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| M.C.Jacob, Chairman, Anna Aluminium Company |
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To the customers of Anna Aluminium products, Chakson and Anna may be brand names. But to M.C.Jacob, the Chairman of the Group, they are his father and mother respectively and the memories of what they stood for. And he attributes his success in business partly to the goodness of these persons.
While his mother was an epitome of charity in the neighbourhood reeling under poverty after 2nd World War, his father warned him never to add even a single paisa to the ancestral property through fraudulent means.
After trying his hand at other business, when he started Anna Aluminium in 1966, he had these ideals in mind. As he was not prepared to use contaminated Aluminium for making cooking vessels, the merchants from Tamil Nadu ruled the market. By 1973 his accumulated liabilities were Rs.45 lakhs whereas his assets were only Rs.30 lakhs. It was then that a miracle of sort happened.
The power cut in Tamil Nadu was the least significant thing for Jacob personally. But the flow of products from that State stopped. Suddenly there was demand for his products idling in the godown. And these were sold out at 4-times the original cost or more. Within 3 months his assets had crossed Rs.1 crore!
“I prefer to view it as a victory of honesty rather than a business success”, he says. From then onwards there was no looking back.
“Today there are 3900 employees in the company. All of them call me chachan, just like my children do. And I treat them all like my own children. All the workers have traveled by air. All of them have travelled by ship to Lakshadweep. Every year the workers go on a picnic to a place of their choice. In memory of the charity of my mother, I give them free food,” he explains the circumstances for the unionless labour in his company.
“It is my faith that if you love the employees and give them due benefits, then there will not be any disruptive strikes,” he says confidently.
Courtesy: Biju Pazhayampally (text), Anil Kumar (photo), Sthreedhanam, January 2003
Contributed by: Administrator
