Sanjay Virnave
CEO
Mistral
Sanjay Virnave is a member of:
Company Profile
Mistral is a technology design and systems engineering company providing end-to-end solutions for product design and application deployment. Mistral is focused in three business domains: Product Engineering Services, Defense Solutions and Homeland Security. Mistral provides total solutions for a given requirement, which may include board design, mechanicals, BSP and firmware, FPGA design, 3rd party module integration, embedded applications and value-added services like: independent V&V, Production support and product lifecycle support.Mistral has over the years worked with some of the leading product companies across the globe in building award winning solutions across domains such as, Defense, Aerospace, Semiconductor, Wireless, Automotive, Infotainment, Consumer Electronics, Non-Invasive Medical Electronics, Telecom, Industrial Applications and Homeland Security.Mistral was started in 1997 and in early 2010 the promoters felt that a professional CEO was needed and hence I joined Mistral in 2010 as the CEO with an aim to steer the organization towards our ambitious growth plans in the coming years.
Adressing Risks
As services focused organization, business at Mistral is a function of R&D initiative by our customers and new technology. Considering the highly volatile market conditions, it’s critical for us have a wide client base. Mistral has achieved this by addressing different markets in our area of specialization, i.e. the embedded technology domain. Our business is split between global and domestic customers. Our Strategy to stay focused in our key strengths have always given us results. Our balance and customer mix has always worked to our advantage.It is always important to work closely with your clients keeping in mind their business roadmap. Customers always value you if you are helping them add value to their business and offerings. We’ve built long standing relationships with our customers over the years as they value our technical expertise and quality offerings because we continuously imbibe latest technology and new verticals into our repertoire of services. We have been able to quickly upgrade to new technologies and domains; keeping up with the changes in the industry. This helps us not only retain our existing clientele but also expand our customer base.
Mistake encountered
As I mentioned earlier, it is very critical to have a strong client-base. We have always worked on this and this has helped us as we moved ahead. We are now moving into new geographies and expanding our foot print.Addition of new domains and technologies has always helped us move vertically and horizontally. This has also helped us deeper penetration into a single client and enabled us to move up the value chain.We are now doing considerable investments in R&D and ennoblement in sales and marketing.
Motivation
There’s no bigger motivator than success. What drives us at Mistral is our passion for excellence, conviction in our dreams and the firm determination to achieve our goals. As an individual, if a few of the initiatives I take bring us the desired results; that success motivates and inspires me!!The goodwill and respect we have earned from our customers and partners has always been a great source of inspiration for us in our journey. At the end of the day there’s nothing more motivating than having delighted and satisfied customers who values you.
My role
My role has been to help consolidate Mistral’s presence in its three domains – Product Engineering Services, Defense Solutions and Homeland Security and steer the organization towards our ambitious growth plans in the coming years. I’ve been working with the various teams on expanding Mistral’s reach to new territories. I work closely with the Managers in addressing the concerns of a growing organization like Mistral. We operate in a niche market, which requires constant innovation, and where the competition from the big players is very high; we have had to take initiatives to create a niche for ourselves in specific domains. I am also working on creating leaders in the company who could steer the company in times to come. I’ve created a very strong foundation for that.
Advice to young entrepreneurs
If you believe in an initiative, have the courage to follow your intuition, but just following your gut-instincts is not enough, it has to be backed up with an everyday effort and out of the box thinking.
