 "Magician in the Desert" by Gaurav Rao is the interesting story of Meru Cabs and a journey inside the mind of Neeraj Gupta, the Managing Director of India's first and the then largest owned radio taxi company. This book is a must read for every entrepreneur who wants to venture into a business with limited resources and yet achieve success. Gaurav has decoded Gupta's thoughts, actions and viewpoints in layers which will be very helpful for entrepreneurs to understand the business model behind the success of Meru Cabs.
Neeraj Gupta, a very simple, down to earth man, believes in starting conservative yet thinking big as he feels that thinking conservatively compels you to become innovative. Armed with a basic commerce degree, and married without a job in hand, he decided to tread on the untouched ground of the transportation service in India. In 1997, he opened a garage with the borrowed seed capital of Rs. 50,000, and by 2011, had created an empire valued at Rs. 2,000 crores.
The first part of the book focuses on Neeraj Gupta's personality, his values and his approach to life. There are some interesting anecdotes on his social gathering and his initial encounters with his wife before he got married. It also details all the efforts taken by Neeraj to develop his business and the challenges that he faced initially. How he juggled between two businesses - one was Blue Steel - the furniture outlet, which was managed by his father, and the other Meru Cabs.
The second part of the book focuses on Neeraj Gupta as a visionary. It showcases Neeraj's qualities of building and maintaining relationships, risk taking, logical thinking, resilience and change. An interesting conversation is highlighted in the book when Gaurav asked Neeraj whether it was awkward to check restaurant bills before paying them even though he was the Managing Director of a company. Neeraj's reply that his preference to nurture a good habit and the tone used to give the reply reflected humility and a deep understanding of the human mind, according to Gaurav.
The last part of the book which is titled as Strength to Strength details Neeraj's various challenges including regulatory challenges of private taxi licenses, an extortion threat which led to a close shave, the Human Resources Management of Meru Cabs, the expansion of Meru cabs and the launch of Motor Works - a workstation facility for the entire fleet of 200 cabs which was Neeraj's brain child.
Gaurav Rao specializes in developing and implementing marketing programs based on image building and branding in the public and private sector. He is an adviser on business strategy, planning and development in media management business. In this book, he has put together an overwhelming story of struggle and achievement in business while studying the functioning of the man behind the machine and how practicality goes a long way to fulfil any individual's dreams.
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