Farhan Pettiwala’s passion for air-conditioning has finally borne fruit. Resourceful and determined, he is the managing director of a successful air-conditioning solutions and service company – Norfolk Mechanical, which has grown into a Rs 10 crore company over 10 years, with an impressive list of corporate clients.

Since his days at Pune University, where he took the subject up as an elective, air-conditioning and refrigeration has been Pettiwala’s passion. He also wrote an extensive thesis on it, which was submitted to the then minister Kamal Nath. Lather, he joined Carrier India as head of sales and, during his stint there, he realized India’s need for an organised air-conditioning service industry. “I was sent to Carrier’s headquarters in Singapore for some time and there I realised that Carrier was successful in Singapore, because it gave tremendous focus to service. They serviced their air-conditioners themselves instead of outsourcing it. I tried to implement this strategy at Carrier India but, here, the company believed in relying on their dealers to deliver service,” says Pettiwala. Convinced that service was the way forward, Pettiwala quit Carrier to launch his own company called the International Air-conditioning Company (Norfolk Mechanical), which was the name Carrier had started with in Singapore.

Largest dealer in India
With five employees and a capital of Rs50,000 taken as a loan from his father, Pettiwala started Norfolk Mechanical as a sales and service dealer for Carrier. By 1998, it became Carrier’s largest dealer in India. In 1999, Norfolk Mechanical added Voltas Central ACS to its portfolio and was awarded for being the company’s biggest dealer in the western region. But all this while, Norfolk Mechanical was recognised as a dealer for Carrier and Voltas and not for itself. “That’s when we felt the need to create our own identity.

Norfolk Mechanical became the holding company and was renamed the Intelligent Air Company (Norfolk Mechanical) and under it, we branded our two businesses – sales and service as Airfield and AirForce,” says Pettiwala.

Airfield became an air-conditioning solutions company providing consulting services to corporates on how to design their air-conditioning systems, taking into consideration energy consumption, area, architectural design, etc. From dealing with just Carrier and Voltas brands, it expanded its portfolio that included seven brands. “We wanted to be a neutral company that gives objective advice to our clients and not just promote any one single brand,” says Pettiwala. His expertise is especially sought after by several corporates such as kaya Skin Clinic, Lifestyle Stores, facility management companies and the food and beverage industry such as McDonalds, Mandarin, etc. Norfolk Mechanical’s second flourishing business is AirForce. When AirForce started out, they found that AC manufacturers subcontract the maintenance to other contractors who, in turn, passed on the small functions to smaller contractors. Corroborates Raj Gogate, head of administration and facilities, Tata teleservices: “What ends up happening is that it takes anywhere from 8-24 hours for these people to respond to a complaint, the quality of the service isn’t good and it costs a lot.”

AirForce, on the other hand, has created its own service brand. It has 250 employees trained thoroughly in all the technical aspects of AC repair and maintenance. The employees have their own branded shirts with their names on them and their own scooters with a customised tool kit and all the necessary tools. Most importantly, AirForce has cut down the response time to hours. “We do not outsource our service, so we respond to complaints in two hours. In fact, 87 per cent of our complaints have been responded to within two hours,” prides Pettiwala. Today, AirForce’s client roster includes companies such as the Bombay Stock Exchange, Barista, Marico Industries, Tata Teleservices, Wipro and many more. “They have a well-trained workforce, they do not subcontract their services and though my machines are 6-7 years old, they are well maintained,” says Gogate.

With 500 employees, Norfolk Mechanical has eight outlets across the country in Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Surat, Aurangabad and Nashik and seven associates in other cities. The company has comes a long way in these 10 years, but Pettiwala believes that it still has miles to go. Norfolk Mechanical is in the final stages of dialogue with a Saudi AC manufacturing company (the name cannot be disclosed due to confidentiality reasons) to set up a joint venture in India, with the Indian office and manufacturing plant catering to the entire Asia Pacific region. Apart from this, Pettiwala wants to start an institute, which provides training in all kinds of skills. He is also actively researching ways to make air-conditioning affordable for the lower middle class, and bring solar or natural gas air-conditioning to India. There seems no limit to where Pettiwala’s passion will take him.

HIRAL SHETH