Innholdsfortegnelse for 29-Dec-19 i Business Today

₹ 1,04,339 CRORE Total loss incurred in second quarter of FY20 by Vodafone Idea, Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel due to provisioning for past AGR (adjusted gross revenue) dues to the government GOOD MONSOON WOES This is the first time since 1997 that India has had an above normal monsoon in an El Nino year. However, that does not mean it’s great for farmers. With floods covering 137 districts in 12 states during the monsoon period, several kharif crops were affected RICE PRODUCTION 12% Decrease to 90.04 million tonnes (acreage also down by 1%) SOYBEAN PRODUCTION 12% Fall in production due to excess rainfall in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra (acreage up by 1%) PULSES PRODUCTION 4.5% Decrease to 82 million tonnes (acreage also down by 2%) COTTON PRODUCTION 23% Increase…

Investors spend considerable time comparing the service charges of various brokerages but take safety for granted. While the debate on the cutthroat fee models in stock broking rages, the recent Karvy scam has diverted focus on the vital issue of protection of investors’ funds and securities lying with brokerages. Investors with Karvy Stock Broking found themselves in a tight spot after the brokerage was hauled up by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for allegedly using clients’ shares to raise funds from some banks and finance companies and transfer that money to some group companies. The market regulator accused it of misusing ₹1,096 crore. The National Stock Exchange suspended its licence early-December. In an interview with BT, C. Parthasarathy, Chairman and MD, Karvy Group, said, “We are of…

At the headquarters of Reliance Industries (RIL) in downtown Mumbai’s Maker Chambers IV, the four ‘Mantras of Excellence’ that Chairman Mukesh Ambani learnt from his father Dhirubhai Ambani have been encompassed in a golden frame: Think big. Challenge conventional wisdom. Think differently. Think long term. The first mantra is a concise account of Ambani’s strategy. RIL has invested ₹3.5 lakh crore in its digital broadband venture – Reliance Jio – since 2010. In the process, RIL has emerged as the country’s second-largest network in terms of mobile subscribers within three years of starting operations. Jio also has the highest margin in the telecommunications industry because of latest technologies and brand-new infrastructure that it created. It has shaken up India’s telecom industry and incumbents Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel are struggling…

It will always be people. But on the weighing scale, the best feedback you get is by looking at growth. And I will drive the growth for the next three years In April 2009, when the Mahindra group made headlines for acquiring the fraud-hit IT giant Satyam Computer Services, Anand Mahindra famously said, “I don’t believe this is a sinking ship; no longer. This may not be a racing craft yet, but it is our task to make it one.” The group chairman entrusted C.P. Gurnani (CP among his peers) with the arduous task. A decade later, Anand Mahindra is not telling us anything about the craft or its seaworthiness but thinks Gurnani is best placed to drive the company’s growth. “I particularly admire his people skills, energy levels and…

My focus was on getting projects off the ground quickly and executing them on schedule Not many people would remember the day towards the end of August in 2012 when large parts of north and east India plunged into darkness as the power grid collapsed, leaving over 400 million Indians without power. While that has by far been the worst ever-blackout anywhere in the world, things have changed dramatically since then. Power demand in India has soared but there has been no such collapse in over seven years since then. India’s installed power generation capacity rose from 305 gigawatts in FY16 to 360 gigawatts by FY19. As generation capacity increases, there is greater need to evacuate power to regions that need it. Much of that work has to go be…

Photography is all about capturing a moment and Preetha Reddy knew she was good when her shot of the setting sun in Bali was picked up by National Geographic and showcased as “Photo of the Day.” It was years ago, says Reddy, Vice Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals Group. Reddy has been shooting hundreds of pictures – from the setting sun to a smiling child. All of that is stored in their family home in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh. At one point, she even compiled some of them into books and shared with friends. “When I have time, I am going to do an intense photography course.” Her sisters can’t stop admiring what she can capture. “She can make something mundane look extraordinary,” says Sangita, her youngest sister. “Everyyear, for the last…

Spiced Tea Toddy Style, an aromatic black tea blend (infused with lemon, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon) is a hot seller at the plush Brooke Bond Taj Mahal Tea House in Mumbai. A more careful glance at the menu card says the toddy influenced tea blend is created by the Hindustan Unilever Chairman and MD, Sanjiv Mehta. The CEO blend (that’s how it is referred to), along with the sumptuous three-tier snack platter, could be a good accompaniment for a leisurely Sunday evening chit-chat session with friends. At his sprawling office at the HUL headquarters in suburban Mumbai, Mehta personally asks you for your preference of tea and guides you to his tea chest, which holds unique blends from across the world. The tea collection may get a little confusing but…

In an era where every move of a CEO can be scrutinised globally via social media, impacting reputation, brand and valuation within hours, corporate leaders need to address their vision to the widest set of stakeholders, including environmentalists and social media followers besides board members, investors and employees. This is a far cry from the times when the success of a CEO was measured purely on how well the enterprise did on revenue and profits. Today, that’s the bare minimum. But not every CEO can straddle all these worlds. So what differentiates the best CEOs from the rest? A 2017 Harvard Business Review report, “What Sets Successful CEOs Apart”, based on a 10-year study called the CEO Genome Project, identified four characteristics that make successful CEOs stand out. The first…

Under 64-year-old Kenichi Ayukawa, Maruti Suzuki India is in such a strong position that it is difficult to recollect the dire straits it was in when he had taken over as CEO more than six years ago. Following two years of labour unrest at its Manesar factory, the company’s hold on the market had loosened, with market share falling to less than 40 per cent. For the first time in decades, competitors felt the company could be beaten at its own game, on its home turf. Ayukawa was able to effect a complete reversal in the company’s fortunes. By the end of 2018/19, Maruti’s market share had climbed over 51 per cent, the highest in a financial year since 2000/01. It accounts for four of the top five and seven…

We are largely in retail, which is the flavour of the season. We are well positioned to seize the opportunities as they emerge In 2008, when Rahul Bajaj decided to go the whole hog in nonbanking financial services (NBF-Cs), he roped in the former CEO of Citibank India, Nanoo Pamnani, also his relative, and his younger son Sanjiv Bajaj. The first job of Pamnani and Sanjiv Bajaj was to find a spirited chief executive officer (CEO) for Bajaj Finance (BFL). They rounded in on a quintessential banker after meeting 30-odd executives – Rajeev Jain, who fits into every aspect of BFL’s business and, after a decade or so of explosive growth, is transforming the nonbanking financial Service (NBFC) business into data and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven lender. BFL’s journey has been…

On March 31, 2016, the day before Mukesh Kumar Surana took over as the Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL), the Indian cricket team lost a semi-final match to West Indies in the Twenty20 World Cup. India’s journey in the tournament had ended but Surana was drawing up a mid-term strategy for HPCL, naming it Twenty20. One of the aims was to get the oil refining and marketing company Maharatna status. The criteria for Maharatna status includes a three-year record of annual net profit of over ₹5,000 crore, net worth of ₹15,000 crore-plus and turnover of at least ₹25,000 crore. Among these, HPCL was lagging only in profitability, which was difficult to achieve without increasing the standalone capacity. Surana, therefore, worked towards enhancing crude processing volumes, margins…

Bhuwan Chandra Tripathi has been involved with almost everything related to natural gas distribution in India, be it trunk pipelines or retail distribution. He also happens to be the longest serving chief of a public sector undertaking (PSU) and has worked with four ministers – Murli Deora, Jaipal Reddy, Veerappa Moily and Dharmendra Pradhan – during his 10-year tenure at the top. Over the last three fiscals, under his stewardship, GAIL India has seen its turnover increase from ₹49,237 crore in 2016/17 to ₹75,126 crore in 2018/19. During the period, profits almost doubled from ₹3,368 crore to ₹6,025.67 crore. The gas pipeline network expanded from 11,000 route kilometres to over 13,000 route kilometres. That is not all. Work is on to expand the Indian gas grid to 20,000 kilometres by…

Fiction, children’s books, memoirs are just some of the repertoire of 34 books Sudha Murty, Chairperson of the Infosys Foundation India, has authored in Kannada and English. Her next book is a set of three called ‘The Gopi Diaries’ for children based on a dog called Gopi. The first of the three ‘Coming Home’ is expected to be out in the market later this month. Her books have sold over 30 lakh copies till date. Of the 34 published books, 23 are in English and 16 are Kannada originals (some Kannada books have been translated to English). Nine of these are children’s books. Murty says that right from her early student days, literature and writing were magnets. Interestingly, she started writing in English at the age of 52. Some of…

The monetary policy committee of the RBI says India’s GDP is likely to grow 5 per cent in 2019/20, less than your forecast. Is OECD a bit ambitious in its projection of 5.8%? We had made this forecast before the latest quarterly GDP growth numbers were out. At the time we made the forecast, we were the most pessimistic of all international organisations. Today, we are probably more in line or slightly optimistic. If you were to take into account (the number for the June-September quarter), we might have revised it a little lower. The government is talking about making India a $5 trillion economy by 2025. Isn’t this a difficult target even if one takes your near-term projections of 6.2 per cent growth forecast for 2020/21 and 6.4 per…

By 1991, Vineet Nayar, the former CEO of HCL Technologies, thought he was done working at HCL. He had joined the company in 1985, when it sold computers, and over the next six years, wore many hats. Nayar worked in different cities, heading sales as well as product management. And then, he was bitten by the start-up bug. During a cocktail conversation at President, a hotel in Mumbai, he told Shiv Nadar that he planned to move on. Nadar, HCL’s founder and the current Chairman, is known for his persuasive powers. After the cocktails, the two men talked all night. They flew to Delhi the next morning for another round of conversation in HCL’s office. Nadar then invited Nayar home and the two ended up talking through the night, again.…

We learnt to listen to what is happening in the market and at the same time anticipate. We built in agility to respond to market conditions Under Baskar Bhat, Titan changed into a larger lifestyle company with presence in watches, jewellery, eye-wear and fragrances. He has also taken lifestyle to the masses. The business environment in the last one year has been especially tough, and Titan, like most consumer companies, has been hit. Its business slowed down in the first quarter of FY20 after close to 20 per cent growth in FY19. In the second quarter of FY20, the company posted revenue growth of 0.6 per cent. It has reduced growth expectation in the second half of FY20 from 20 per cent to 13 per cent. Bhat says the company…

My strategies now are more targeted and focused and that works In the second quarter of FY20, Nestle India was a clear outlier in consumer goods. While peers such as Hindustan Unilever, Britannia and others reported a tepid single-digit growth in revenues, Nestle grew revenues by 10.5 per cent and profits by 33.5 per cent. The company has come a long way from the Maggi crisis days. The Chairman and MD, Suresh Narayanan, sounds spiritual when he says, “The Maggi crisis reinforced my belief that if you do good karma, good karma happens to you. Numerous instances during the course of the crisis would show that there was a superior hand ensuring that we found the strength to come out of it.” He says the goodwill the brand had generated…

Murali K. Divi, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Hyderabad-based Divi’s Laboratories, is known for his ability to spot business opportunities and for his love of chemistry. He has built a company that has carved out a space for itself in the field of custom synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and intermediates for global companies. In some cases, such as Naproxen Sodium (an anti-inflammatory drug) and Dextromethorphan (a cough suppressant), it is a dominant supplier. These, and a combination of other factors, have helped the company weather the turbulent times that pharma companies have been facing, especially those in India – pricing pressure in markets such as the US, a move towards lower prices in India and policy uncertainty. To top it all, developments in China have created supply…

With her collection of 1,100-plus paintings and 71 installations from 389 artists, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon, is an art connossieur. Her interest in painting started right from her school days. She kept her interest alive through college, mostly through rendering water colours. The interest turned into a passion during her early years of setting up Biocon. She bought her first artwork in 1982, a 36” X 36” oil on canvas by Yusuf Arakkal. Her collection largely comprises figurative art, landscapes and still life. It also includes sculptures, bronze (especaially Chola), terracota and ceramics. The collection includes the works of contemporary Scottish artists like George Devlin, Archie Forrest and James Fullarton. Among the Indian artists in her collection, her favourites are M.F. Husain, Manjit Bawa, Bikash Bhattacharya, Yusuf Arakkal, S.G. Vasudev,…