Category Archives: India Inc – The Book

KV Kamath – India’s Banker becomes Chairman of Infosys

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Earlier today, it was announced that KV Kamath would become Chairman of Infosys – a major Indian and international IT services company that’s based in Bangalore.

In my book titled ‘India’s Inc – How India’s Top 10 Entrepreneurs Are Winning Globally’, I interviewed and included Kamath – although he wasn’t an entrepreneur per se – simply because he’d taken a boring, old world, finance institution and made it globally competitive – displaying all the traits that successful entrepreneurs display while building their businesses. In the book, I called him ‘India’s banker’ as ICICI had truly become a force in India. Their retail operations were slick, their corporate and investment bank delivered exceptional returns etc. The thing that truly marked him out, though, was his fascination with technology. He could have easily been the Chief Technology Officer for ICICI, such was his grasp of the potential technology held to provide a well deserved boost to his company.

For this reason, it came as no surprise that KVK, on retirement as CEO of ICICI, was asked to serve in Infy’s Board. So in many respects, this announcement also doesn’t come as a major surprise to the markets.

Interestingly, Narayana Murthy, founder and soon to retire Chairman of Infosys, also features in my book. Murthy’s known for many things but what stuck out was his commitment to retiring from Infosys as per the governance of the company. In many cases, such words are seen as niceties as it’s widely expected that their next generation will take over, so for this reason its important to mention and celebrate an entrepreneur who’s kept to his word on this – not that anyone has ever doubted it.

Recently, I’ve also read some of the media coverage around succession at Infosys in particular, which despite being interesting to ponder, is in fact a sign of things to come. Mr Murthy and his band of founders will retire soon. Whilst they claim that Infosys will thrive without them, Kamath’s appointment is a litmus test on their faith in the company that they’ve built.

It’ll be worth keeping an eye on Infosys, that’s for sure.

Sunil Mittal – the poster boy of Indian entrepreneurship

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Visiting my relatives in India when I was young, I was always struck, even then, by the stories that were told about India’s bureaucracy. For example, we were told that to get a fixed line phone, people had to wait over 5 years after lodging their application. Given this was the state of India and in particular of her telecoms sector not so long ago, one of the statistics that astounds people today, unsurprisingly, is the take up rate of mobile phones in India – which averaged upwards of a couple of million handsets being sold every month!

Coming from quite a mature western European market, I’m totally flabbergasted with the competitiveness of India’s cellphone market. In addition her innovative ways of winning and keeping customers, such as with low cost price plans, energetic (but melodious) ring tones, value added information services etc. all are refreshing and provide great case study material in MBA schools all over the world.

But, often people outside of India (and outside of business schools) fail in recognising Indian brands and their successes fully, which was a prime motive in my writing my recently released book: India Inc: How India’s Top Ten Entrepreneurs Are Winning Globally.

My biggest regret is not that I didn’t write about Ratan Tata, Mukesh or Anil Ambani, but in fact that I didn’t include Sunil Mittal, the man behind the telecoms boom in India. He’s often credited as India’s poster boy for entrepreneurship as he’s created a phenomenal juggernaut of a company in Bharti Airtel. My reasons for excluding him, despite having met him over the past decade at many occasions, is that until recently he was totally focused on the opportunity India’s domestic market provides for Airtel – not that you can hold that against him – and my book looked at the international success of India’s corporate titans.

But, finally, all has changed. As of this week, Bharti Telecom owns Africa’s Zain Telecom and therefore makes his success an international one in the truest sense. His acquisition is second only to Tata’s purchase of Corus and provides Mittal with a growing footprint in an additional 15 countries and 150 odd million subscribers. It would be misleading to suggest that Mittal wasn’t interested in internationalising Airtel, as we all know of his failed negotiations with South Africa’s MTN over the past couple of years. But, I’m glad its finally happened.

What excites me, and many more, is his focus on Africa as it is here that I believe he’ll really be able to leverage his Indian experience to much gain. We hear of China’s love affair with Africa, but seldom do you hear of India making a beeline to some of the world’s most stunning countries and for this reason look forward to charting Sunil Mittal’s international success as much as India watchers have kept a keen eye on his domestic conquest.

Please don’t be mistaken, his rise hasn’t been free of challenge, controversy, or criticism and I don’t intend on sugar-coating his rise, but I fundamentally believe, above all, he demonstrates some phenomenal entrepreneurial traits that could teach the Bransons of our world a thing or two.

Indian IT should say it loud: “we’re Indian and we’re proud”

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Threats from western economies like the US and the UK to enact legislation that protect their jobs are falling on deaf ears. The moment has passed and we’re too far down the road, so to do a u-turn would require a mammoth effort and defy logic – simply put, they’re hooked.

At least that’s the sentiment expressed by some of the IT titans that I interviewed for my newly published book that looks at the global achievements of India’s top 10 entrepreneurs. Of the top 10, N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman of Infosys Technologies; S. Ramadorai, Vice Chairman of TCS; and Shiv Nadar, Chairman of HCL Technologies speak frankly about where they’ve come from and what the future holds for their respective firms.

What I found spectacular was the manner in which each of them came to the fore. Shiv Nadar’s journey began in 1976 on a rooftop terrace, where he and his colleagues started HCL selling calculators – all at a time when India had a total of 250 computers! HCL began in the hardware space and later realised the need to move into software – ironic as India’s fame is based on the talent of its software engineers. His first breakthrough came courtesy of IBM, who were kicked out of India, leaving a void that Nadar’s HCL neatly capitalised on.

I describe Nadar as an opportunist, as he’s mastered the art of spotting trends to capitalise. In my view, his acquisition of a call centre in Belfast when the trade unions were kicking off demanding ‘British jobs for British people’ not only left critics dumbfounded but showed the vision which he had. Today, near-shoring is as popular as off-shoring, thanks to a trend popularised by Nadar.

Ramadorai’s strength lies in the simple fact that he knows how to scale up an organisation. Yes, he may be one of Ratan Tata’s trusted lieutenants, but his is a story about how Indian companies promote entrepreneurial thinking. Just cast your minds back to 1995, when TCS employed only 5000 people to today, where headcount stands at 120,000. Likewise with the sea change that Ram brought in, he also brought in a massive increase of revenues, which today sees them go toe to toe against the biggest and best in the industry and walk away with lucrative contracts, such as in the public sector which has long been dominated by a cosy club of vendors. Ramadorai disrupted the order of things, which he deserves credit for.

No book on Indian entrepreneurship would be complete without mention of Narayana Murthy of Infosys, who borrowed $250 from his wife to finance his equity in Infosys, Bangalore’s biggest and most known brand. Murthy explained that during their early days, they realised that it was tough to beat the blue-chip vendors of the West, on their terms in their territories, so he brought the competition to India, where he could compete in hiring the best talent by beating the Western majors in building the best work environments known to the industry at a cost that he could afford.

That he’s known as being the most ethical isn’t necessarily relevant for this article, but his behaviour at a time when the sector came under massive pressure following the Satyam scandal is worthy to note and is a pointer that Indian business leaders care about how they’re perceived globally.

The future of IT may rest on the shoulders of such giants, and for this reason it’s vital to not only know who they are but also know where they come from so we can get a better insight to where they’re headed.

Whilst in client meetings they may position themselves as being global companies, but there is no getting away from their Indian identity, something that should be embraced as opposed to hidden away. Rather than apeing Western business models, I’m certain they’re able to show an alternative way of delivering high-end solutions to a global client pool and by watching Murthy, Nadar, and Ramadorai, we may find the answers to some fundamental questions about the IT industry.

Welcome to the motherland – musings about my book tour

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I write this post on the flight back to London after a mammoth visit to India and Singapore to promote my book. Gliding at 30,000 feet, I thought that I should write this before I forget the details I wanted to convey.

THE DELHI DURBAR
The visit started in Delhi, which I’ve enjoyed visiting for many years. I find the people I meet somewhat more relaxed than those in Mumbai, perhaps even more sophisticated in their dealings – all very unsurprising as Delhi is home to the thousands of civil servants, government officials, and parliamentary types – behaviour that is to be expected from an outwardly looking city.

But, this time, there was a marked difference. On the faces of the people I met, there seemed a massive anxiety, which when explored further centred on the Commonwealth Games, which are to be held later this year in the city.

The roads are gridlocked, hotels are overflowing and packed to the rafters, stadia aren’t finished – and on top no one seems to be articulating what the legacy from these games will be. One of my friends swept my observations away by quipping: “don’t worry, we’re a nation of 1.3billion, if required we’ll hand everyone a paintbrush to finish the job in the week preceding the games”.

The event at the Reliance TimeOut bookstore in Gurgaon was great. It afforded me the opportunity to practice my script and prepare for the big event hosted by the British Council the next day.

At the event in the British Council, we had a great line-up of speakers for the panel discussion. I was invited to deliver the keynote address and thereafter moderated the panel discussion, which included some heavyweights like Siddhartha Vardarajan (Strategic Affairs Editor of the Hindu), Saurabh Srivastava (Chairman, Computer Associates, India) and Rajesh Shah (Chairman of Mukand Steel and former President of the CII).

The discussion touched on themes like China, entrepreneurship, the future of family owned businesses, which the panel seemed to relish tackling. Quite a few people commented on the quality of discussion, which I too thought was incredibly good, if not fantastically moderated 🙂

AAMCHI MUMBAI
This was my first visit to Mumbai after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and it was brought home to me as a result of both book events – 24th & 25th being hosted at the Taj Mahal hotel – the centrepoint for the attacks.

One of these was on the Terrace of a venue called Chambers, which was written about quite a bit in the aftermath of the attacks, as it was one of the places in the hotel that a lot of lives were lost. Without commenting on the emotions that were running through me, suffice to say that at the end of the evening I had a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat.

The following evening was easier to cope with. The CII hosted a great event which saw that a number of embassies and consulates were represented. More than anything, I invited some friends who had moved to India from the UK, with who it was great to catch up and re-live the good times.

Mumbai’s quite a place. On one hand you have the Dharavi slum – Asia’s largest slum – and on the other you have the best that money can buy. Despite knowing this and having experienced both extremes during my many visits before, I was struck by the same during this stay. Mumbai is in fact not one but many, many cities with several faces to show – all of which became more evident as the evenings progressed (I’ll leave it at that for now :).

Lecturing to some of India’s brightest MBA students (at NMIMS) was as expected – great. To qualify for admission into one of these premier institutions takes a lot, so it was no surprise to see a class packed with phenomenal intellect and intelligence. Their questions, and also the discussion that ensued was eye-opening for me as their command on the subject was terrific.

VIBRANT GUJARAT
The Gujarat Electronics & Software Industry Association (GESIA) invited me to deliver a keynote address in Amdavad to an audience packed with some seriously influential people. The event ran on the lines of the British Council event in Delhi, with the only difference being that the book was released by three Secretary level bureaucrats – all of whom run massive state government departments in Gujarat.

Interestingly, the book launch took place on the 600th anniversary of the foundation of Amdavad City, which resulted in a massive celebratory event on the waterfront, which is being redeveloped in a major way.

One of the criticisms of the book is that neither Kamath nor Ramadorai are entrepreneurs. They were corporate professionals who lead their respective firms to global success. So, one of the questions that was posed to Ravi Saxena, Secretary for IT was whether this was a valid criticism. In his response, he rightly knocked the stuffing out of the question by demonstrating through examples of how some of India’s most successful enterprises are in the public sector run by public servants!

SINGAPORE SLING
The thought of opening an office in China fills me with fear, however it seems Singapore may be a great destination to get started, as it’s on the China trade corridor just as the UK is on the India trade corridor.

I was invited to speak to Aventis Business School, which is part of the New York State University, and the SP Jain School of Management, which is a leading MBA school in that part of the world. Naturally, I had to amend my messages for this visit, but I kept on being probed about the China Vs India theme that emerges in my book.

I have a few friends and relatives who’ve moved to Singapore for work, and used the opportunity to catch up with them. More than anything, what came through was despite the great lifestyle that can be afforded in Singapore, there’s no substitute for a city like London or New York.

MEDIA
One of the objectives was to drum up as much publicity as possible for the book, and I conducted interviews with the following:

Zee Business
Zee News
UNI TV
UNI Bloomberg
Press Trust of India
DNA
Sandesh
The Economic & Trade News
Hindustan Times
HT Cafe
IBN Live
Strait Times
Tabla
Asian Age

All of which, I’m sure, will begin appearing from next week. So keep upto date on www.indiaincthebook.com for the articles as they appear.

The book tour begins…

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The last few weeks have been quite thrilling, as there’s been a lot of activity that’s definitely contributed to the book being noticed and being talked about. For example, the UKs International Trade Minister referenced the book in an article that he penned for the Economic Times of India. Also, www.indiaincthebook.com received a phenomenal number of unique hits as a result of a flyer being emailed by the Marketing team of HCL Technologies to their entire workforce, which I’m grateful for.

I embark on my book tour tomorrow, and have been asked to speak at the following places:

22nd Feb – Reliance TimeOut store in Gurgaon, India
23rd Feb – British Council, New Delhi, India
24th Feb – HSBC Private Bank, Mumbai, India
25th Feb – Confederation of Indian Industry, Mumbai, India & Narsee Monjee Institute of Management, Mumbai, India
26th Feb – Gujarat Electronics & Software Industry Association, Ahmedabad, India
1st March – Aventis Business School / New York State University & SP Jain School of Management, Singapore

There’s also quite a few interviews arranged, such as with Hindustan Times, Financial Express and IBN Live.

As is par for the course, I’m sure the diary will change on a daily basis, as pre-planning things in India remains a huge challenge!

Please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to track what I’m doing over this tour.

I’m quite excited. Let’s hope it goes well.

A day with Baba Kalyani – India’s Mr Manufacturing

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I was quite privileged to have had Baba Kalyani fly into London, especially, to attend a press event, and then to an exclusive event that HSBC hosted for me to mark the launch of my book this evening. For your reference, Mr Kalyani’s claim to fame is that his firm (Bharat Forge) supply components to almost every singly vehicle in North America & Europe! In my book, I refer to him as ‘India’s Mr Manufacturing’.

At the press event, we had a number of journalists from a variety of sectors – sectoral press, newswires, Indian, Chinese, and French journalists etc who grilled him on big picture issues ranging from global warming & climate change, the financial slow-down, India Vs China, what to expect from Davos this year etc.

What struck me was his statement that, despite the scaremongering, the UK presented the best opportunity for manufacturing firms in Europe (and not Germany). I’m used to listening to political spin about these kinda things – we’ve recently had Lord Mandelson waxing lyrical about global manufacturing, but I believe it matters when leading players like Mr Kalyani say it.

At the evening event, which was an exclusive event with “society” figures, the focus shifted from macro issues to his personal story. I wanted to offer the audience the opportunity to ask questions to Mr Kalyani. I felt this was important because when I used to return to London and narrate what I had learnt through my interviews with the entrepreneurs to my friends, they’d chip in by saying “I wish I could ask him / them a question” – so the event allowed them exactly that.

All in all, I’m delighted to say, today was a success.

You can take a look at some of the photos here:

Thank you

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As long as I remember, I’ve always been a fan of books. Over time, the range of books that I’ve bought has expanded to include all types of subjects and genres, resulting in an eclectic mix being crammed on my book-shelf at home. I’ve impulsively bought books in markets; in airports on my business travels; and on the net when I’ve managed to write a list of things to order on-line.

So, when I turned 30, I wrote a list of things that I wanted to achieve, but, as with new year’s resolutions, never imagined that I would actually make any headway on any of these.

My list included jumping out of a plane (a skydive), earning my first million, solving third world debt, flying to the moon, and writing a book. So, achieving two of the above with five years to go before I make another list – on my 40th, is – at least in my view, not bad going.

The launch event, last Thursday, was a major milestone in my life. On a personal level, it feels great to have my name on a book, and look forward to seeing it in places that I normally shop. It kinda felt strange to be at the launch event – professionally my firm organises these for others, so it was weird to be the centre of attention at my own! On a professional basis, it’s gratifying to be able to contribute to such an important subject and feel that the book will lead to bigger and better things for me and my firm.

At the event, it seemed that everyone kept on asking me the same two questions – ‘what gave you the idea?’ and ‘what does it feel like?’, and my wife laughingly told me that lots of people kept on approaching her to ask whether ‘she was proud of me’.
My reason for writing the book was quite simply that I believed that with all the talk of India’s emergence on the world stage, a wider audience needed to become familiar with the trailblazers that were making it happen. Yes, it would’ve been great to have the obvious names like Ratan Tata and the Ambani brothers, but it would be doing the subject a disservice to ride on their shoulders as many others have.

From the outset, I was quite clear that mine wasn’t going to be an investigative book, it was meant to be an introduction to a set of role models emanating out of India that will one day, be referred to – along with, some of the biggest entrepreneurial icons that the West seems to love. I’ve always been puzzled as to how a guy like Narayana Murthy, who founded Infosys by borrowing Rs 10,000 from his wife, has gone on to build a firm that employs people all around the globe and earns over 50% of its revenues from the US, but is still largely unknown.

Or a Baba Kalyani, whose firm manufactures components for every single vehicle in the US & Europe. Or take Subhash Chandra, who apart from Zee TV, owns a firm called Essel who manufactures over 30% of the world’s toothpaste tubes! Despite their global reach and success, how comes no one, apart from hard-nosed business journalists & professional India watchers, know anything about them?

With formalities being conducted by Stephen Pound MP, who as everyone expected, was on absolute form that evening, delivered his trademark, side-splitting, remarks, to the annoyance of the next speaker, who would inevitably find it hard to follow such a performance.

So, for this reason, I was totally taken aback with the expert commentary provided by Dixit Joshi, MD of Asian & European Equities at Barclays Capital, who explained that the world needs to understand the thinking taking place in India’s boardrooms in order to address some of the world’s biggest challenges.

Having taken the temperature of the room, I decided to put the speech that I’d crafted to one side and speak ex-tempore on my reasons for undertaking the mammoth task of writing a business book, in an age when the rules were being re-written as a result of the global recession and credit crisis. Importantly, I remembered to thank a few people who’d made the event happen. I took the opportunity to thank my wife, as without her support and love, I wouldn’t have been able to see this project to completion.

I had a great night. I felt humbled by the massive turnout. I was touched with the words that were spoken about me, the book, my firm, and my family.

At the end of the night, I struggled to articulate my emotions, and hence have take a few days to write this post, but the over-arching message remains the same – ‘thanks’.

You can read a write-up of the event, take a look at the pics, and watch footage of the speeches here:
http://www.redhotcurry.com/entertainment/books/launches/india-inc.htm

Mark Kobayashi-Hillary’s also uploaded some photos and videos, which can be accessed here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/sets/72157623260177684/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBZpdlIyjiM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt2LqWb1scA

Houston, we have lift off…

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So, here we are. The big day’s arrived and it’s put in perspective the efforts of the past three years to research and write this book.

Coincidentally, the Financial Times has also carried a balanced review of the book, of which the best quote that summarises the rationale with which I started this endeavour, is:

“The interviewees chosen in India Inc. represent an interesting cross-section of today’s Indian business leaders, beyond the largest industrialists. It will be welcomed by many readers in a country that has a voracious appetite for business books, particularly biographical accounts of how a successful entrepreneur or businessperson overcame the country’s notorious red tape and poor infrastructure to make millions.”

“For readers who want a light introduction to these personalities, India Inc provides an easy read with occasional vignettes.”

Shall write about the launch event tomorrow…