(Born in 1923 at Kamalia)
Brijmohan Lall Munjal is an Indian businessman and the founder of The Hero MotoCorp which owns Hero Honda Motors in India and is one of the richest people in India.
Early Life:
Brijmohan Lall Munjal was born in 1923 at Kamalia,district Toba Tek Singh in
unpartitioned Punjab, British India. Kamalia is now in Pakistan. He was from a simple middle-class Jat family. After completing his formal education he worked at the Army Ordnance Factory, before moving his base to India after partition.
Career:
In 1944, when Brijmohan was 20, his family sensed partition, So Brijmohan along with his elder brothers Dayanand Munjal, Satyanand Munjal and his younger brother Om Prakash Munjal came to India and settled in Amritsar. The brothers initially started a business by supplying components to manufacturers of bicycles in and around Amritsar. After the partition in 1947 the Munjal family completely shifted their base from Pakistan to Ludhiana.
At that point and still today Ludhiana was an important destination for manufacturing and industry hub of bicycles and textiles. Slowly they expanded their distribution network and by early 1950s they were supplying components of bicycles throughout India.
Hero Cycles Ltd:
In 1954 Hero Cycles Ltd moved up the value chain by making a shift from supplying to manufacturing. They started manufacturing handlebars, front forks and chains. In 1956, the Punjab Government issued tender notices for twelve new industrial licenses to make bicycles in Ludhiana. Brijmohan Lall Munjal and his brothers participated in the bid and won the contract. Hero Cycles was registered as a large-scale industrial unit. The capital was partly financed by the Government of Punjab.
In 1961 Rockman Cycles Industries was established to manufacture bicycle chains and hubs. Under his leadership Hero Cycles was the first company to export bicycles in large scale. In 1975 they had earned the distinction of Largest bicycle manufactures in India. By 1986 Hero Cycles Limited entered the Guinness Book of Records as the largest manufacturers of bicycles in the world.
Hero Honda:
Before entering into a joint venture with Honda Motors, Dr. Munjal started the Majestic Auto Limited and started manufacturing Hero Majestic Moped. To manufacture motor cycles in 1984 the Hero Group started a joint venture with Hero Honda and established a plant at Dharuhera Haryana. Hero Group expanded so big that by 2002 they had sold 86 million Bikes producing 16000 motorcycles a day.
Chairman of the Hero Group; Honored with Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award In 2001B.M. Munjal (Brij Mohan Lall Munjal) is the Chairman of the Hero Group. He is a first generation entrepreneur who started very small and through sheer hard work and perseverance made it to the top. Today, Hero Group is the largest manufacturer of two-wheelers in the world and Brij Mohan Lal Munjal is the
Man widely credited with its success. B.M. Munjal's journey began in 1944 at the age of 20. Brij Mohanlall along with his three brothers, Dayanand (32), Satyanand (27) and Om Prakash (16) moved from his birthplace Kamalia in Pakistan to Amritsar. The brothers started supplying components to the local bicycle business. After partition in 1947, the family was forced to move to Ludhiana. The town of Ludhiana was already a major hub of the Indian bicycle business and an important textile center. The Munjals slowly spread their bicycle component distribution network in other parts of the country and became one of India's largest bicycle parts suppliers. In 1952 Munjals made a shift from supplying to manufacturing. They started
Manufacturing handlebars, front forks and chains.
In 1956, the Punjab state government announced the issue of twelve new industrial licenses to make bicycles in Ludhiana. The Munjal brothers cashed on this opportunity. Helped by the Punjab government financing of Rs 600,000 to supplement their own limited capital resources, the Munjals set up Hero Cycles. Hero Cycles was registered as a 'large-scale industrial unit' and it initially produced 7,500 units per year.
Soon Hero Cycles started giving well-established players such as Raleigh, Hind Cycles, and Atlas Cycles a run for their money. The hero cycle was comparatively cheaper and was sturdy and reliable. It gave the
Customers value for their money.
In January 1984, Japan's Honda, the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles, elicited interest in collaborating with the Hero Group to manufacture motor cycles in India. An agreement was signed and on 13 April 1985, the first Hero Honda motorbike was rolled out. Today, the company is the largest
Manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. For his outstanding contribution to the success of Hero Group, B.M. Munjal was honored with Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2001.