D Mukherjee joined the company in its nascent stages. He has, since then, played a pivotal role in making Tara Marine a leader in the container shipping business. According to Mr Mukherjee, “Twenty two years back, when we started our operations here, Kolkata seriously lagged behind in the specialised container management business when compared to other maritime cities in the country. Tara Marine was then the only company operating in Kolkata in the container shipping segment and played a major role in shaping the sector here.”

Unplanned entry

Mr Mukherjee, a science graduate with a managerial diploma from IISWBM, Kolkata entered the shipping business by sheer destiny. He began his career by testing his managerial skills at Inchek Tyres Limited & National Rubber Manufacturers Limited. In 1982, he joined Tara Marine, which was then operating in the field of general ship repairing and ship stores supply. Citing the reason behind joining Tara Marine, Mr Mukherjee says, “Shipping was going through doldrums and fewer foreign vessels came calling at Kolkata port at that time. I had no exposure to shipping, neither was I a technical person, yet the earlier experience of marketing and the wide contacts I gathered helped me in procuring more business for the company. I took this as an opportunity to try my luck in this new sector.”

A strategy maker

With 30 years of sales and marketing experience behind him, Mr Mukherjee joined the company to handle its commercial side. He was quick to identify the areas where Tara Marine could excel in future and readily implemented his strategies. He elaborates, “We were thinking of diversifying into allied fields with a scope of repetitive business, even if it meant making comparatively lower profits. Marine containers had just started coming in and we began calling on different agents for enlisting.”

To maximise the opportunity, Mr Mukherjee perused the services of Shaw Wallace and Company, who for a short period of time worked as an agent for big container companies such as Hapag Lloyd and CMA CGM. After much persuasion, he finally brought the first major breakthrough for Tara Marine. Mr Mukherjee says, “We also approached the Central Inland Water Corporation Ltd (CIWTC), a Central Government Body and Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) for vessel building operations. Our reputation of ship repairing helped us obtain contracts with these two organisations and we began vessel building for them thereafter.”

Reasons for entering container shipping

For Mr Mukherjee the road has not always been smooth. He learned from his mistakes and worked on them. He says, “A few days after the business tie-up with CIWTC and GRSE, both the organisations faced a severe cash crunch. As a result orders came to a grinding halt, putting Tara Marine in a distress situation. It was then that we planned to move into the container traffic sector which was growing by the day.”

Looking ahead

Just as he managed the company’s business efficiently in the past, Mr Mukherjee has already evolved some effective business plans for the company’s future. He says, “As per our future plan we would like to have a specialised yard for refrigerator container with proper stuffing facility. We have also associated ourselves with M/s Thermoking for surface transport refrigeration. It is our future plan to establish Tata Marine as a market leader in handling gold shipments, since the demand will increase with more shopping malls opening in different districts in West Bengal.”