RK Behera, Founder and Chairman of the RSB Group, started his entrepreneurial journey in Jamshedpur in 1975 along with his brother SK Behera. Together, they established International Auto Products, which eventually merged with RSB Transmissions (I) Ltd in 2009.

Today, the RSB Group is a leading global engineering institution with turnover of more than Rs1,400 crore, manufacturing a wide range of products for the automotive, construction equipment and other sectors. Presently, it has 14 manufacturing plants spread over seven locations in India, and one each in US, Belgium and Mexico, besides a partnered venture in Brazil.

Last year has been very challenging for RSB due to the ‘volatile swing of economy, unfriendly fiscal measures, rupee gone for a free slide, liquid gold taking up a beating with dollar unparallelly strengthening and buyers shunning their shopping fist'. "This has had a cascading effect on us being in auto-comp sector.  However, with aggressive tapping of unexplored market and cost reduction drive, we have managed to sail through without much of obstacles," Behera says.

Taking challenges head on and emerging successfully is something Behera actually cherishes. While the Group has grown into a giant today, Behera cannot forget the challenging times when he had to overcome huge financial hurdles. During the adolescence of his entrepreneurship, in 1990, he had embarked to set up Neelachal Auto Pvt Ltd (the original version of RSB). At that time, International Auto Products had a turnover of around Rs100 lakh while the Neelachal Auto project was worth about Rs130 lakh, many times over his financial capability. Behera could manage a term loan of Rs90 lakh from the state government financial institution but was still falling short by about Rs32 lakh. "We aimed to fill this gap through Rs15 lakh of state subsidy and Rs15 lakh of seed capital (meant only for first generation technocrat entrepreneurs) from a national level financial institution."