$urve Success!

Nikhil Ballal

Born in a typical Marathi middle class family, Anup Surve made his parents proud as he weathered the storm and sailed through to build a successful business empire with over 300 employees.

Surve’s parents left no stone unturned in providing him with the best possible standard of living.Hereminisced, “My parents have played a pivotal role in my life and I owe my success to them. They imbibed in me good values and brought me up really well.” To fulfil his parents’ dream he became an engineer.

After mechanical engineering, Mr. Surve joined Kaycee Industries (Bajaj Group) in the production department. Seeing his top-quality performance at work, Mr. Arvind Deshpande, who was the CEO of the company uplifted Mr. Surve to the purchase department.Soon, Mr. Deshpande left Kaycee and joined Fraser Turner. Without any hesitation he gave up his handsome pay at Kaycee to join Fraser Turner since Deshpande was like a mentor to him. During his nine-year long journey as a professional, Surve learnt many things, garnered tremendous knowledge in various fields, and honed his soft skills, which would eventually help him in his own business.

Mr. Anup always aspired to become an entrepreneur and he preferred to be known as a “job giver” rather than a “job seeker”, albeit with no business background whatsoever. While working in the purchase department, he came across many big businessmen which further motivated him to step into the world of entrepreneurship. The thought of business overpowering a job was the driving force that pushed Mr. Surve to start his business while doing job. In order to do this, he sought a special permission from Mr. Deshpande who willingly gave a green signal.It was in 1999 when Mr. Anup Surve started his own company by the name MK Engineers in a 200 sq. Feet space in Thane’s Rabodi area with first dealership from Tele Mechanics and Control India Pvt ltd. Balancing between job and business meant that he had to slog for 14 – 16 hours a day.

After finding his feet in trading, he decided to venture out in manufacturing. In 2002, he bought a 350 sq. feet space in Bhandup and started manufacturing electrical low voltage switch gear products. “Since every business has a certain gestation period, I requested my wife Nandini to keep working till the business was settled” as we had a family to look after to,” he averred.

Mr. Surve has always been enterprising looking for new business opportunities. For such people, they don’t have to chase new business avenues rather the business avenues come to them. One such instance is that which led Mr. Surve establish MK Automobiles in 2004. “One fine day, while reading newspaper I came across Indian Oil Corporation Limited dealership for fuel retail station in Bhiwandi. Without wasting anytime, I grabbed this opportunity with both hands and secured the dealership,” he explicated.

Moving on, in 2005, Mr. Surve joined hands with his two partners to start a new independent factory on a bigger scale in Navi Mumbai for manufacturing engineering parts. The three partners systematically identified their roles, with Mr. Anup taking care of the export business development. Mr. Surve executed his first export order in 2007. As the business expanded, all the three partners amicably decided to call the shots to bid adieu to their partnership venture.

The bug of exports which had bit Mr. Surve was still alive and in 2012, he formed his own company MKA Engineers and Exporters Pvt Ltd. at Navi Mumbai and recently expanded at Ratnagiri, that was exclusively aimed to undertake export business. The Indian customized engineering parts manufactured at MKA made their way swiftly into USA, UK, Australia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Dubai, Norway, Saudi etc. Mr. Surve met many good people in his business journey, out of which he partnered with some as well, for instance, exports to Australia were possible thanks to a client turned partner. “Indian exports are highly valued by foreign companies, since the labour is very economical but at the same time quality is good. Indians enjoy lot of trust in the export market and the foreign players prefer to import from Indians”, statedMr. Surve. Further, he added, “Export is an interesting field of business. It is not only challenging but also lucrative in the long run. Considering India’s harmonious relations with majority of the developed and developing foreign economies, export will be one such business that has tremendous potential and exponential growth in the coming years.”

After a successful first innings razzmatazz that was eventually completed on a high, Mr. Surve is all charged up to play the second innings. “At present, I am exploring the field of agriculture. So far, I have been the recipient from my parents and society. Now is the time for me to pay back this runa.” Coming from the land of mangoes, he dreams to put the Ratnagiri Alphonso mangoes on the global map and popularize them in the entire world. In the process of realizing his dream, his village and his people will also prosper. Under the umbrella of MK Agro Products, he has bought a huge land mass where thousands of mango trees are planted. “Agriculture is still unorganized and I want to do something for the farmers, who seldom reap what they sow”, elucidated Mr. Surve. He has now set up a food processing plant to capitalize on the mango plantations.  He intends to change the face of Konkan region with his enterprising skills and take the food processing and its related activity to a Global level. Apart from his contributions in the field of agriculture, he has adopted a school named Vaman Govind Patwardhan High School in Ratnagiri, at village Pochari, thus helping the growth of education. This is being run under MK Foundation and is imparting scientific training to local students in professional subjects such as nursing and industrial trade. It will also provide business opportunity to needy students in that area.

“Life is not like a candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold off for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations’, signed off Anup Surve, who is supported by his wife Nandini, younger brother Rajesh and two daughters; Aditi, who recently completed her masters education in USA and Ayusha, a student of Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania school.