Jakson Group was established in 1947 as a family-run company entering the diversified energy and infrastructure sectors. Over the decades it has established a formidable expertise in distributed energy solutions, solar energy, EPC, hydrogen, and hybrid & battery energy storage solutions.
“We are basically an energy and infrastructure company, with five independent lines of business,” explains Sundeep Gupta, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Jakson Group.
The first of these lines of business is distributed energy solutions, including the manufacturing and sale of solar rooftops, diesel generators and battery energy storage systems. The second sector Jakson Group is active in is infrastructure EPC, particularly in the electric, water and civil sectors. The third line of business is product manufacturing, particularly for solar modules. That is followed by the fourth line of business, working in the green hydrogen sector and last but not least, providing EPC for solar power plants. But across all these sectors, Jakson Group remains a uniquely family business.
“We are more than 75 years old as a group,” Gupta tells us. “The business was established by my grandfather. We are the third generation of the family to enter the business, and the fourth made up of our sons has already entered the business after us.”
From its headquarters in Noida, India, Jakson Group oversees four state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities that produce generating sets, solar modules, and battery energy storage systems.
Employing a team of 5,000 people, Jakson Group serves a loyal base of more than 50,000 customers, with a presence across India and beyond, into the SAARC, Middle East, and African regions. But however far the company reaches, it does not forget where it came from and makes a unique selling point of its brand’s heritage.
“We are an old company with a strong brand and reputation in India. We are known as one of the first organisations of our kind,” Gupta says.
Jakson Group’s reputation is built on far more than a well-established name, however.
“Our value proposition is unique. No other companies are offering anything like we do,” Gupta insists. “We can offer all kinds of power solutions in India. We offer diesel generators, backup power solutions, solar rooftops, distributor systems, and green hydrogen. We have built up a one-stop shop for all kinds of power solutions. Very few can offer that.”
However, the family nature of the Jakson Group means that the knowledge one leadership team acquires is carefully passed on to the next generation.
“The fourth generation has just joined the business and right now they are on the learning curve,” Gupta says. “The advantage of being a family-owned business is that we have a lot more ownership of the business.”
That drive and sense of ownership have led to Jakson Group becoming the largest genset manufacturer in India, with the capacity to produce 14,000 gensets and 20,000 acoustic enclosures across its two major manufacturing plants.
One of these plants is based in Kalsar, Gujarat, while the other is situated in Kathua, Jammu & Kashmir.
These plants are supple-mented by a world-class, fully auto-mated, 600mw PV module manufacturing plant at Greater Noida, which is currently being scaled up to 1GW, as well as a dedicated manufacturing plant for battery energy storage systems with an annual capacity of 250 units.
Through its distributed energy business, Jakson Group also offers solutions and products including diesel and gas generators, solar rooftop systems, battery energy storage systems and special application generating sets for the defence sector, including hybrid solutions and microgrids.
“We all want it to grow and reach the top, maybe even diversify into new sectors,” Gupta tells us.
The Full Spread
But with Jakson Group’s activities already spread across a wide range of sectors, how does it maintain such a diverse portfolio? The answer lies in Jakson Group’s decentralised business model that allows each of its sectors to operate independently.
“Each business is headed by a CEO or Managing Director that is responsible for developing the business,” 
Gupta says. “My brother and I are the Chairmen of the Group. We spend our time building relationships, spending time with people, and depending on the need we divide our time across the businesses.”
But while there is strong talent at the top of the business, for the Group to perform as well as it has it needs good workers at every level.
“The biggest challenge is to get good manpower, that is a challenge we are facing right now,” Gupta says. “It is difficult to get good people and retain them.”
This is an area that Jakson Group has put a great deal of effort into.
“We invest a lot in talent management. Every year we bring in more than 100 graduates directly from universities and groom them to be part of the business,” Gupta says.
But it is not enough to attract talent, you need to preserve it.
“We have specific programs where we identify high talent, high-performance individuals in our organisation and put them through a year-long training to become better leaders. So, we are versed well in training the talent,” explains Gupta. “Our retention strategy is based on performance. If someone is performing well, we give them good incentives, over both the long and short-term.”
With these recruitment and retention strategies in place, and the third generation of the family leading the way, Gupta’s eyes are on growth for the future.
“Our future plans are to grow all these five lines of businesses. We plan to double our revenue in the next two years,” Gupta says. “All these businesses have good potential to grow.”
