains enterprise authority, and Asha Vernelvi leads plant operations. The 2023 model comparison required a different distinction: the trading revenue included a larger ownership and working-capital commitment. We spent ₹46 lakh over nine weeks examining the options. The modelled direct contributions excluded central costs and the study expense; they were not realised profit.

In 2025 we examined three initiatives costing ₹10.2 crore against a ₹6.4 crore capital envelope. The recommendation selected a ₹3.8 crore process project and a ₹2.6 crore customer-traceability project, and deferred a ₹3.8 crore district expansion. A ₹62 lakh, ten-week strategy programme supported the decision separately from the project capital. I wanted the deferred option to remain visible because prioritisation has a consequence beyond the two proposals that receive approval.

My beneficial 0.1% interest sits inside the employee allocation, and I do not hold a statutory appointment. A first outside-board role would require further governance preparation and an assessment of the particular company. I would bring experience of making a growth proposal explain its usable inputs, ownership burden and competing use of capital. The board should be able to see why the smaller revenue path or the delayed expansion might be the better commitment, without mistaking my recommendation for technical clearance or a promise that the planned return will occur. I also ask my team to write the strongest reason for the option we are not recommending. That makes the discussion less comfortable and more useful. A proposal should survive a fair account of its alternative, including the customer need or capability that will remain unserved when the preferred investment receives the money.

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