20 years ago, Mr. Parmeet Singh Sood, joined his father’s business- a small Automotive Components Manufacturing unit located in New Delhi which he has grown a 120 Times in this period. His father started the company as a first-generation entrepreneur with a sum of less than a thousand rupees and grew it from a company of one to a team of about 50 people.

Mr. Parmeet acquired his father’s zeal for entrepreneurship and saw a dream to grow his father’s company from 50 to 5000 employees. He went onto get a degree in Business Management from the University of Bradford UK before joining the family business. Within a few years, under the aegis of CMX group, he was running many successful companies including Climax Overseas Pvt Ltd, an Automotive Components manufacturing company as well as CMX Consulting – a Business Consulting firm. Climax Overseas has received many accolades including a National Award for Star performance in Automobile Exports in 2013-14 from Ministry of Commerce, Government of India. It has also been recognized as the fastest growing export company in its sector.

In this exclusive interview, Mr. Parmeet talks about his journey as an entrepreneur, the challenges he faced along the way and more.

Interviewer: Tell us something about your journey as an entrepreneur so far.

Mr. Parmeet: I started my journey by working for my father’s small business in Delhi. He started from scratch with just one person and one machine and grew it brick by brick for over 30 years to create a team of 50 people. He told me, “Your purpose should be to grow this company further, in a country where there is massive unemployment, you should be responsible for scaling the current 50 jobs to jobs”. This inspired me to dream big and after years of perseverance, challenges and a lot of dedication we have grown today to about 500 people as we invested in systems, processes, world-class technologies and most importantly people. We became the First Rubber Components manufacturing company to be ISO/TS 16949 certified in the country back in 2002 and have now upgraded to the IATF 16949 standard, the highest level of quality system in Automotive Industry. We deploy the Japanese Quality & Production systems following Lean Manufacturing, TPM, TQM, Kaizen etc.

At present, we have successful companies in Components manufacturing, International Trading and Business Consulting spread 5 manufacturing locations, 7 International Offices, 3 Global Warehouses producing over 225 million components. We specialize in Rubber, Rubber to Metal Bonded & Plastic Components like Seals, Gaskets, Bushings, Anti Vibration Mounts etc for the Heavy-Duty Truck & Trailer, Passenger Cars, Railways & Defence applications.

Interviewer: What are the challenges you faced during your entrepreneurial journey?

Mr. Parmeet: The first challenge was being an entrepreneur in India because while struggling, you’ll face a lot of criticism and plentiful naysayers, which discourages you and creates self-doubt. But then, I learned to survive and believed in my dreams, myself and my philosophy of “It is never the size of the problem, it is the size of You, which is the problem.” It is very important to believe in yourself and keep moving forward and tackle all the problems/challenges that come in your way. Another major challenge that one faces in India is raising funds for your growth and unfortunately, the banking system is of not designed to support entrepreneurship unlike it is in the western world or even more closer to home in China.

As an entrepreneur, the chances of failure always exists and the society, the economic environment and the government instead of criticizing should encourage the risk-taking abilities of an entrepreneur and mechanisms/processes/laws should be made to support the same. Another big challenge is to find and retain the right people, especially in the times when people change their jobs quite often for some small monetary growth. One will always be faced with challenges; however, one must not give up and keep working towards overcoming these challenges. Failure is an option, giving up is not!

Interviewer: Who inspires you the most?

Mr. Parmeet: I have been fortunate enough to meet a number of people in my life who have inspired me to become what I am today. First and foremost is my father, Mr. Daljit Singh Sood who inspired me to become an entrepreneur myself, then I have been blessed to be trained by World Class trainers like T. Harv Eker, Tony Robbins, Blair Singer, Brian Tracy, B.B. Gupta and Rahul Jain among others.

I follow, learn and get inspired from the life journeys of many Business Leaders and Industry tycoons including Lee Iacocca, Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Dr. Surinder Kapoor, and so on. I am an Eklavya to these Dronacharyas.

Interviewer: Tell us something about your awards and other achievements so far.

Mr. Parmeet: Our company Climax Overseas is the fastest growing company in its domain. It has grown about 120 times in the past 20 years and I plan to make it a $100 Million group by 2023. I have also authored internationally acclaimed books like Blood, Heart and Soul & The Art and Science of Negotiation and am currently endeavoring to write a whole series of books with the next one being, “The Art & Science of Leadership.”

I am a Public Speaker have shared stage with many international speakers like Brian Tracy, Gaur Gopal Das, Jack Canfield to name a few.

I have been conferred with the “Udyog Rattan” award by Institute of Economic Studies as well as “Outstanding Global Leadership Award” by IES under the aegis of the Government of UAE and have an episode on my journey featured on Zee Business’s business talk show, “Self Made”.

We have also received the National Award for “Star Performance in Exports” by EEPC under the aegis of Ministry of Commerce, Government of India.

In addition to business, I’m also actively involved with organizations such as the Young Business Leaders Forum (YBLF) as well as The Sikh Chamber of Commerce (TSCC) to name a few.

Interviewer: We believe that you are a trainer as well. Please tell us about that a little more

Mr. Parmeet: Yes, I have a passion for training. I beleive in the philosophy of giving back to the society and sharing my knowledge and experience on any subject where I have achieved results. I train on many topics such as Leadership, Time Management, The Psychology of Success, Manifestation and even Stock Trading and have various signature Training Programs which you can find out more on my website www.parmeetsinghsood.com

I have grown my skills as a trainer and completed the, Train the Trainer certification by T. Harv Eker.

Interviewer: What are the risks you have taken to grow your business?

Mr. Parmeet: I have always been a risk-taker, because I learned that the definition of Entrepreneurship is the ability to take risks and greater the risk, greater the reward.  I have taken many risks to grow my business whether it was taking a large debt to invest in Hi-Tech machines and upgrade our technology or undertaking much bigger projects that our company was prepared for, at the time or going after high-end customers far greater than our reach and then developing the abilities to deliver the products/services to the satisfaction of the customers. Fortunately, most of my risks have paid off and yielded a positive result and growth for our company, some haven’t and we have lost some money however, those have been the greatest learning experiences. It is always important for an entrepreneur to take the right kind of risks in their order to succeed and have appropriate risk mitigation strategies or what is called a Plan B.

Most recently, we have taken up the challenge to create a 100% Women Run Plant as I believe to providing equal opportunities to the women in our society and with this vision have employed almost 100 women in this new Plant which went into production just a few months back. It is a first in our 50-year history to have women oriented plant and it is a big risk that we are taking on and there are a lot of challenges in making this happen. However, me and my team is committed to make this work!

Interviewer: What are your future plans?

Mr. Parmeet: As a business, we are looking to grow double in the next financial year and already have the order book for the same. Apart from this organic growth plan for which we have already made the Capex and have a new Plant as well up and running, we are currently looking at some possible acquisition opportunities both in India as well as Europe and once these mature, they will take us more than half way to our 2023 goal. We intend to bring in some PE Investors in the business to fund this growth plan and have a well chalked out micro level plan for the next 5 year’s journey of our organization.

We already have a professional team in place led by experienced people which is geared to take on this growth and is helping me strategize and execute the same.

As an individual, I am hoping that I will be able to take out some more time for my passion of training as well as focus on the consulting business, which has been created with an endeavor to help other entrepreneurs scale up as I have gone through all possible obstacles any entrepreneur faces in his journey of growth and me and my team can handhold to overcome all those obstacles as we have done successfully for many businesses already.

Interviewer: What advice will you give to emerging entrepreneurs?

Mr. Parmeet: Anyone who is an entrepreneur or wants to be an entrepreneur must have a Vision, the clarity on what he wants his business to be, what problem will his business be solving for its customers and from this Vision, a Business Plan should be worked out with clearly defined goals for the next 5/10/20 Years. Any entrepreneur should have the appetite to take risks, the dedication to never give up, the patience to get the desired results and the hunger to grow and most importantly should be a constant learner. An entrepreneur should spend considerable time, energy and effort on learning new concepts, new techniques, new technologies which are important to take him/her as well as the business to the next level. 

Media Contact
Company Name: Climax Overseas Pvt Ltd
Contact Person: Parmeet Singh Sood
Email: Send Email
Country: India
Website: www.climaxoverseas.com