All businesses have access to extensive pool of knowledge, but how an entrepreneur leverages that information is vital for a business’s development. Whether it be investing in human resource development or sourcing inimitable solutions, having strong grip over domain knowledge makes a leader erudite. Earning the title of learned leader aptly, Subramanian Naraynaswamy, CEO, TRS Forms & Services, has always believed that leadership and knowledge go hand-in-hand tracking success. While gaining knowledge & industry experience, he streamlined his passion for R&D to prestige his product’s development, market presence & customer usage.

With this entrepreneurial expertise, Subramanian has driven TRS Forms & Services till date, making it the only SME company manufacturing scanners in India providing technology based scanning, imaging and software solutions for government & corporate sector. “Started from scratch in 1993, today TRS has reached to a turnover of Rs.15 million and maintains a very strong financials is in itself a grand success,” asserts Subramanian.

A Self-Made Master of Knowledge
Being a first generation entrepreneur, Subramanian filled his stockpot of knowledge drop by drop, first completing his graduation and later pursuing a programming certification course from NIIT. It was now the time for Subramanian to give his revolutionary ideas an instrument of technology wherein his learning could be implemented practically. Wasting no time, Subramanian laid the foundation of TRS handling the entire business single handedly with a very minimal team strength and developed the first indigenous software for OMR scanner. He states, “This has helped me in gaining in-depth knowledge on the technology in relation to Hardware and Software. This knowledge further helped me in pushing the R&D activities”.

I believe in giving responsibility with accountability to extract the best out of them. Investing in human resources is the key for successful business as well

As the graph of his accomplishment was going up, a wave of challenge brought the numbers down. It was when daunting 2015 Chennai floods down poured the city completely leaving families homeless and corporates workless. Many people lost hope during this struggle, but this courageous budding entrepreneur gathered every little hope to start his business from the rags. “Everything including all the documents was lost in the flood. I had to first move to a temporary office to settle my staff and continue on the projects and secondly to recreate all the official documents that were lost,” Subramanian adds. He further says, “It took more than six months to one year to come to normal situation. The result of this struggle made me think of investing in something safe:. Today TRS is housed in its own premise which is six times bigger than the original office. Overcoming all these pain points that are inevitable in an entrepreneur’s journey, Subramanian scaled up the revenue of TRS very soon.

Subramanian’s entrepreneurship took a leap in 2012 with the success of FireEye (Automatic Dummy Numbering) scanner and eMarquer (on-screen marking) process that were implemented by state police recruitment & two medical universities. But dream of conquering the market was still not achieved. He decided to implement a cutthroat plan; one was to customize the technological solutions for customers and second was to slightly open the door of offering TRS’ solutions to its competitors. The risk was big but did pay off well. “Both, our customers and our competitors look at TRS as the only company who can provide technology based solutions for any problems or requirements,” Subramanian exclaims with proud.

An Ideal Mentor

There’s no denying that new generation is full of creative frizzy ideas but for Subramanian, his 10-year old staff members are real gold. At present, he is armed with 140+ staff rolls working in four divisions. “I believe in giving responsibility with accountability to extract the best out of them. Investing in human resources is the key for successful business as well,” claims this modest CEO. Being a role model to his workforce, Subramanian shares his reservoir of knowledge to make them understand industry nuances with ease. He motivates his R&D team to indulge in brain storming sessions at design stage itself to foresee the issues & plug those holes with expertise. Empowering his employees to take decisions and work accordingly with enough freedom is what he believes in. This has given Subramanian the time for self as well.

Shoulder to Shoulder with Success

After years of experience & performance, Subramanian has established a brand name exclusive of its services and records a turnover in millions successfully. A member of TiE and representative of ABBYY (OCR/ICR software from a Russian Company), Subramanian attends various annual reseller conferences to strengthen his network with experienced and knowledgeable industry leaders. Along with the blueprints to introduce two fully indigenous scanners – document scanner (quality assured & affordable) & semi-automatic book scanner (a digi-valued product securing book data), Subramanian is committed to pour his experiences in making 2017 as the next milestone year marching in momentum with Make in India scheme.