First offices: How Amul, Marico, Emami, and other conglomerates started out

Like all things big, multi-million dollar businesses start out small. Here are some of the first offices where today's tycoons initially set up shop

Nov 30, 2019, 08:50 IST3 min

<p><strong>Marico Industries</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>The initiation of a young Harsh Mariwala, founder of fast-moving consumer goods company Marico, into his family-run business was tough. Mariwala began his career in 1971 with Bombay Oil Mills, which manufactured and traded in oils, spices and chemicals. Their first office was at Kanmoor House&mdasha five-storey building built by Mariwala&rsquos grandfather in South Mumbai&rsquos Masjid Bunder area. &ldquoJust getting to the office was a nightmare. The entire area, with dingy lanes, was crowded and jammed with warehouses and grain depots. One could park one&rsquos car about 15 minutes from the office premise,&rdquo recounts Mariwala. The premises, however, were massive&mdash8,000 to 9,000 sq ft. Mariwala started a consumer goods business in 1975 and made its two flagship brands&mdashParachute coconut oil and Saffola refined oil&mdashbest-sellers. By 1992, Mariwala decided to move out of the congested Masjid Bunder to an open-plan office in Bandra.</p>
<p>&mdashSalil Panchal</p>

1/5

Marico Industries The initiation of a young Harsh Mariwala, founder of fast-moving consumer goods company Marico, into his family-run business was tough. Mariwala began his career in 1971 with Bombay Oil Mills, which manufactured and traded in oils, spices and chemicals. Their first office was at Kanmoor House&mdasha five-storey building built by Mariwala&rsquos grandfather in South Mumb

Image by Forbes

2/5

Zydus CadilaRamanbhai Patel (right) had set up Cadila Laboratories in 1952 with his friend Indravadan Modi. In 1995, there was a demerger of the company, and the Patels got Cadila Healthcare. After a restructuring of operations, Zydus Cadila came into being and functioned out of an office in Ghodasar in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It is where Pankaj Patel (left), who is chairman of the group, was

Image by Forbes

3/5

Media.net Billionaire brothers Divyank and Bhavin Turakhia set up their first entrepreneurial venture when they were 14 and 16 years old respectively, and the internet was even younger in India. A less-than-200 sq ft office in a residential building in Andheri, a suburb in Mumbai, was their first, in 1998. It served as the headquarters of their web hosting and domain name registration bu

Image by Forbes

4/5

Amul Years before the Amul brand was launched in the mid-1950s, its story began at the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited, started by Tribhuvandas Patel to help farmers get fair prices for the milk they sold. The cooperative operated out of a part of a government creamery and Patel roped in &lsquoforeign-returned engineer&rsquo Verghese Kurien, who worked at the cre

Image by Forbes

5/5

Motilal Oswal Group When Motilal Oswal (right) and Raamdeo Agrawal, founders of Motilal Oswal Group, had to set up office near the Bombay Stock Exchange, following their membership at the exchange in the 1990s, they moved into a 180 sq ft office in Natwar Chambers in Fort, Mumbai. Here the two shared a cabin, which was a luxury at that time, considering that before that, in 1987, they wo

Image by Forbes