Shubhayan Industries, Inc. prospers from a down economy

An economic downturn made Shubhayan Mukherjee successful. His company, Shubhayan IT and Corporate Services (SICS) provides a wide range of help for both large and small organizations - full service website design, database maintenance for on-line banking, medical transcription services for hospitals, logo design and image creation. They have contracts with major San Diego companies and last year earned $1.5 million. SICS is a member of Shubhayan Industries, Inc., which is rated as one of the fastest growing multi-nationals in the world with its head quarters in San Diego, (United States) branch offices in 9 other countries - Perth and Sydney (Australia), Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai (Bharat), Ottawa (Canada), Ahaus (Deutschland), Cheung Chau (Hong Kong), Nairobi (Kenya), Singapore City (Singapore), Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania), London (United Kingdom) and Delaware (United States).

An economic downturn made Shubhayan Mukherjee successful.

His company, Shubhayan IT and Corporate Services (SICS) provides a wide range of help for both large and small organizations - full service website design, database maintenance for on-line banking, medical transcription services for hospitals, logo design and image creation. They have contracts with major San Diego companies and last year earned $1.5 million.

SICS also offers a 50 percent discount to military, not-for­profit organizations, minority organizations and business - "anyone who is struggling to get started in business," said Mukherjee.

The idea for SICS began when his roommate, Rabindra Motwani age 22, couldn't find a job in the post-911 economy.

"Rabindra said to me: 'It's so difficult to find work, we might as well start a company," Mukherjee recalled.

In addition to being roommates, Mukherjee and Motwani had much in common. Both were born in India but raised elsewhere. Mukherjee's family settled in Kenya. Motwani grew up in Hong Kong. Both were educated in the United Kingdom, and both their fathers were successful businessmen.

The two met at the United States International University in San Diego, where both were fulltime graduate students.

Each maxed out his credit cards and contributed $25,000 start-up capital. With the $50,000 investment, they recruited a technical team in India and began to market their services.

However, no one seemed interested. So, they took a different approach. Mukherjee and Motwani took on small projects -- developing websites for small business and Bengali community groups. While much of the work was pro bono, it garnered publicity for them in the Indian community. Customers liked the quality of their web designs and spread the word.

SICS also developed a new technology called Kouklapop®, which provides dynamic, easy to use websites that cannot be plagiarized.

People work hard creating original content for their websites and with a few clicks someone can come along and steal it. This is not the case with Kouklapop®. With him, your intellectual property is protected," said Mukherjee.

Even with the new technology and the support they were receiving from the Indian community, the young company had difficulty maintaining quality. Coordinating production in India proved difficult and began to take a toll on the company's bottom line.

"We had many problems with our Indian subcontractors," said the 21 year-old Bengali native. To maintain quality - control they had to fly back and forth to India. Programming source codes was also different. If a user wanted to change something, he often had to rewrite parts of the program, Mukherjee explained. What they initially saved in labor costs was soon absorbed by having to troubleshoot jobs.

Taking their inspiration from sports teams, Mukherjee and Motwani began scouting for local talent. It didnt take them long to find college students eager for work.

We get them before they realize how good they are," said Mukherjee.

These young programmers are hired on a contractual basis for specified projects. To oversee each project and to insure quality, Mukherjee has a pool of seasoned programmers who bring a practical, real world sensibility to the company.

Not content with the success of SICS, Mukherjee and Motwani recently took over the cell phone business belonging to Motwani's father, producing cell phones for T-Mobile and Cingular. Mukherjee, also launched Neem America, Inc. which is a leading importer and distributor of neem products in the United States. A fourth company is in the design stage, according to Mukherjee.

Although he is seemingly a lot more successful than most young men his age, money doesn't inspire Mukherjee.

"I'm a showman at heart. I don't want to be rich. I want to be famous," said the young millionaire.

As a child, Shubhayan Mukherjee had everything he could wish for, with his father operating a successful agricultural machinery company in Kenya.

"Before I thought of it, my dad would give it to me," he said.

While most would envy this privileged existence, Mukherjee saw the emptiness in it: "No challenge."

On the other hand, the United States gave him the opportunity to be self reliant, even if it took washing dishes in a restaurant, which had a profound effect on him.

Said Mukherjee: It taught me patience; it taught me dignity of labor; it taught me discipline," he said of that first job.

Those qualities are now part of his company, he said.

Shubhayan Industries, Inc., is rated as one of the fastest growing multi-nationals in the world with its head quarters in San Diego, (United States) branch offices in 9 other countries - Perth and Sydney (Australia), Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai (Bharat), Ottawa (Canada), Ahaus (Deutschland), Cheung Chau (Hong Kong), Nairobi (Kenya), Singapore City (Singapore), Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania), London (United Kingdom) and Delaware (United States).