Ms. Mamta Goel and Ms. Radhika Goel, the fierce, confident and passionate mother-daughter duo at Sarveshwari Group, have carved a niche for themselves in the male-dominated automobile service industry.
Ms. Mamta has been successfully heading the entire export operations for Sarveshwari Engineers for the past 25 years along with her husband Mr. Mahendra Nath Goel who is the Founder and President at Sarveshwari Engineers and Managing Director at Sarveshwari Technologies Ltd. Ms. Radhika joined her parents in 2012 as a Marketing Manager and has now stepped on to becoming the Director for Marketing at the Group. The most recent to join the core team is Mr. Mukund Goel (MBA – SCMHRD, Pune), the youngest member of the Goel family, who has started off as Operations Manager.
The Sarveshwari Group’s first unit Sarveshwari Engineers, established in 1987, is into manufacturing and export of niche garage accessories to more than 70 countries around the world. The second unit Sarveshwari Technologies Ltd. is into the distribution of garage & workshop equipment and tools.
Ms. Mamta, an M.Phil. in Mathematics from St. Stephens College, Delhi, was an active mathematics lecturer in Delhi University when her husband founded the company and manufactured their first product in 1987. She says: “Teaching will always be my first love. In 1994, I accompanied my husband to Automechanika Frankfurt where we showcased our first manufactured product, a wheel balancing weight plier, to international customers. I started documenting the conversations between Mr. Goel and the potential buyers. My husband appreciated my efforts and urged me to help him in the business. We divided the work wherein he handled the manufacturing part and I took over correspondence and order management. Gradually, I became more interested in the products and started working full time for the company. It has been a fulfilling journey of 25 years.”
In 2012, 24-year-old Ms. Radhika Goel, a B.Tech in E&I from Bits Pilani Dubai, joined the company after completing her MBA in Supply Chain Management from SIIB Pune. She received training on their products during her travels to international exhibitions with her parents since 1994. Ms. Radhika handles marketing of tools and workshop equipment for both domestic and overseas markets. She says: “It is gratifying to see the kind of adulation, appreciation and respect my parents and our products have earned in both international and domestic markets over the years. My parents are large-hearted people who care for employees and customers equally. They have always pushed me to be the best version of myself.”
When we asked Ms. Mamta if she faced any discrimination for being a woman in this male dominated industry, she replies: “In export markets, there are a higher number of women and the customers are highly respectful to women. They ask me the same questions as they would put to a male counterpart because for them gender in professional context is not any concern.” However, Ms. Radhika has a different take on this matter.
She shares: “When I initially started out, customers, especially on telephonic calls, would look for a male voice for clearing out technical issues. However, I never let myself stop because of the prejudices, and today I single-handedly carry out correspondences with top level management.”
The time when Ms. Radhika wished to streamline processes in their office, she met with resistance from not only the employees but from her father as well. “Most of the people in our company have seen me from childhood, so it was initially difficult for them to digest my new role in the office. Then my father taught me that work speaks – ‘Show them what you have’. Later, each one of them witnessed my sincerity and the results, and I could prove my worth”, says the enthusiastic daughter. Today, Ms. Radhika is given her due as someone who knows her work and her products well.
If she were not Ms. Mamta’s daughter, would Ms. Radhika have got the job at Sarveshwari? Ms. Mamta replies: “Yes definitely! Her technical knowledge, sincerity and her willingness to dedicate herself to the job makes her an asset for any company.”
Today the dynamic mother-daughter duo is successfully heading a company with more than 700 products, exports to over 70 countries, a pan-India service network and an aim to become the No.1 Indian firm in the field.