Sunil Mittal – the poster boy of Indian entrepreneurship

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Vikas Pota

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.

TATA Corus Job Losses – is this the Indian way?

Posted on December 4, 2009 by Vikas Pota

In my book I comment on how in the run up to their acquisition of Corus, the TATA’s faced an absolute grilling from several quarters regarding their ambitions for the steelmaker, which today has announced job lay-offs for 1,700 staff in Teeside. Naturally, the unions were worried about the intentions of a firm that they’d probably never heard of. Sensing their discomfort, the firm put in place a programme of briefings in which their iconic CEO – Ratan Tata actually went and met with groups of people, including Parliamentarians, from the regions that Corus employed people.

At one such briefing, he made the point, which was well taken, that Indian firms don’t have it in their DNA to be vultures or become asset strippers. He looked them in the eye and said that not only were they buying Corus for sound strategic reasons but that he assured them that Corus would create more jobs, as he intended to take the firm forward. Sadly, not even he had predicted the global downturn and the circumstances behind this decision need to be presented so that no one jumps to any other conclusion than that the TATA’s tried everything to minimise losses, such as:

My sources tell me that the decision has been pending for over 8 months, and that the number of losses is smaller than what could’ve been the case.
The long term strategic partners, who pulled out, will be taken to court for failing to stick to their original commitments.
And finally, that there’s been an ongoing dialogue about the situation with all stakeholders for some time, so this comes as no surprise.

My reason for writing this blog is not to defend TATA, but to highlight that I wrote my book as a result of realising that the western markets need to know more about Indian firms who are increasingly making acquisitions in Europe & America, as a result of their improved understanding of thes histories and cultures of such people and firms, I hope they’ll be better armed to combat the negative headlines that often lead the news agenda as a result of my book India Inc. How India’s Top Ten Entrepreneurs are Winning Globally.

Succession planning in Indian companies – the TCS way

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Vikas Pota

In an interview I conducted for my forthcoming book on Indian entrepreneurs going global. I asked Mr Ramadorai, when he was the CEO of India’s largest IT firm – TCS, as to who he thought would succeed him, what became quite clear from his and those I asked this question to, was that a pattern was emerging within the boardrooms of Indian companies.

Two issues emerge – (a) whether in their succession planning, they’d consider external candidates and (b) whether they’d consider non-Indian candidates.

On the first issue, it seems clear to me that Indian firms prefer recruiting for top jobs from within their organisation. In the TCS example, Ramadorai’s successor – Chandra has long been seen as the heir apparant. In other similar situations, take Infosys as another example where the baton has been passed from Murthy, Nilekani and now to Krish Gopalakrishnan.

With respects to having a non-Indian at the helm, there aren’t many examples but the two obvious ones that come to mind concern Brian Tempest’s appointment at Ranbaxy, where after a brief stint, he was shifted by Malvinder Singh to a more supportive role, and the other being Alan Rosling, who Ratan Tata appointed to coordinate strategy at Bombay House, the TATA HQ in India. I recollect the look of horror on other industry veterans, when Rosling was appointed and had to represent TATA in global industry platforms.

The other notable example is that of Suzlon, which made the conscious decision to move their HQ to Europe and in tandem appointed a non-Indian as CEO, who has recently moved on, one suspects due to the move back to India for their global HQ.

India has a long way to go in its journey to become a economic super-power, and I believe that a healthy debate has begun in the boardrooms of these companies on issues such as this. In my view, I don’t think we’re too far off from seeing an external, non-Indian heading up a major Indian conglomerate.

Gazing into my crystal ball – I reckon the mother of all succession headaches surrounds Ratan Tata. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tata Sons opted for a (a) external person (b) of non-Indian origin (despite the prominence provided to Naval Tata as heir apparant as a result of his surname), after Ratan Tata.

Watch this space…

Playing chicken with Ratan Tata. Is this wise?

Posted on March 24, 2009 by Vikas Pota

Just watched the Ratan Tata interview on Sky News in which he issues a stark warning to HMG about the need to provide funding to Jaguar Land Rover. He said something to the effect of “…the government is being shortsighted in playing a game of chicken with us, as the result could be devastating for the UK economy”.

More than the message, what impressed me was their realisation that they have a far larger armoury at their disposal than what they’ve previously believed. By using a TV interview to tom-tom his messages, he’s reaching out to a far bigger set of stakeholders to persuade them to use any leverage they may have with the Government to secure the best deal possible.

Having worked in and around Westminster, I have no doubt that Peter Mandelson has Ratan Tata’s mobile number on his speed dial and speaks to him often, for the simple reason that Tata employs nearly 50,000 people in Britain alone.

What Ratan Tata says and thinks is important to the Government and for this reason, I think that by using such tactics, he is preparing himself to throw everything – including the kitchen sink – at ensuring a positive outcome for his company.

For the record, I’m sure that Mandelson – in these times, has a massive job in figuring out what’s best for the country, the one thing he should factor into his thinking is that Tata has a fantastic, ethical, and serious track record in doing the right thing with the long term in mind.