The Success

Recently I had been to a shopping mall to buy few blank DVDs as I wanted to back up some of the data in my computer..

As usual I asked for the Moser Baer DVDs, and the store guys informed me that they didn’t have stock of that brand, and offered me to buy DVD from other companies..

I refused.. went to some other shop and finally got the Moser Baer DVDs

My friends were surprised and asked me why I insisted only on Moser Baer and not on other brands? For them, it didnt make a difference as to whether it was Moser Baer or any other good brand..

That is when I realized that they didn’t know the fact that Moser Baer was an Indian brand!

Yes, Moser Baer, the world’s SECOND LARGEST manufacturer of optical media (CD, DVD, readable, writable and re-writable), with a world market share of over 17.5%, is an Indian company! All its four state of the art manufacturing plants are in Noida, UP! The company is head quartered in Delhi.

Moser Baer supplies its CD, DVD etc to all the top 12 global brands of the world!

Thanks to its great R&D divisions, it is the lowest cost optical media manufacturer IN THE WORLD today!

The great employees of this company are proud of every single optical disc that comes out of the company’s manufacturing plants with a Made in India stamp flashing on it.

Emotionally Emotional Patriotism vs Emotionally Practical Patriotism

Now just a clarification here, I am not a hardliner Swadeshi who buys Indian products just because they are Indian.

I buy Indian products only when it matches either of the two conditions below

  • When the Indian product is THE BEST in its brand OR
  • When there are other global brands and an Indian one of same quality, then I prefer the Indian brand

What I DO NOT do is that, when there is a global brand better than the Indian one, I do not buy the Indian brand, instead I prefer the better one, the non-Indian brand!!

Because if we buy a Indian brand even when it is not on par with other global brands, we will be creating an artificial demand for it, it will be like a mother spoiling a child by too much of love.. we need to ensure that the Indian companies come on par with other global companies facing stiff competition and coming out with world class products. Never buy Indian brands only out of a patriotic sympathy! Evaluate them and if they are on par with other global brands, then in that case, buy ONLY the Indian brand.

Be Indian, Think Global.

The Success Continued…

Coming back to the Moser Baer Story, it is as superior than any other global brands and is supplied to all the top 12 global brands which use Moser Baer products as their optical media.

If you personally ask me, I find it much more superior than other global brands. None of the Moser Baer CD/DVD I have bought have malfunctioned till today, either while burning the data, or later while using it.. where as I have had bad experiences of burn failures etc with other global brands earlier! I am not talking about burn failures due to a insufficient buffer, I am talking about burn failures due to low quality of the optical media.

For those who love environment, Moser Baer is already certified as the Green Partner by Sony for the product environment system.

Recently Moser Baer also acquired a 81% stake in the research and development unit of Phillips, the Dutch company called O M & T B.V.

And who is the man behind this great success?

Deepak Puri, Founder of Moser Baer

Deepak Puri, the founder and chairman of Moser Baer

The success story of Deepak Puri stems from the never give up attitude in life. A belief in one’s self and a passion for what one does..

Initially, he started a company in Kolkatta (Calcutta), the capital of West Bengal, India, that manufactured aluminum wires and pipes and AC conductors. The company had to be closed down due to the labor and trade unions in west bengal, which under the banner of communism, have always been a hindrance in the progress of the state.

Undeterred, he started another company in Kolkatta, which manufactured time recording devices for the banking industry. Thanks to the labor unions, even that had to be closed down..

He did not repeat the mistake third time by opening a third one in Kolkatta again. Instead he moved to Delhi and in 1983 he opened Moser Baer there.

The name Moser Baer comes from the tie up which Moser Baer India Limited (MBIL) initially had with the Swiss watch manufacturer Moba or Moser Baer. Initially MBIL of Deepak Puri was assembling time keeping systems for Moser Baer of Switzerland, for their watches and clocks.

Once sometime (during 1986 I think) when Deepak Puri had been to Mumbai (Bombay) to a friend’s place, there was no power, and the weather was hot.. so he picked up the first object that he could lay his hand on, to fan himself.. that was a floppy disc, and his friend quickly snatched it back from him.. because floppy at that time was a very valuable data storage device

At that time Deepak had no idea of what a floppy was, and when he came to know about it.. that was when the coming boom of data storage devices struck in the minds of Deepak Puri. And so was Moser Baer re-born as a total Indian company! Deepak Puri purchased all the shares of his Indian unit from the swiss manufacturer Moba, gave up anything and everything it had to do with watches or Moba, went public with an IPO and entered the data storage industry, which till then was the field which had only japanese and taiwanese players. Moser Baer initially manufactured magnetic media i.e floppy diskettes.

When floppies started slowly becoming obsolete, Moser Baer made a smooth transition to the optical media in 1999, infact it arrived a bit late to the optical storage media field.. but started great quality CD manufacturing.. today they have even migrated to the latest DVD segment and have become world leaders in optical media! Survival of the fittest.

Today Moser Baer products have a presence in over 82 countries ! 75% of its revenues come from its exports.. its exports ARE NOT DEPENDENT on a cheaper rupee against dollar.. they are purely DEPENDENT ON the quality of the Moser Baer products.. which is what I have been stressing in my earlier articles . Its exports will continue to grow even if Rupee becomes stronger against dollar, and even if the Indian IT services sector collapse due to their dependency on weaker rupee! Because what matters really is a product quality and brand! Innovativeness and technology is what makes products cheaper at Moser Baer (maintaining a world class quality at the same time), not the rupee vs dollar exchange rate!

Recently Moser Baer has also entered the home entertainment industry in India. The VCD and DVD of movies of almost all Indian languages are now available at a mere 28 and 34 rupees respectively. Just imagine, at what cheap rate we can afford original movie DVDs now! Moser Baer is using its hardware manufacturing advantage to come out with these low cost DVDs. It is like how Reliance created a mobile boom with their cheap cellular phone offers. Now who wants to go for pirated stuff, when one can get original DVD at this rate!! In terms of USD it is less than 1$! You can buy these videos at Moser Baer Home Videos . Moser Baer now is also planning to enter Home Entertainment Industry in other countries too.

My suggestion to the Indian youth is to have people like Deepak Puri as their role models, instead of those stupid bollywood heroes who get caught in all kinds of illegal activities ranging from deer poaching to underworld links to illegal weapons possession to what not..

If you have Bollywood heroes as your role models you will be just worshiping them for the rest of your life, where as the ones like Deepak Puri would encourage you to become big achievers like them! The choice is yours!

Hats off to Deepak Puri