Maier+Vidorno Startup Story
Starting a business in India is getting easier and easier, but it is
still unusual to hear that a successful entrepreneur who is a foreigner has
developed a successful business. One foreigner who has managed this is Klaus Maier, and the evolution of his company Maier+Vidorno over the past 17 years is
an interesting story.
Klaus Maier with his Management team in December 2015. The managers came from Gurugram, Chennai,
Pune, Bangalore, Mumbai, Cologne Germany for the15th anniversary
meeting in Delhi.
The initial days
Over the last 17 years, Klaus Maier has built his business to be the most
well-known provider of business solutions to foreign companies wanting to make
the most of the Indian market.
Klaus Maier came to India in 1990s as a mineral trader from New
York. He travelled across the country
visiting mines and suppliers and fell in love with the vast dynamic world of
making business deals in India. Working for the subsidiary of a foreign company
he learnt first-hand how confusing and complex Indian business can look from
the outside, yet he also saw that the country had so many talented people
trying to make the most of their opportunities.
“In the late 1990s I already knew I wanted to build my own business and
be an entrepreneur and it was the most natural thing for me to focus on helping
foreign companies enter and grow in India’s markets. I did meet some expats who
found the country confusing and frustrating, but I always felt at home here.
I started off in 2000 with my savings, a desk and a phone. Luckily I
also had expert advice from Francesco Motka who had been the head of Schenker
in Delhi and came in as a partner right from the start. He provided funds and
advice and left the rest to me and I spent the first few months talking with
any and all companies in my home country of Germany who were contemplating
expansion to India to see what help they needed.
Many saw the opportunities but were much focused on China at that time
where growth was increasing year on year and the government made entry easy for
foreigners.
There were still enough companies who saw India as an opportunity for
expansion, though. Either they were
already established in China or looked at India as a strategic balance to
competition in China.
Every service we developed was designed to solve the problem of one of
these companies. And when we found more
companies with the same problem we developed the service to be as efficient as
possible.
The earliest problems clients brought to us were:
‘I don’t know how to find the right salesmen. Everyone’s CV looks great, but who can have
the best results with my customers?’
To support these companies we set up a recruitment team that could look
beyond CVs and finds the right sales team for the right customer.
‘Where should I focus in such a vast country? Trying to be everywhere at
once is no strategy, but I don’t know where best to start’
We undertook snapshot and in-depth market studies for customers looking
at the market, its potential and their competition and helping them decide
where to be.
‘I want to do more in the market but I am not sure I can trust my
distributor and I don’t want to invest in subsidiary yet, what can I do?’
We developed the M+V Umbrella™ which hosts companies’ dedicated sales
teams in a professional atmosphere with fully established administration
support so that they can focus on finding customers and making sales.
Every year we met more companies who were doing well but could do
better, or were facing frustrations because of the sheer scale of India – and
the scale of the bureaucracy back then.”
How things have changed
In the first few years, M+V grew rapidly adding new services and more and
more staff.
With the election of Narendra Modi there has been a lot more talk of
ease of doing business by officials, so surely international companies don’t
need as much help to crack the market?
“It is true that a lot of things are getting much easier, but this
evolution takes time. Plus as the bureaucracy becomes more streamlined and more
efficient companies are able to achieve more and we can help them do that.”
GST as an example of opportunity
An example is GST. M+V’s Sales Order Management (SOM) Team thought that
the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax in 2017 would spell the end of
the need for the team. Previously they had made the lives of 100s of Sales
Managers easier by dealing with all the import, warehousing and cross-border
duty complexities that the old system allowed for. Indeed one large job has been getting
customers ready for GST so they lost no business in the process of moving to
the new system. However the team is
still very much in business because with that change made, customers can now
look at more innovative approaches to storing and supplying their products; the
team is managing spare parts for more and more companies and looking at more
and more ways to leverage M+V’s nationwide distribution network to maximize the
potential for customers.
“To begin with our SOM Team worried what GST would bring, now they
relish the new challenges and opportunities” says Klaus.
Supporting ever more companies
“One of our most successful service lines is our modular back-office system. We developed accounting,
taxation and payroll management services early on because many companies want
to focus on sales and not have to bother with all the complexities of
accounting – they also don’t want to get caught out by making a mistake which
can be a big headache to resolve. So we,
like many companies, manage the books, compliances, and payroll for hundreds of
sales managers at any one time. What
makes our service special is that we developed our SOM team to help a few
clients with their order processing and this team have developed order
processing with a nationwide distribution network that is 100% integrated with
a company’s accounts and employment register.
This means an international company can see all aspects of their
business and what is happening without burdensome additional reporting.
Not only that, but we’ve developed solutions that allow companies to
sell online to Indian customers and stay in control. Plus you can integrate into our nationwide
network for all your spare part management.
As we have partnered with G+D companies can also offer their customers
professional after-sales support anywhere in the country as G+D’s
German-trained engineers are available in every corner of the country.
“What I love about developing this company in this country is that every the problem has a solution and there are constantly new ways to support companies
to be as successful as possible in India’s vast and dynamic markets.
Future plans
“I’ve learned so much in the past 20 years in India and I love working in
such an energetic market.” Klaus beams
“With India’s world-beating growth rate and the ever-faster pace of
change as the new middle-class demand more, there are going to be even more
opportunities for foreign companies to support India’s growth.
“M+V would like to be there to support them”.
Talk to our team on
how we can help you.
