Shrivastava built his business with absolutely no investment. In fact, the office in which he started out was also not his own. It belonged to a Mumbai-based construction consultancy firm which employed Shrivastava to look after clients in Delhi. "While providing construction consultancy on behalf of my employer, I realised that I could also provide consultancy in other fields to the same clients. So, I set up another table in the same office and simultaneouslystarted building my own business."

Initially, Shrivastava did not spend any money on publicity and marketing. It was mostly by word of mouth. Says Shrivastava, "A job well done is publicity in itself. You can trust satisfied clients to spread the word around." Later, in 1986 when VCC was established, Shrivastava spent on publicising his company. However, he maintains, "If a job is badly done, no amount of publicity can help."

VCC is a multi-disciplinary consultancy organisation providing a variety of consultancy services in the fields of railway technology, highway engineering, environmental studies, geo-technology, engineering surveys etc. Other services offered are project planning and development, project management, pre and post-tender services and operations and maintenance.As it is not possible for Shrivastava to manage such a vast business single-handedly, he has a number of top-notch engineers and technocrats working for him. Impressed by his venture, quite a few retired highly ranked governmentofficials have joined his company to manage various departments.

With more than 250 persons working for him, Shrivastava says that it is the joy of creating jobs which is his motivating force. "Money does not matter to me as all my children are well-settled and I have no responsibilities. I derive enormous satisfaction from the fact that I am in a position to give employment to others." Many of the employees working in VCC are retired people. "I believe that there is lot of potential left in people who have retired from their regular jobs. I want to put that to use." Shrivastava says that he invests a big part of the profit earned by his company in buying new machinery and equipment. "Technology is advancing rapidly and I want my company to have the latest machines. This helps me to improve the quality of my services."

Shrivastava's latest hi-tech possession is a small computerised instrument for conducting field surveys. All required readings are taken by the instrument and stored in a floppy. One simplyhas to download it. "The instrument has made field survey very simple and accurate. Because of it many companies are attracted to come to VCC for their surveys."