Women-run Garage

Joe Pesci, in ‘My Cousin Vinny’, as a street smart lawyer wins a murder case when he proves that his nephew and his friend were innocent, thanks to his witness, Marisa Tomei’s extraordinary knowledge of cars and how she holds forth. Even the judge is impressed. Marisa Tomei, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, is called in as an expert witness since she knows her automobiles and works as a mechanic at her father’s garage. But typically the prosecutor bully’s her, not taking her seriously. In the end, it is her expert comment on a set of car tracks, which frees the falsely accused.

Hopefully Vidya Nambirajan, CEO of Paramount Auto Bay will never have to be witness to a murder case, but this here is one lady who can talk about anything related to automotive, and that is why she runs a garage.

Paramount Auto Bay Services in Sainikpuri, Secunderabad does not look like an auto service outlet at all. First, it is situated in the inside lane in a residential area. In fact, the first part of the house is colourful, with a few cars, tall trees, a bust of Mr Nambirajan. Except for the solar fencing, it looks like a comfortable house.

A few steps into the gate and you get the buzz of the garage as guys in their blue overalls move around and stare at you. Young girls and boys are gathered around an engine, even as the CEO of this garage Vidya Nambirajan, sits in her office, with a view of the entire garage in front of her. She became the first woman in the city to own an automobile service outlet.

Paramount Auto Bay Services (PABS) is a fully automated, ISO 9001:2015 certified multi-brand workshop and has been delivering quality services in the automotive industry, with a large number of satisfied customer base. This garage has eight bays and with space for more cars.

Since Vidya works on Sundays too, the weekends at the garage are full.

Vidya learnt running the garage the hard way and now is the resident expert. From happy-go- lucky, earning an impressive pay packet, with an important position and living the single life in Chennai, she has been there, done that. “I used to fly often from Chennai to Hyderabad to meet my parents, when flying was not such a common thing,” she recalls now.

Vidya soon took a decision to shift to Hyderabad when looking after her parents’ long distance became difficult. Her mother fell and broke her hip and was bed ridden. Both her brothers were in the US by then and so she decided to quit her job in Chennai and took up a high-paying job with Airtel in Hyderabad.

“I seriously thought that everything will come back to normal and I would be able to go back to my life,” Vidya recalls, but even the Hyderabad arrangement did not suit her because she thought that her mother needed her full-time attention. She quit Airtel too after a short stint and decided to stay at home.

The garage was started by Vidya’s father M.R. Nambirajan, an electronics engineer, with over 65 years of experience in the automobile field. His passion for automobiles prompted him to start Paramount Auto Bay Services in 1988. He believed in being truthful and transparent, earning him good will and respect in a short span of time.

"While I did not do a course or any such thing I learnt it through feel, sound, smell, look, touch. I learnt all about automobiles while being on the job"

-Vidya Nambirajan

He also realised that many of his friends dreaded giving their vehicles to mechanics because of the steep charges and the lack of trust. He wanted to create a sense of trust in the person owning the vehicle.

Since Nambirajan fell ill, he did not attend to the garage from 2003 and Vidya has been running it since then, and from 2014 she has been absolutely alone, though she says, “I was never given the mantle to run the garage.”

And when she started full time managing the garage, the same friendly staff who had earlier called her ‘Akka’ did not want to report to a woman.

Possibly one of the reasons why Vidya was resolved to learn and do better than the men.

Being market savvy and having networking skills helped and Vidya ensured that the services were nothing less than excellent and was constantly innovating and introducing new technologies to meet the demands of the changing markets.

“I was not technically smart and so I had to be street smart to run the place. When I took the car out for a drive, I knew where the noise was coming from, but did not know the cause for it. After it was fixed I would take the vehicle for a spin again, to see that the wrong was corrected.

“While I did not do a course or any such thing I learnt it through feel, sound, smell, look, touch. I learnt all about automobiles while being on the job,” she says, adding, “Because till then I knew how to drive a car and where to fill up fuel.”

When she moved to the garage full time from the corporate world, it was a huge change for her. It started with dignity issues, because mechanics still did not believe that theirs was a skill in the auto industry. But she put her management experience by bringing in systems and processes.

The automobile industry by and large was quite disorganised. The customer always thought that he/she was being overcharged, or that petrol was stolen. All this because of the behaviour of the mechanics and there was total lack of trust between the mechanic and the customer.

Vidya decided to bring dignity to the profession gave the tag line to her institute as “Dignity with Skill”.

But her travails continued and she continued to face insubordination within the garage. Vidya had to face humiliations galore, even as many of the boys started quitting the garage. The reason being they did not want to report to a woman.

The automobile industry was in a transition when Vidya took over. And Vidya’s main goal was to get more people to drive into the garage with their problem vehicles.

"The customer would also tend to ignore me. They would ask me a lot of questions, unnecessarily because they thought I was a woman who did not know anything about mechanics. But thanks to that I dug in my heels and became more technically savvy"

“I started studying the market, since it was getting challenging to run the garage with the depletion in manpower.

With whatever little money I had we put up a washing bay. And that is when TVS started something called MY TVS where used cars were being refurbished and then sold in the second hand market. TVS was a pioneer in this area.”

Thanks to her persuasion TVS agreed to send their vehicles for washing, for a mere Rs.200, which included that Vidya and her team had to pick up and drop the vehicles also.

“I worked in every department in the garage, for I had to learn from scratch. And, I was the only educated person in the garage.

All the seniors soon quit and then I had to form my own team, which included a girl, who is no more with us. The boys would not allow her to enter the mechanic part of the garage but after much insistence she was allowed in the washing area. But later on they became more accepting and would leave the cars with her while they would go to run an errand.

“I had to work on the floor and had to start automising it. There was not much money. But soon I understood that we needed an engine scanner and that changed my entire life. The cars coming in were software enabled cars in 2001,” said Vidya. “That was the right change I decided to make though my father did not approve of it. He was quite miffed that I took a loan to buy the scanner,” she added.

The engine scanner was the demand of the industry then. To diagnose what was wrong with the car. With all the information pre-loaded in it, it gives directions through various sensors. It became easier for Vidya to learn. And since she could read English, she was the only one who could use the scanner, for the rest did not understand the language to read it. She was also a pioneer in getting the first scanner into Hyderabad.

“Newer vehicles are easier to maintain because they have made it easy. What mechanics spend time in diagnosing, the scanner will spell it out in seconds,” says Vidya and that is because she used the scanner as a tool to help her.

Whereas the mechanic thought it was a threat. They did not want her to bring it to the garage. They all went on a strike because they thought they would lose their jobs. “Only in the last two three years has the scanner been accepted,” she says.

It took her two years to explain that the scanner is a tool and that it was not their competitor. Many could not use it because everything was in English and that is why they revolted. And till date most mechanics had always worked on assumption and never got to the root of the problem. “And as long as they are like this I will be the winner,” says Vidya. “I am also eternally grateful that there was no Google at that time,” she says.

It was not easy going for Vidya, though she was a good learner, for she faced blocks from all sides. From her own mechanics, the spare part sellers, and the biggest block was the customer.

“The customer would also tend to ignore me. They would ask me a lot of questions, unnecessarily because they thought I was a woman who did not know anything about mechanics. But thanks to that I dug in my heels and became more technically savvy,” said Vidya.

Tears and sheer grit with a strong base of knowledge led Vidya to where she is today. She tried every trick in the book to train her men with the current technology. “I had a very good network with the showroom persons. They had something called the 24-hours-breakdown service. When the showroom launches a new car they would conduct a 24-hour training programme. I would request that all the five of us could go for the training.”

Then even the equipment in the garage was state of the art and she started buying pneumatic guns to make it easier to open the bolts. Brake bleeding was also a machine and even showrooms did not have those machines.

"I do a wholistic training on them. I don’t train them only as mechanics, I train them to be on the shop floor and teach them other nuances. By the end of the training, they would know how to drill, talk to the customers, service the car, how to write a job card, communication skills, how to handle issues and team work"

After 2012 the garage took off. “It was thanks to the positive attitude of Mr Krishnamurthy, the chief manager of Bank of India, Sainikpuri, who was my mentor and who also passed a loan after visiting my garage. He gave us a loan under the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE), where we had to pay a premium of Rs 7,000 per annum. This loan was needed to upgrade the garage with the latest equipment,” informed Vidya. He also helped the garage to be registered as an SSI.

Even though the garage was in a good place in terms of business, Vidya still faced issues. One senior person quit, challenging her to run the garage without him. Vidya says, “Mistakes are the best teachers in your life but you must also be ready to learn from the mistakes.” The Nambirajan Foundation started in October of 2013, thanks to that one guy who quit on her.

While training started from 2013, from 2014 it became affiliated with the Automobile Skill Development Council Of India (ASDCI). They are also a vocational partner with the Government of India, under the ministry of labour and employment.

Paramount Bay meanwhile is in affiliation with AHK Dual Pro in cooperation with Indo German Chamber of Commerce, where they continually improve skilling initiatives. But Vidya says, “There are not many takers for this. If I get 25 students to join, within a week it comes down to 16 or lesser. Since only back loggers come, I want them to learn and I am giving them the drill on purpose. I want to give them livelihoods and they have to learn seriously.”

“I take the responsibility of placing the person once the course is over. I do not charge any fees either to the student or the company,” she adds

While Vidya has trained more than 1200 students, she would have sent around 40 abroad. She says, “Some have gone on their own for Masters using this skill certification.” Currently she has 15 students undergoing training for going to Germany. “I am trying for apprenticeship for them,” she says.

She feels that the industry needs more honest and ethical people. “I started training when this boy quit after throwing tantrums,” she said.

“Of course I had an ulterior motive when I started training. I did not want to increase my overheads and thought I would train and I would have people with me and I would supervise them on a daily basis. Incidentally the guy who quit on me has come back and works with me now,” said Vidya.

One batch might run for three/three and half months. There are also short term courses which get over by one and a half month.

Vidya looks after all their issues, schooling, including their certification, their house problems. She says, “I enable him/her to do a basic service. There is one particular level which I expect. I do a wholistic training on them. I don’t train them only as mechanics, I train them to be on the shop floor and teach them other nuances. By the end of the training, they would know how to drill, talk to the customers, service the car, how to write a job card, communication skills, how to handle issues and team work. We give a report card at the end of the training.”

It is a nice place, this garage-cum-home, with the hum of activity and the sound of automotive business, where the boys and girls approach Vidya Nambirajan for all issues. And she watches over them, from the window.