Remembering R.D. Grover

He was one of the earliest entrepreneurs in the Indian computer industry — a Generation 1.0 man who began by maintaining IBM mainframes that were left orphaned by IBM’s abrupt exit in 1977, in an era in which Indian businesses were ruled by the Licence Raj.

I met Ramesh Grover first in 1991 when I was an analyst with IDC India and was working on a market report on large systems. Those were the days when there was no direct presence of IBM, HP, or any of the large systems vendors. Grover used to import IBM machines directly to serve the Indian market.

On the softboard of his office desk, he had the list of key installations of IBM mainframes in the country. To estimate the next year’s market size for mainframes, he pulled the list down and did a quick calculation and gave me a figure. He added up his orders for next year, the outstanding government tenders, and a margin of error. For an analyst, all of four months into the profession, that was Lesson No. 1 in market sizing.

During the course of twenty years, I met Grover on numerous occasions in various roles. I once happened to ask him how he chanced upon the name of his company, CMS Computers. In his characteristic no-frills approach, he said, “There was no time to deliberate on a name. We picked one that couldn’t have been more direct: computer maintenance and systems were what we were doing. Why call it something else?”

Grover made CMS Computers a big and known name in the hardware and maintenance industry. The company regularly came out on the top in our annual DQ Customer Satisfaction Surveys. His company served large enterprises and it came up with many new models of on-site systems maintenance that included facilities management, total site maintenance, staff augmentation, multilevel support, ahead of its time in the market.

He diversified into new services, new markets, and new technologies. These included areas like training, PC sales, networking, traffic signal management, software, systems management, energy management, ERP implementation, managed printing services, and various other offerings.

Grover was a tough businessman with an eye on the money. He nursed tempered ambitions, took cautious risks, chose a path different from others, and adapted to new market realities.

He favored high-margin businesses over high-revenue businesses. So one didn’t find him in the race to dominate the market with size. He always wanted to be close to the customer and maintenance was his first love because it allowed him to solve customers problems.

When he started Systime, his software company, he remarked, “Now we are going to solve business problems as opposed to technical problems.” Systime got into the business of JD Edwards (an ERP platform that was later acquired by Oracle) implementation.

He was a master at identifying new market niches that were untouched by others and thereby enjoyed the advantage of being a pioneer. In the late nineties, private telecom companies and private banking companies brought over a sea change in the way customer billing was done. There was a huge spike in printing volume. One example of how Grover reacted to this opportunity: he contracted to sell Oce printing machines, service them, and provide printing as a service.

Two other businesses that don’t fall within mainstream IT but bear proof of his innovative and inventive temperament are traffic signal management and energy management solutions. These are businesses that were conceived, developed, and implemented purely from within the company.

I could not meet Grover around the time he sold the company to Blackstone Group, since I was away from the country for a while. Having returned recently, I met many old-timers from the industry during Nasscom annual event last month. I am not aware whether Grover was indisposed during that time. But I was definitely hoping to meet dear Mr. Grover one of these days in Mumbai. Sadly, it won’t be possible now.

Farewell- Dear Mr. Grover- May your soul rest in peace!