Kochouseph Chittilappilly: The Wonder Man

Self-taught industrialist, businessman, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, globetrotter and social activist, Kochouseph Chittilappilly, 69, is a multifaceted personality whose life is as intriguing as it is inspiring. From Guard Electrical Appliances, Wonderla Amusement Parks and Resorts to Veegaland Homes, Chittilappilly has built winning businesses through his business acumen, honest and direct approach and relentless focus on quality.

With an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion, he is an inspiration to any budding entrepreneur. Moreover, his charitable actions of voluntarily donating one of his kidneys at the age of 60 to a poor truck driver caught the world's attention and set a precedent in the field of organ donation. Kerala Travel Explorer secured an interview with this affable demeanor who led a life filled with excitement, showing no signs of slowing down. 

Excerpts: As a successful entrepreneur, starting with VGuard stabilizers in 1977. Started my business in 1977, it was a humble beginning. My intention was to start something of my own, because at the time I was working in a small business in Trivandrum, and that business was not doing very well and my future had become a question mark.

So I wanted to do something myself and chose voltage stabilizer as my first product. It started out as a very small setup with just two workers, but somehow people accepted my product because it had some special features as well. But I can't claim all the credit for that, because you know the need for voltage stabilizers was mainly due to voltage fluctuations. So, in a way, I think the government electricity department helped me; because of the endless fluctuations, my business started to grow too. 

So that was the beginning (smiles) On the concept of "Midas touch. I believe there is no Midas touch. There have been failures. , there have certainly been a number of them. Failures and if I start talking about failures the list will go on and on. But of course every one of our successful businesses, whether it's VGuard or Wonderla or Veegaland, I believe our focus on quality and direct approach in our relationships with our customers, our raw material suppliers, our distributors, our stakeholders and the type of after-sales service we provide matter to success. Wonderla was inaugurated in 2000, 23 years after the launch of VGuard.

In the meantime, we have introduced a number of products to VGuard itself. We expanded our marketing to other states, first to Tamil Nadu and then to the whole of South India. we also had a number of managers and engineers, who did their jobs very well. I have always believed in people and their inherent strengths and have given a lot of freedom to my staff, including our managers and engineers. 

So even in mine, the absence of VGuard was increasing. It was then that I decided to diversify my activity. From time to time I traveled abroad and at that time my children were small and went to school. So, for their sake, I took them to Disneyland, Universal Studios, and many other amusement parks overseas. After visiting these places, it hit me, because we couldn't start something like this on a smaller scale in Kochi.

This was thought and took about 3 years to fructify and Wonderla in Kochi was inaugurated in 2000. We now have two other Wonderfla additions to Bangalore and Hyderabad. However, the architects initially were reluctant because they feared sustainability.

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