Innholdsfortegnelse for 20 March 2022 i Business Today

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision, says leadership coach John C. Maxwell. Indeed, the credibility of the leader is what determines the extent to which the team will follow the vision he or she lays down for the organisation. Iconic banker Aditya Puri, credited with building HDFC Bank brick by brick, told me that one of the first things he did when setting up the banking giant was to ensure his entire team, across levels, was aligned to the vision he had. The bank’s success is as much a reflection of Puri’s own credibility as a leader as it is to the depth of his vision. As companies across the world grapple with the after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the role of the CEO has…

THE ANNOUNCEMENT left most within aviation circles in a tizzy. Within days of his business partner Rahul Bhatia’s elevation to Managing Director of IndiGo, Rakesh Gangwal sent in a tersely worded resignation, saying he wanted to avoid access to any unpublished price-sensitive information as he reduces his stake in the company over five years. Industry insiders say that while Bhatia has effectively managed the policy environment, it was Gangwal who laid the foundation for the market-leading airline. Having earned his stripes in the cutthroat US aviation industry, Gangwal commands tremendous goodwill. The price negotiated by him with Airbus for IndiGo’s fleet is reportedly among the lowest globally. Many would now wish that he invests to build another champion airline in India.…

UNDER THE SCANNER Former NSE MD & CEO Chitra Ramkrishna A LENGTHY ORDER from capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is nothing new. The watchdog also has a history of issuing important orders late on a Friday night when most people are looking forward to the weekend. So, when a 190-page order was released late on February 11 against the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and its former honchos Chitra Ramkrishna and Ravi Narain, and an individual named Anand Subramanian, it was assumed to be important. And indeed it was. The order laid down intricate details about how Ramkrishna, who was the MD & CEO of NSE from April 2013 to December 2016, flouted norms to recruit Subramanian at an exorbitant salary—when compared to his then prevailing…

RUNNING A COMPANY, be it a behemoth, a large one, a mid-sized one or a small one, is no easy task. Corporate leaders bear the weight of shareholders’ expectations, are responsible for employees’ well-being, and also have to ensure that the business is profitable, while adhering to all the laws of the land, among other responsibilities. Businesses in India have faced torrid times the past few years—a slowing economy, muted demand, rising costs of crude oil and raw materials, and to top it all, the Covid-19 pandemic. The circumstances have been difficult, but they have also served to highlight the performance of certain business leaders who have made the most of these trying times. Sifting through the quantitative and qualitative aspects of their performance, Business Today, along with knowledge partner…

▶ SHANTANU KHOSLA IS a man with a curious mind. Before the pandemic, he would visit the market at least once a month. This was with the objective of getting specific consumer insights and ensuring Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Limited (CGCEL), where he is the MD, brought to the table the most superior product portfolio. Carved out from Crompton Greaves in 2015, CGCEL, he says, is only six years old. “It was an engineering company and we had to put the consumer in the centre. The focus has been on superior performance apart from aesthetics and design,” he explains. Growth has been impressive and what stands out is CGCEL’s ability to hold on well to existing product categories and make the right moves in the new ones. It is present…

▶ THE SCHOLARLY-LOOKING Sekharipuram Narayanan Subrahmanyan, or SNS as he is popularly called, doesn’t convey the archetypal image of the ruthless, snarling, cigar-chomping CEO of a company with gazillions in revenues. And in truth, he is anything but that. His colleagues reveal that SNS is a down-to-earth, simple man, with an eye for detail and on the well-being of his employees, a deep understanding of technology, and a man who does the hard yards—among the first to reach office (when in town), and among the last to leave. Once, while speaking to young employees at a company forum, he stepped off the dais and proceeded to shake more than 200 pairs of hands, and also briefly spoke with each. He’s also a man who you don’t meet if you haven’t…

▶ IN HIS OVER three-decade career as a bureaucrat, Pankaj Kumar has shouldered responsibilities in revenue, home, health, agriculture and disaster management departments in various capacities in Gujarat. This diverse exposure is serving him well in his current role as the state Chief Secretary as well as Chairman & Managing Director of the state-government-owned gas transmission company Gujarat State Petronet Ltd (GSPL). GSPL was established by the Gujarat government in 1998 to develop a state-wide gas grid that would connect supply sources and demand markets. Since its inception, the company’s end objective has been to support the efforts of its parent, Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. (GSPC), which at that time was primarily engaged in oil and gas exploration and gas trading, to develop a robust gas market in the western…

▶ WHEN THE COVID-19 virus started making news in early 2020, most of India’s real estate developers were yet to gauge the likely impact of the surging storm. And with the sudden national lockdown halting all activities, they were forced into wait-and-watch mode. Already struggling with poor demand, the residential segment could sense the impending gloom. At Prestige Estates Projects, however, the mood was different. Under the leadership of its Chairman and Managing Director Irfan Razack, the Bengaluru-based real estate major decided to turn the pandemic into an opportunity. Anticipating a slowdown in the rental business, it offered US-based investment management group Blackstone 12 assets and undertakings comprising completed retail-, office- and hotel assets. This included 100 per cent stake in Cessna Business Park and Aloft Hotel, Trade Tower in…

Madhabi Puri Buch, the new Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), has racked up quite a few firsts to her name. She is, of course, Sebi’s first female chief; she was the markets regulator’s first woman Whole-time Member, between April 2017 and October 2021; and the St. Stephen’s College and IIM Ahmedabad alumna is the first nonbureaucrat Sebi chief since G.N. Bajpai was appointed in 2002. Will her three-year stint see more firsts at Sebi?…

WITH RECORD REVENUES of ₹2,432 crore and operational profits of ₹666 crore, year 2011-12 was the best in ABG Shipyard’s nearly three-decade history. It was also the year when the Gujarat-based shipbuilder handed over a dozen vessels to its Indian and global clients. But 56-year-old Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal, Chairman and Managing Director of the flagship company of the ABG Group, was not elated. Agarwal, who studied finance in Purdue University, was more worried about the headwinds the shipping industry was facing post the global financial crisis. The industry was on the verge of plunging into a down cycle. Agarwal’s woes were compounding day after day with clients calling up to cancel contracts. And that spelt the beginning of the company’s downfall. Reason: rapid growth fuelled by excessive debt taken in…

⏵ FIVE MONTHS BEFORE Covid-19 emerged, board members of the Pune-head-quartered Bajaj Finance sat down to give final shape to its five-year strategic plan. It was a routine affair; the mood was sanguine. The consumer finance company had created a record of sorts by raising capital of $1.2 billion, to fuel its massive growth opportunity. For the past decade and a half, the company’s income, assets under management, and profits have been growing at a staggering compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30 per cent-plus. “Given the fast-changing landscape, the natural evolution fundamentally required us to become end-to-end digital,” explains Rajeev Jain, Managing Director of the ₹1.81-lakh crore (asset size) company. The board didn’t take much time to give its stamp of approval to build a one-stop shop financial services super…

⏵ CRICKET IS THE most popular game in India by a mile. While you will have the fan rattling off numbers with remarkable levels of accuracy, there is another set that is fascinated by the skills, strategies and what have you. Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO & MD of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), falls in the latter and easily draws an analogy to his own business. “We are masters at playing the ball, but we also are good at leaving the ball that doesn’t make sense to us. In that sense, we know where our outcome is and we will cover for it. There is logic in waiting for the opportunity and then getting the best out of it,” explains Gopinathan. The point TCS’s boss makes is how a product-based company needs…

▶ IF YOU THINK you speak fast, you should meet Mayank Singhal. The Vice Chairman and MD of PI Industries, a major player in agrochemicals, can dumbfound you by his speed of thought and speech. And his company’s growth is a worthy match. More important is the consistency. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, PI Industries has grown its revenue and profits each year since 2018. And in the first nine months of FY22, it has grown its revenue and PAT by 16 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively. Plus, PI’s margins are way higher than its industry peers. “Our focus is to be on the higher end of the value chain with more complexities, which offer exceptional margins,” explains Singhal, an easy pick for the jury of the BT-PwC India’s…

▶ H.M. BANGUR IS a trifle embarrassed when you tell him very few in the cement industry can match his cost structure. “Yes, I think we do a good job. To hear that is flattering but also truthful,” says the MD of Shree Cement. What is not commonly known is that the company was on the verge of bankruptcy 25 years ago. Shree Cement today has an installed capacity of 46.4 million tonnes, with a road map to get to 80 million tonnes in the next 4-5 years. Reflecting on the tough times, Bangur—a chemical engineering graduate from IIT Bombay—says there was no understanding of cost control at that point. “We thought setting up a plant was sufficient and nothing else needed to be done. It was that crisis that became…

▶ SANJIV MEHTA, Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Unilever, was in Bhubaneswar a few years ago on a market visit. Soon after, the company’s Executive Director of Research and Development, Vibhav R. Sanzgiri, got a call from his boss. Mehta noted that a variant of Lux soap was losing its fragrance sooner than expected in the humid conditions of the east. “‘Look, this can’t be our Lux’, I still recall him saying during a market visit at the beginning of 2019. These visits by top executives of FMCG companies are not new, but a top boss picking up products from the stands and figuring [out] minute differences is not very common,” Sanzgiri says. If you are a user of HUL’s popular Dove skincare range or the newly launched sensitive…

▶ WHEN SANJAY JALONA, an Infosys veteran, took over as CEO & MD of LTI in 2015 (known as Larsen and Toubro Infotech back then), he had a simple mandate—take charge of the business and create a unique place for the brand. Over the years, with the right strategy and focus, he has managed to achieve just that. Jalona decided to focus on fewer sectors and let go of sectors the company did not have a competitive advantage in. “We can never compete with an Accenture or a TCS in banking. They will be many times… [bigger than] my company… But we can compete in some areas, verticals and niches. We have to be able to compete with everyone,” explains Jalona. This inordinate focus has helped LTI build capabilities and…

▶ TURNING CHALLENGES INTO opportunities, Satyanarayana Chava, Founder and Chief Executive of Laurus Labs, has taken his pharma company to new heights in the past two years. Chava, who played a major role in the success of Matrix Laboratories as CEO, has also worked with Ranbaxy Laboratories, Vera Laboratories and Vorin Laboratories in different roles. And now, he is writing the growth story of his own company. For Chava, the past 15 years have been extremely rewarding despite the challenges. “Each challenge was converted into an opportunity. If there is no challenge, there is no opportunity. Our success depends on how much we innovate and build facilities to make a product commercial,” he says. In March 2020, the company received the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval to market hydroxy-chloroquine tablets,…

▶ IT WAS THE late ’90s when a young mill worker asked Chairman K.P. Ramasamy if he could help her complete her education, transporting the man back 25 years to when he had to quit college to return to his village because his farmer father could not afford to educate all four sons. Why shouldn’t we educate the young women in our factories interested in studying, he asked his brothers and the rest of the management. A correspondence programme was arranged for around 50 women workers at their mill. They took to it with gusto and cleared their +2 examinations with flying colours. Beaming, like a proud appa (father) that his employees refer to him as, K.P. Ramasamy (KPR) recalls saying in Tamil: “Inimey ovoru varushamum indha maadri padikavekkalam (Let’s do…

WHAT COMES TO YOUR MIND when you think of retirement? Vacations, spending time with loved ones, or maybe a life by the beach? Reality could be quite different though. Max Life Insurance’s India Retirement Index Study reveals 9 of 10 urban Indians worry about their savings not lasting through retirement. Why are we not able to save enough? The primary reason is procrastination. Immediate goals such as buying a house or saving for children’s education often become a priority and retirement planning ends up being put on the back-burner. Well, if you do not want to spend your golden years fearing a lack of funds later on in life, it’s time to get proactive about charting out your retirement plan. Now the question is, where to start? It’s not enough…

What was the problem you were grappling with? During the peak of the second wave of Covid-19, there was a lot of fear among our team members. This fear was because of the uncertainty across the organisation—both on the business as well as the personal front. This fear was debilitating people and preventing them from taking timely action. How did you approach it? When dealing with any issue, the first thing to do is to acknowledge that the issue exists. When we acknowledge a problem, we take the first step in dealing with it. I held a Zoom meeting with my senior team members with a simple agenda—understand the magnitude of the problem and then find a solution for it. What was the best advice you have ever received? The…

Sunjay Kapoor, President of Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India, says India’s auto industry is headed towards a “collaborate or die” mode. Reason: 80 per cent of the future car will be software driven (compared to 30-35 per cent today). So, auto part makers and original equipment makers are forging new partnerships—between MG Motor and Jio; Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Wipro; and Jaguar Land Rover and NVIDIA. This is just the beginning—electric vehicles will only accelerate the trend.…

After setting the the big screen on fire with its whopping ₹300 crore-plus box office collection in Telugu and an additional ₹100 crore collected from the dubbed Hindi version, the Pushpa: The Rise juggernaut is nowhere near done. The satellite rights are still up for grabs at a time when the fetching price for big budget Tamil and Telugu films have seen a manifold increase. Then, there is the second part of the film which is yet to start filming, for which producers are already reportedly negotiating deals. This picture truly is abhi baaki hai, mere dost.…

Air India, now owned by the Tata group, has hit an air pocket. llker Ayci, who was named as MD & CEO of Air India, has declined to take charge of the airline, citing attempts by sections of the Indian media to give a negative colour to his appointment. The top priority for the Tata group now is to get the ailing airline out of the red and a lot depends on finding a person quickly to run it. Will Air India’s quest for a captain end anytime soon?…

▶ WITH ORIGINS IN the textile business going back to 1951, Mumbai-based Balkrishna Industries (BIL) started as a bicycle tyre maker and then added auto rickshaw and car tyres to the mix. Arvind Poddar, the chairman & managing director of the company, succeeded his father Mahabirprasad Poddar who founded the family-run company. Today, it is one of the fastest-growing companies in the auto ancillaries sector. It not only manufactures and distributes OTR (off the road) tyres for agricultural and construction vehicles but has also pivoted to earthmoving and mining tyres along with those for all-terrain vehicles. Poddar, who became the chairman in 2016, has been able to steer the company by adapting to changing times. Under him, the company’s performance was led by strong demand across geographies including Europe and the…

▶ YOGESH M. KOTHARI, the Chairman and Managing Director of Alkyl Amines Chemicals, was a keen cricket player in his younger days. Today he is busy hitting boundaries, albeit in business. He has achieved consistent growth for his company over the past 10 years, featuring him in the BT-PwC India’s Best CEOs ranking. The net profit of the company grew at a CAGR of nearly 40 per cent to ₹295.34 crore in FY21 against ₹10.37 crore in FY11. On the other hand, gross sales increased at a CAGR of 18.28 per cent to ₹1,242.44 crore during the same period. At present, the company generates 85-90 per cent revenue from the domestic market. So, what has worked for the company? Kothari says that continuous capacity expansion and a better product mix…

▶ AT THE HELM OF India’s leading defence electronics manufacturer Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), M.V. Gowtama took the Covid-19 challenge head on. The record turnover of BEL (₹13,818 crore) in FY21 and a market share of 55 per cent serve as testaments to his zeal. “It was a challenge for us. Like any other company, we also experienced disturbances in the pandemic, but despite the curbs and the fear of the virus, we were able to motivate our employees. The welfare of people was our top priority even as we worked the most we could,” says Gowtama, who wins the Industrials category of the BT-PwC India’s Best CEOs ranking. From supplying 30,000 ventilators in record time to the government during the first wave of the pandemic to playing an important…

▶ TATA STEEL IS valued at nearly ₹1.5 lakh crore. The stock has gained around 67 per cent in the last one year (till February 28) even as the benchmark Sensex rose less than 13 per cent. The company has a rich history of over 110 years and is one of the world’s most geographically diversified steel producers with more than 65,000 employees. Managing such a diverse entity—in terms of structure and culture—is no easy task and MD & CEO T.V. Narendran has been doing it for a little over seven years. During that time, Tata Steel has gone from producing 7.94 million tonnes of steel in FY13, the fiscal before Narendran took over, to 28.54 million tonnes in FY21. And he has emerged as the winner in the Metals &…

▶ WHEN K. SREEKANT was appointed the Chairman and Managing Director of Power Grid Corporation of India in August 2019, one of the first things he changed was the setting of his seventh-floor office in Gurugram. He had the pale, brown wall opposite his desk replaced with large French-style windows that showed off the building’s vertical garden and the city’s distant skyline. The view serves as a metaphor for Sreekant’s leadership skills: open, positive and practical. For Sreekant, it’s all about fairness and merit. “I believe in meritocracy. Ultimately, people make an organisation. The key is to engage in a two-way communication with them,” he says. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why India’s largest power transmission firm reported consolidated revenue of ₹10,447 crore in Q3FY22, up 3 per…