Meet Ravi Pandit the man who founded a 45,000 CR

Ravi Pandit, who hailed from a humble Marathi family in Pune, had made everyone proud. He had the opportunity to do his master’s degree at the esteemed MIT Sloan School of Management in the United States after earning his CA. However, there was an issue.

His family made only Rs 15,000 a year, thus he had to pay back an educational loan of Rs 1 lakh. Ravi, 25, decided to take matters into his own hands and began working at Grant Thorton in Chicago, USA. He paid off all of the loans after a year and traveled to India.

Kirtane and Pandit Chartered Accountants, Ravi’s father’s ten-year-old company, concentrated on providing all accounting services, but Kirtan was aware that all US accounting firms also had an emphasis on IT. He assembled two associates in 1990 to launch an IT-focused consultancy business. The birth of KPIT Infosystems.

When Ravi first started, KPIT provided on-site software development services, whereas rivals like TCS, Wipro, and Infosys concentrated on offshore centers. And the plan was successful.

With its IPO being oversubscribed 50 times in the massive global IPO year of 1999—a year in which 565 IT firms filed for IPO—KPIT soared to a valuation of 43 CR. The market surged, but it crashed hard not long after. In March 2000, the Dotcom boom burst.

When people thought it was game over for Ravi, he came with a bang and strategically partnered with Cummins Infotech, the IT arm of engine giant Cummins India. With an 80-20 partnership in KPIT’s favour, the new entity KPIT Cummins Infosystems focused on the automotive and manufacturing sectors.

When everyone else seemed to have given up on Ravi, he returned with a boom and cleverly teamed up with Cummins Infotech, the IT division of the massive Cummins India engine company. KPIT and Cummins Infosystems, the newly formed company, concentrated on the automotive and manufacturing industries through an 80/20 cooperation.

It also improved its technical capabilities with digital transformation and embedded software when it acquired automotive electronics player CG Smith in 2006. KPIT broke the $100 million revenue threshold in 2009 with 870 CR in revenue.

KPIT operates in ten countries and was expanding globally. Even yet, Cummins continued to account for about 40% of revenues, preferring to concentrate on its primary business of manufacturing generators. Ravi needed to come up with something.

In 2013, he de-merged with Cummins. and changed the name to KPIT Technologies. He focused on mobility software products like REVOLO (hybrid electric vehicle tech) and Maximus Pro for two-wheelers. It touched revenues of 1399.88 CR in 2018, and another opportunity came.

On January 29, 2018, KPIT Technologies and CK Birla’s IT company, Birlasoft, merged to form a 4500 CR combined business. Two publicly traded entities, Birlasoft (IT) and KPIT (Automotives), with respective values of 1300 CR and 3200 CR were then formed through a de-merger.

KPIT currently has 4,871 CR in revenue and services General Motors, Ford, Honda, BMW, and Renault. It is valued at 49,500 CR and employs over 13,000 people to serve clients in 25 different countries.