Suprajit Engineering: Ensuring Family And Business Continuity

Ajith Rai hailed from a humble background. As a first-generation entrepreneur, over the last three decades he had built a successful automotive business under the umbrella of Suprajit Engineering Limited (SEL). Rai and his wife, Supriya, along with their three sons were a close-knit family. The two older sons were deeply involved in the family business, and the third son was close to finishing his engineering studies. Supriya, a dentist, was engaged in the philanthropic activities of Supriya Foundation, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm of the business. Rai had seen many business families disintegrate for lack of governance, and hence early on in his business career, he decided to formulate a family constitution. His sole objective was to safeguard family kinship and business longevity. The case reveals not only the process adopted by Rai to formulate the instrument of family governance—the family constitution—but also his ability to focus on building the capacity of all family members. The case closes with Rai reflecting on the satisfying journey thus far and hoping that the family constitution will be comprehensive enough to take care of the conflicting scenarios that could arise in the future.