Upon completing my post graduate studies from LSE, I seriously thought of doing something which would interest me and started making plans keeping in mind a more balanced life, having a flexible work schedule and taking a personal vision to make a lucrative business. I had a couple of job offers from MNCs but none of them excited me that much or were able to challenge my intellect the way I wanted them to. I wanted to do something challenging rather than the mundane 9-5 jobs, something where I could make my own rules and carve a niche for myself, rather than being part of the larger crowd. I wanted to stand out.

I love challenging myself and at that point I felt the biggest challenge for me was to convince my father to let me join the family business, because I knew he would never agree as the Non – Ferrous Metal Industry is predominantly dominated by men. Even though my parents have been extremely supportive in whatever we (my sister and I) wanted to do and in our career choices, my Dad felt that our factory, located about 200 kms away from Mumbai, is not an ideal place for a woman due to the nature of the business, and multiple other problems. However, I had made up my mind that I wanted to lend a helping hand to Dad and also bring about a change in the way the Non-Ferrous Metal Industry operates. 

I wanted to make a point that women can also be a successful part of an other wise male dominated industry and make a significant difference. Combining the expertise and knowledge I had gained through my educational background & from my father on the non ferrous metal business, I decided to do something revolutionary not only for our family business but also for the industry as a whole. It was a risk I wanted to take and I discussed the same with my father. After a lot of market research and brain storming sessions with friends and professionals, we decided to start Mtlexs in order to fill a void in the industry and bring about the much needed change and a breath of fresh air. 

When I decided to join the business, the business was extremely disorganized, unstructured and haphazard. There were a number of pressing issues that I wanted to try finding solutions for. Some of the most pressing issues that we faced as a business were inconsistency of orders; delayed payments; slow factory production; and inconsistency in quality of goods. Initially I didn’t know from where I should start, so the first thing I did was I put a structure and process in place for even the smallest of our day to day activities related to the business. I tried explaining to Dad and some of his senior employees that it’s extremely important for us to work in a structured and organized manner in order for us to increase our efficiency and productivity. 

We needed to change and move with times and let go of traditional ways of doing business. I remember one instance where my Dad wanted to trade one of his products and in order to do the same, he had to call 10 different people, and after a lot of back and forth he decided to trade with one of the parties at the rate that was negotiated over the phone. This traditional way of trading baffled me, especially in today’s day and age of technology. Besides, this limited the business network and didn’t provide us an opportunity to network with other buyers and sellers who could have had better rates due to the fragmented nature of the industry. This traditional way of trading was not only cumbersome but it also wasted precious time, and as they say Time is Money. This is something I really wanted to fix. 

Learning from the flaws that were already existent, and in order to do away with unnecessary follow ups, information gaps in the traditional Non-Ferrous Metals business and eliminate middle men, I started Mtlexs as a new entity to our traditional family business. No business can run without a good team, and my focus was on building a good team who were as passionate and hungry to grow as I was. In the initial days of me joining the business, every day was a new struggle, as people didn’t want to take me seriously. Everyone thought “oh this new 23-year-old girl will now teach us how to do business?” and this is the exact mindset I wanted to change. I wanted to prove not only to my Dad but also to all those who questioned him and me that if you have the will, you can even move mountains. 

Life is all about challenges and I believe it is through challenges that one needs to identify opportunities. That’s exactly what I for see for our business. I am aware about the challenges I will face in the coming months, and my aim is to turn all these challenges into business opportunities to help us grow. The Non-Ferrous Metal Industry is extremely traditional; old fashioned and fragmented in its way of operation. One of my biggest challenges is to get the remaining primary, secondary MSME manufacturers as well as end users all together on our platform and we are working rigorously towards the same.  The whole e-commerce industry is under pressure and a lot of businesses are suffering losses. The Metal market is subdued and Indian Metals Industry is under pressure from imports & poor export performance. 

Keeping all these challenges in mind and in order to tackle the same we have hired a younger generation workforce who are tech savvy and display a hunger and eagerness to grow. Our aim is to eliminate the middleman in order to grow. Mtlexs is tying up with various Banks and hope to sign up 10000 MSME units to facilitate better business potential, in next 3 years.

We have recently launched the first ever E-marketplace www.mtlexsspot.com, a Unique Online trade platform for the non ferrous metal products, with a target to achieve about Rs. 4500 Crores trade in next 3 years. 

Mtlexs has a been working relentlessly for holistic growth of the non-ferrous metal sector and has taken several initiatives for the resolution of issues in the sector. ‘World Non-Ferrous Conference’ is a flagship event of Mtlexs, which brings together stalwarts in the sector to deliberate on the issues and find possible solutions. This year’s edition of the conference is scheduled on October 7-8, 2016 in Mumbai on our overall theme of “VISION 2022 - FUTURE READY NON-FERROUS METAL ECOSYSTEM.” 

I am excited for the future of Mtlexs and non-ferrous metal industry as a whole. The industry is poised for growth with the government’s Make in India campaign and the focus on domestic industries, along with SMEs. With the growth of the sector, need for sophisticated trading technologies will also increase. I believe that Mtlexs can show the right direction to the non-ferrous metal traders of this generation, to achieve greater growth.