When Harsh Pamnani Came Looking for Brands That Boomed — And Found the Man Who Built One from Scratch

Every brand has a beginning. But only a few have a soul.

I remember vividly the day when Harsh Pamnani, author of the insightful book Booming Brands, visited our Su-Kam office. He wasn’t just there to write another business story  he came looking for what makes a brand truly boom. And I was there to witness the moment he found his answer  in the journey of Mr. Kunwer Sachdev.

Harsh spent the day speaking with everyone  from the senior leaders to ground-level employees, including many of us who had been with the company through its most transformative years. He was eager to understand not just what we did, but why we did it. He listened intently. He asked questions that went beyond strategy and figures. He wanted to find the heartbeat of the brand.

And that heartbeat, without question, was Kunwer sir.

From the moment Su-Kam began, it was never just about building products. It was about solving problems. It was about reaching every home in India that suffered from power cuts and giving them reliable, affordable, and efficient solutions. While the world was still doubting India’s ability to create high-tech products, sir believed  and proved  that we could.

But what made this book and this chapter different from the others was that it didn’t just look backward at our success in inverters and power backup solutions. It looked ahead. It captured the evolution of the man and the mission. Because by then, Kunwer Sachdev had already started a new chapter  one called Su-Kam Solar.

And what a chapter that was.

While the world was chasing lithium batteries and newer tech fads, Kunwer sir turned toward the sun. He recognized something others were too distracted to see  that the real future for India, especially rural India, was solar energy. Clean, renewable, powerful  and ours to harness.

Su-Kam Solar was born not out of market pressure, but out of vision. And Booming Brands tells this story beautifully. It shows how Kunwer sir didn’t sit back after building one of the most successful energy brands in the country  he got up, studied solar cells, spent hours with engineers, and reinvented his mission to align with a greener, more sustainable future.

As employees, we saw it all unfold. He brought the same obsession, the same fire, the same late-night calls  “Let’s redesign that panel,” “Can we cut cost by improving the charge controller?” “Have we tested this in real sunlight or just in the lab?”

It was never just about leading the company  it was about leading change.

And that’s what Harsh Pamnani understood and captured so honestly. This was not a brand that boomed overnight. It boomed because it was built on truth, trust, and tireless effort. It boomed because Kunwer sir was never satisfied with “good enough.” He kept looking forward  first to empower people with electricity, and then to free them from the grid altogether.

This book and this chapter are a must-read not just for marketers or business students, but for anyone who wants to see how a brand can be built with purpose  and how a single individual can ignite a transformation.

As someone who stood behind the scenes, watched the interviews, shared the stories, and lived the journey, I can say with pride: this isn’t just a brand that boomed this is a brand that blossomed from one man’s belief that India deserves better.

And he gave it.

So today, as I publish this blog on our website, I do so not just to celebrate a feature in a book but to share a lesson for every dreamer, every changemaker, every innovator who’s still waiting for the right time.

The time is now. The path is yours. And if you need a blueprint  just read this chapter.

Because some brands grow.
Some brands sell.
But a few, like Su-Kam  and the man behind it 
leave a legacy.

The Complete Chapter on Kunwer Sachdev from Booming Brands by Harsh Pamnani:

When you think about electricity, what comes to your mind? Thomas Edison, who invented the light bulb? Or all modern electrical
appliances such as refrigerators, TVs and air conditioners? Can you Imagine life without electricity? It is tough, right?

The hard fact is billions of people on this planet don't have access
to electricity and even if they do, the supply doesn't meet adequate
reliability standards. There is excess of both - the frequency of
shortages and duration of shortages. In the absence of electricity,
electric bulbs can't be lighted, children can't study, factories can't
operate, workers can't work, electrical appliances can't operate
and even mobile phones can't be charged. Thereby, resulting in substantial losses for the economy.

Thissorry state of electricity shortage has continued for generations,
because either the power backup solutions were not available, or in
limited supply, if available, and they were either unaffordable or
unreliable. Then came into picture, a game changer with a nontechnical background, who with his hard work and  determination,
created affordable and reliable solutions for masses.

Kunwer Sachdev, the poster boy of India's power backup industry, is the man behind Su-Kam Power Systems. Su-Kam is recognized as one of the fastest growing and most innovative organizations in India. The company provides power back-up solutions such as solar inverters, batteries, UPS, home inverters, solar panels and other solar products for both retail and institutional customers. In the year 2003, Su-Kam became the first company in India's power back up industry to start exporting power back up products and solutions to foreign markets. Today, the company has operations in 90 countries worldwide with close to 50,000 channel partners. A few years back,
the company crossed the annual turnover of Rs. 1,000 crores.
This chapter covers the journey of Su-Kam, the first Indian power solutions company to win the title of 'Superbrand', which is
considered as the 'Oscars of Branding'.

The beginning

A true rags to riches hero, Kunwer Sachdev was born and raised in Delhi's Punjabi Bagh area in a lower middle class family. As a railway clerk, his father had a meagre salary. Additionally, his father always wanted to run his own business, so he used to invest some portion of his salary in trying out small businesses, none of which
succeeded.

Kunwer studied in a Hindi medium government school and from a very early age, learned the amount of hard work it takes to make money. During his childhood, along with his brother, he used to sell ball pens on a bicycle and grew up with a dream to start his own business one day. In 1984, he graduated from college and joined his brother's shop of pens full-time. He was always full of ideas and sometimes even became a source of laughter and anger for his family

and friends. He pushed his brother to start their own brand Su- Kam for pens, but his brother was not comfortable with Kunwer's nature of dreaming big. After a few years, he felt that he couldn't work with his brother. He decided to make something of his own and this created a major tension within the family. No one thought that someday, Kunwer would establish himself as a successful
businessman. But he did.

Initially, for around two years, he worked as a sales executive in a cable TV company and earned around three to four thousand rupees per month. In 1989, with his savings of Rs. 10,000, he started his own cable TV installation business named as Su-Kam Communications. In the year 1992, he went on to found a business of manufacturing cable TV accessories. By the year 1998, his manufacturing business had a turnover of Rs. 3 to 4 crores. This growth gave him the confidence to think bigger and he started thinking about the next
big opportunity.

During those days, power shortage was a major problem in various areas of Delhi and Kunwer bought an inverter for use at home. Sadly, this inverter used to give trouble every second day and he had to call the electrician every time. One day, he got so frustrated that he decided to open it up and look for the problem. Inside the invertor, he found a sub-standard PCB board and dirty mesh of wires. He took that inverter to his factory and along with his R&D the quality of inverters present in the market and they were shocked team, analyzed it. The team spent a good amount of time looking at to find that all the inverters available in the Indian market were built with bad quality parts with nearly no technology. He even called for inverters from Canada to look at the working of a sophisticated
product.

Being a visionary, he was quick to foresee the opportunity in the power back up industry. Power shortage was an immense problem, available inverters were of poor quality and foreign products were not suitable to cope up with a wide range of fluctuations in markets like India. He decided to shut down his cable TV business in 1998 to
found Su-Kam Power Systems.

Birth of the brand name Su-Kam

Interestingly, Kunwer Sachdev has kept the same name Su-Kam for all his businesses throughout his entrepreneurial journey. You would be curious to know how the name Su-Kam came into existence, and what is the real story behind it? Sometimes a brand name reflects one's feelings. Su-Kam is a true testament to that.

Back in 1982, Kunwer used to study at Hindu College, Delhi University. During this period, he used to like a girl and wanted to marry her. In fact, he had also thought about the names of their
future kids.

This was the period when Kunwer used to think about starting his own business of pens. He thought that he would keep his business name as a combination of the initial characters from the girl's name, his name and his future kids' names. He originally thought of the brand name as Su-Kan in which 'Su' came from the first two letters of the girl's name, 'K' came from the first letter of Kunwer, and 'a' and 'n' came from the first names of his future kids. He hired a designer to get a logo designed for the brand name Su-Kan, but the designer mistakenly changed the last letter 'n' to 'm' and delivered a logo with name Su-Kam. Kunwer had already paid him Rs. 450 for logo design and he didn't have more money to get the name corrected. Interestingly, he liked the name Su-Kam and thought to continue
with it rather than get it corrected.

Somehow, things didn't work out between Kunwer and that girl, and he decided to move ahead in life. Even though the reason behind the name had lost its significance, as Kunwer had liked the brand name Su-Kam, he decided to continue with it.

There are many important business lessons that could be learned from the evolution of brand - Su-Kam in the power systems space. A few of them are as follows:
Don't lose faith in yourself: George Bernard Shaw once said "Don't lose faith. Promise yourself that you will be a success story, and I promise you that all the forces of the universe will unite to come to your aid; you might not feel today or for a while, but the longer you wait the bigger the prize." Kunwer's journey is a testament to this
saying.

Though he used to sell pens on a bicycle, Kunwer's childhood dream was to become a doctor. He cleared his medical entrance exam, but lost admission by 1% as he got only 49 % of the required 50 % in the class XII board exams. He repeated his class XII and topped in his school, but this time he could not clear the medical entrance. Due to a stressful financial situation, he didn't have an option of trying again. This time, he was getting admission in engineering, but he was not interested in engineering and enrolled for a BA in Mathematical Statistics at the prestigious Hindu college. He dreamt to start his own brand of pens, but as his aspiration didn't meet with his brother's, to avoid any competition with his brother, he decided to stay away from the pens business.

To manage his finances, he took up a day job in a cable TV company.
Side by side, he attended Law College in the evenings. Though Kunwer was determined and wanted to do something big in life, he was not sure how he would make things happen for himself. The life of working for someone else as an employee, didn't excite him, so he thought of starting his own business.

To start his business, he needed money. He didn't have rich parents or properties to mortgage. He faced many difficulties in raising funds on his own. There were times, when he was unable to pay back the lenders on the designated date, but he never tried to escape from the situation. He faced his lenders and requested for extensions, which
he always tried to meet.

When he entered the cable TV business, he was good at sales, but he did not know anything about manufacturing, the installation process and technology. Initially, he faced hard times in meeting his customers' expectations. Once he was even locked by a customer in a room, who didn't let him out, till Kunwer repaired his cable. His failures and hard times made him determined to learn technology through self-study. As he got a hold of business and technology, his business started doing fairly well. To make something bigger, he switched his focus and entered the inverter manufacturing business. The first 100 inverters were returned by buyers because of glitches.

He kept on improving his inverters and eventually developed better products than anyone else in the Indian market. Initially, he started selling inverters directly to customers. He turned many of his cable TV business customers into his inverter business customers. He also reached out to many new customers through cold calling. He realized that he couldn't scale up his business, by selling directly to customers. Instead, he should cultivate dealers and distributors, as they ensure a wider geographical coverage and provide professional support to end-customers. Thereby leading to greater demand and consequently, increased sales.

During this period, the market was very crowded with many small inverter manufacturers who were selling low quality products. Kunwer thought of consolidating the market and converting these manufacturers into Su-Kam's dealers. But no one was interested in becoming Su-Kam's dealer, so Kunwer started giving his inverters as samples to prospective dealers to try and check for a few months.

In a few months, a few manufacturers realized that they couldn't match Su-Kam in terms of product quality and price. They accepted Kunwer's offer and became the company's dealers. Slowly, word of mouth about Su-Kam's innovations, product quality and competitive pricing started spreading. Over the years, many small inverter manufacturers all over India turned into Su-Kam's dealers. In parallel, he also converted battery dealers into Su-Kam's distributors. There was no looking back, with time, Su-Kam entered into many other related businesses like battery, UPS, Solar based products, etc.

Su-Kam became the first company in the industry to start exporting its products to foreign markets. Kunwer travelled around the world  to identify opportunities and developed products for new markets. As he entered new countries, he faced new challenges around government policies, business norms, local laws, competition etc. But along with his team, Kunwer overcame all the challenges and established Su-Kam as a leading brand in many countries.

Under Kunwer's leadership, Su-Kam's rise in the power backup industry has been extraordinary. Its products have given a tough time to competitors not only in terms of quality, but also pricing. For achieving remarkable success in his entrepreneurial venture, Kunwer Sachdev has received numerous awards & recognitions including Bharat Shiromani' by the Government of India and 'Entrepreneur of the Year' by Ernst and Young.

Turn problems into opportunities: Many people accept the problems as they are, but very few convert problems into huge opportunities. Kunwer is one of those few. His entry in the power backup industry started from a problem at his home, where a locally purchased inverter couldn't sustain frequent power cuts. Because of being in the cable TV business, he had a fair idea of electric and electronic systems. He opened up his inverter and within the mess of wires, he saw a huge opportunity.

Power shortage has been a major problem in India. In a way, many businesses, factories and households couldn't operate efficiently because of power shortage and fluctuation problems. Additionally, inverters available in the market were of poor quality and unreliable. During this period, generators were very popular, but they were expensive, created noise pollution, and were cumbersome to operate. He turned this problematic situation into a huge business opportunity by developing low cost, reliable and mass marketed power backup solutions, which he kept on innovating.

By looking at problems of various businesses, Su-Kam developed many customized solutions for them. For example, many petrol pumps need to run on a 24x7 basis and sudden power failure leads to loss of fuel, time and money of both, the customers and petrol pump owners. Moreover, power sources like diesel generators have a higher switching time leading to a shutdown of the dispenser pump. To solve these problems, Su-Kam developed an inverter that ensures that petrol pumps run 24x7 without interruption.

As another example, the lack of adequate power supply at remote locations of Assam and neighboring states like Manipur and Nagaland had increased the dependence of the Indian Army on cumbersome sources of power backup such as diesel. Su-Kam worked in unison with the govt. authorities to become the largest provider of solar powered backup solution in North East India. The solar power plants installed at remote locations in this region are being used for fulfilling the daily energy demand of offices and residences of Indian Army's Assam Rifles team. The utilization of solar energy is also contributing towards a greener environment.

There are lakhs of households in remote villages of India that had never been electrified. Su-Kam has explored the huge market of electrifying rural areas. It led its first-of-its-kind solar project with the UP government and installed solar DC System in over 40,000 households in the remote villages of Uttar Pradesh. These households now have electricity 24x7. Su-Kam also executed a similar project with the Tamil Nadu Government and installed solar home lighting in 27,000 houses in the region. In many African villages, due to absence of electricity, life used to come to a standstill after sunset. Su-Kam installed solar street lights in many of these villages. Now people in these villages have access to both electricity and employment.

Kunwer entered the power backup industry with a few lakhs of personal savings, but with his knack for identifying problems that could be converted into business opportunities, he has been able to create a business of more than Rs. 1,000 crores turnover.

Cannibalize your existing products: Steve Jobs famously said "If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will." On the similar philosophy, instead of getting satisfied with the success of his previous products, Kunwer continuously pushes his team for new innovations and cannibalizes his own products.

Before Su-Kam's entry, the inverter industry was dominated by hundreds of local players who were selling substandard products. But Kunwer's entry challenged the entire industry and changed it for the better. He wanted to develop high quality inverters in India, but he couldn't find good people within the industry then. So, he started looking for people across industries such as UPS, digital products, automobile, missile, etc.

Su-Kam became the first company in the industry to invest in and institute a separate R&D unit, which is certified by the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR), Govt. of India. Besides leading the overall business of the company, Kunwer also heads Su- Kam's R & D division. Since its inception, this R&D unit has come up with many world class innovations.

In 2000, Su-Kam revolutionized the inverter market by replacing transistor based inverters with MOSFET based inverters. The company made India's first MOSFET based inverter, which was one- fourth the size of traditional inverters and had much lower cost and much better efficiency. Moreover, traditional inverters used to run on two batteries, but Su-Kam's inverter had only one battery instead of two. In 2001, Su-Kam launched India's first sine wave inverter. Before this innovation, all inverters used to run on traditional technology of square wave and used to fail due to rampant power fluctuations. But sine wave inverter was able to run in rampant power fluctuations thus protecting sensitive appliances and didn't have that irritating humming sound. In 2002, Su-Kam launched the world's first plastic body inverter, which was much lighter and more visually appealing than traditional metal body inverters. This plastic inverter was judged as the innovation of the decade by India

Today. In 2003, the company came up with the world's first Home UPS system, in which it integrated two separate power backup devices - inverter and UPS. This system eradicated the need to buy a separate UPS for a computer. Later, Su-Kam made India's first inverter that could sense outside temperature and automatically regulate the charging current and voltage of batteries. The list of Su- Kam's innovations is endless and owing to his many contributions to the industry, Kunwer is also known as the Inverter Man of India'.

Kunwer has not only revolutionized the inverter industry, but has also revolutionized other areas within the power backup industry such as UPS, batteries and solar based products. He is particularly interested in making green energy i.e. solar available to everyone in India to suit the needs of a small house in a remote village to the needs of big industries. To name a few of its innovations in the solar industry, Su-Kam has developed India's first touch-screen and Wi-Fi enabled solar power conditioning unit, which can be monitored from anywhere in the world through a laptop, tablet or phone. As another example, the company has created a DC system which comes with LED lights and fans, and runs on pure DC generated by solar panels leading to no conversion losses. Kunwer's efforts have made Su-Kam acquire the largest market share in solar residential sector in India. Because of his contribution to the solar industry, Kunwer is also recognized as the 'Solar Man of India'.

Interestingly, Su-Kam is not just a pioneer in hardware innovations, it has also created many innovative softwares for monitoring and problem diagnosis of power backup products. The company has a portfolio of more than 250 products and has developed power backup solution for almost every industry. Su-Kam is being credited for filing the largest number of patents in the industry. Su-Kam holds a record for being the only company in its field to file for over 100 patents and it continues to file nearly 2 technology patents every month.

Get inside people's minds: The starting point of brand development is to get inside people's minds and make them think about your brand. Kunwer has never stopped thinking differently and has made sure that Su-Kam branding is present at all high visibility places.

Kunwer knew billboards were a good medium to get people to know he devised a clever solution, he partnered with dhabas for putting their signboards. Dhabas are roadside restaurants in India that are usually found on highways and on the outskirts of cities and villages. They not only serve food, but also act as stopping points for truck drivers, tourist busses and people passing through highways.

Kunwer made boards with the name of the dhabas and printed Su- Kam underneath them. This was a win-win situation for both the dhaba owner and Su-Kam as dhabas got a signboard and Su-Kam got visibility. Starting in the year 2000 with dhaba owners in Haryana, he covered Punjab, UP and then all of India. Interestingly, at many places dhaba owners paid him for these boards. This exercise gave the brand Su-Kam very high visibility with minimal cost. This high visibility, high recall and low cost marketing strategy adopted by Kunwer was later followed by many other brands.

He found many other high visibility and low cost advertising options. Dal Lake of Srinagar in Kashmir Valley is one of the most popular tourist places in India. Once Kunwer visited Dal Lake where he saw many beautiful 'Sikara boats'. Quickly he got all these boats covered with Su-Kam branding. Later, he got Su-Kam's branding done on traffic barricades. He also launched Su-Kam branded vans that acted as mobile power sources and carried 100 KW inverter to supply power.

Before Su-Kam's entry in the power solutions industry, no company had proper marketing collaterals of products, but Kunwer changed that norm by coming up with creative marketing collaterals for all products from Su-Kam. Su-Kam is considered as the first inverter brand to advertise in newspapers. In this case too, Kunwer thought differently. He realized that a regular half page ad in a newspaper cost much more than the combined cost of classified columns covering half a page. Instead of buying a half page ad space, he started buying classified columns together covering half a page of newspapers. Later, many newspapers changed their classifieds
policies because of him.

Su-Kam launched the first of its kind business themed TV Reality Show' in the country 'Sales ka Baazigar', which became a large platform to identify enterprising salespersons. The show was open for participation for anyone in the age group of 21 - 30 years and the minimum qualification was 10th class matriculation. An eminent panel of judges shortlisted the best candidates at each stage. The top ten finalists from the show were absorbed by Su-Kam at interesting pay packages. The show got an amazing reception as thousands of people participated even from remote villages and millions of people watched the show on their TV screens.

Kunwer is also famous for being an exceptional orator. He has been one of the most sought-after speakers in many eminent conferences. His simple and interesting way of talking helps him in making a direct connection with the audience. The popularity of his talks has also played an important role in establishing Su-Kam's brand.

Take care of your employees and partners: Kunwer believes that brand experience starts internally first and then, externally. Happy and knowledgeable employees can improve customers' experience leading to the development of brand trust. Everyone who works with Su-Kam feels proud to be a part of the organization. The organization focuses on development of its employees through various training and professional development programs. It also creates new challenges for employees to upgrade their skills. In addition, the company organizes many initiatives to increase the bond between employees themselves and with the company. It celebrates all festivals in full spirit and also encourages employees to take care of their health by organizing an annual sports week.

Like employees, Kunwer considers his channel partners (dealers and distributors) as extended family and regularly organizes channel partner meets. In these meets, Kunwer and his team focus on understanding and answering queries of the channel partners and educating them on new technologies and products. Unlike channel partner meets of many other businesses, Su-Kam focuses only on educating partners, not on sales. Partners are not asked to bring any cheques or make any purchase commitments in these meets. In a year, Su-Kam organizes more than 200 channel partner meets both in India and abroad.

To make sure that learning of both employees and channel partners is consistent, the Su-Kam team has created videos for each and every solution. Many of the solution videos are used by the sales team and channel partners while meeting customers and are shared on YouTube for an audience interested in learning about new age power backup solutions.

Su-Kam has a nationwide network of thousands of service engineers
and customer care executives who work day and night to ensure that customers' problems are fixed quickly. The company has developed many digital solutions to help its employees and channel partners to work more efficiently. These digital solutions help employees in synchronizing their work and help the company to monitor the progress. The company has developed a mobile application for its distributors that help them in controlling their billing with dealers and tracking inventory.

Su-Kam has won more than 50 awards for its groundbreaking innovation, corporate excellence and talent management including Best Talent Management Organization award.

Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and made it possible for masses to experience the power of electricity. Like him, there are a few other entrepreneurs, who can claim to impact the way masses experience the power of electricity. Kunwer Sachdev is one of them. His inventions have earned him a place in the business world as an entrepreneur, who not only founded one of the most admired Indian brand, Su-Kam, but also revolutionized the power backup
industry.

Advice from Kunwer Sachdev:

Knowledge of English language may help you in getting good academic scores in college, but in the market, local language can help you in getting more positive outcomes as compared to English. Don't ignore the power of local languages.

Modesty is a normal way of life. Sometimes, when people become successful and known, they ignore modesty and show arrogance. Arrogance may satisfy the ego, but spoils relationships.

Dynamics of running a 5 crore business are different than dynamics of running a 50 crore and 500 crore business. When businesses are small, they are agile like horses, but when they become big, they get slow like an elephant. As business evolves, it becomes important to evolve your systems and processes and evolve yourself as a leader in terms of your business and people skills.