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| "From
a leadership perspective, I could not read the coming of
the (internet) downturn"
Manoj Chugh/President
(India & SAARC)/EMC Corporation |
To err is human, to forgive,
divine. What then, do you call the process of learning from your
mistakes and turning around a no-hoper situation into your winning
moment? Leadership, perhaps. Second chances, say management gurus,
don't come easy in life; one has to create them and make the most
of a bad situation. "There can be mistakes with regard to vision,
strategic planning, execution lapses, communication lapses and loss
of focus," says Ranjan Das, Professor of Strategic and International
Management, IIM-C.
If life serves you lemons then make lemonade and serve it chilled.
That is exactly what Deep Kalra, founder and CEO of travel services
portal, makemytrip.com, did. Kalra, who started his company during
the dotcom boom of 2000, was pretty soon struggling for survival
when the great internet dream went bust. "When we started
out, our focus was solely on the Indian market. The NRI segment
was just a minor blip on our radar. But the dotcom crash forced
a reality check-which was delivering real value to the customer,"
he reveals.
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| "One
needs to assess one's own expertise and supplement it with
help from outside agencies"
Sanjiv Goenka/Vice Chairman/RPG Group |
In a way, he recalls, the bust was the turning point, as Kalra
and his team found that the net was used not so much by the Indian
consumer as by the non-resident one to make travel bookings. It
also helped that compared to when he started out, the Indian resident
market, too, has matured. So, instead of going to different sites
or travel agents to check out the best deal, a traveller could
just check out a travel portal. "It was the most obvious
lesson that we forgot; your market research has to be thorough
before you set sail on the high seas. People will not buy on the
net because it's sexy and cool; they will buy if it offers value
for money," says Kalra.
Too often, says Santrupt Misra, Director, hr, A.V. Birla Group,
being overconfident sounds the death-knell of great ideas and
becomes the genesis of a self-created cesspool of trouble. Sanjiv
Goenka, Vice Chairman, RPG Group, who learnt by burning his fingers,
agrees. "About 15 years ago, we were setting up our power
plant in Kolkata and we went ahead with the construction without
hiring an EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor.
That, to my mind, stands out prominently among a litany of judgment
errors," recalls Goenka. Result: huge delays in the project,
not to mention massive cost over-runs. It's a different story
that the power plant today has among the highest plant load factors
in the country.
So, how did he turn it around? "When I realised the goof-up,
I tried to salvage the situation by going in for a daily monitoring
system. It was a slow process, as we didn't have any in-house
expertise in EPC contracting, but we did eventually get it right.
Now, we can build an entire power plant with in-house expertise,"
says Goenka. The mistake, he says, was to have gone in for a major
project without possessing the requisite competence. "What
I learnt was that one needs to make a candid assessment of one's
own expertise and then supplement it with help from outside agencies,"
he says.
The Hard Way
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"We were always confident
of the IPR issues on Lipitor and the US court decision came
as a surprise"
Malvinder Singh/Managing Director/Ranbaxy |
"People
will not buy on the net because it's sexy and cool; they
will buy if there is value for money"
Deep Kalra/CEO/makemytrip.com |
It's a tired cliché
but it's entirely true-the lessons of life need to be learnt the
hard way. "Three primary reasons why mega-blunders happen are:
being cocky and not heeding the voice of caution; over- managing
and making the organisation too dependent on you; and not having
someone play the devil's advocate," says Misra.
Add to that the mistake some people make of putting all their
eggs in one basket. "In 1996, when we started operations,
we were focused only on private equity investments for early stage
companies. We did not do anything else," says Rashesh Shah,
Managing Director and CEO, Edelweiss Capital, a financial services
firm. "But around 2001, I realised that if we wanted to move
ahead in the business, we would have to diversify and scale up.
That's when we raised some capital and inducted a few senior professionals
from across the finance sector and diversified our business model.
We also capitalised on the bad market situation that lasted from
2001-03 to expand our business," he adds.
Sometimes, it is not enough to just be right. Presenting facts
in the right manner for an informed decision is equally important.
Ranbaxy learnt it the hard way during its legal fight in the us
over anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor, the world's largest selling
medicine. "We were always confident of the intellectual property
rights issues on this product and the decision in the us court
(which ruled in favour of Pfizer, the patent holder) came as a
surprise," admits Malvinder Singh, Managing Director, Ranbaxy
Laboratories. Ranbaxy's contention that its version was not an
infringement of Pfizer's patent was initially rejected by the
court. It's only when it presented the us Federal Court with evidence
of process, that it managed to finally win the case. The advantage:
Ranbaxy was able to save 15 months and got a clear window of 180
days to launch the generic version of the drug whose sales are
worth over $12 billion (Rs 52,800 crore).
Once is a Mistake, Twice is Stupidity
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| "Around
2001, I realised that if we wanted to move ahead in the
business, we would have to diversify and scale up"
Rashesh Shah/Managing Director/CEO/Edelweiss
Capital |
Good leaders, it is said,
fight adversity, not take flight from it. Learning from a blunder
forms a major part of the bouncing back process, says Misra. "The
first part is to realise that you've made a bad decision. After
that, you have to look at the reasons why you made that error in
judgement. It might even help if you could talk to people you trust,"
he suggests.
Much, of course, also depends on the corporate culture prevalent
in the organisation. Management gurus say leaders who are direct
and forthright with their employees about their mistakes are able
to salvage situations much better than those who are pompous and
let their egos get the better of them. "If employees hear
about it from outside the organisation, it can shatter morale.
Besides, while most errors can be redeemed, it is very hard to
recover from a loss of credibility," asserts Misra.
Sometimes, it's not so much a physical change that is required
but a mindset change. Recalling his days during the heady internet
boom at the turn of the century, Manoj Chugh, President (India
& SAARC), EMC Corporation, says: "From a leadership perspective,
I could not read the coming of the downturn when internet start-ups
began to crash like nine-pins. Quarter on quarter, we were struggling
to make ends meet."
Elaborating further, he says there were three segments: commercial,
enterprise and service provider. "Of the three, the service
provider segment showed the maximum promise and growth and there
were big ticket deals in the offing. Of the other two, the commercial
segment was attractive, but it required a lot of work. When the
bust happened, we had to quickly de-risk our business and keep
the morale of the people high. We needed to refocus our efforts
and concentrate on hitherto neglected segments, such as the commercial
one," he adds. It was, to use his own words, a major mindset
change-which, he says, is akin to changing the engines of an aircraft
in mid-air.
The crisis he faced also pushed him to look at expansion of
operations into the Indian hinterland-reaching out to 100 cities
in a span of 18 months. "It was an ego-buster but it did
teach me one thing: you have to fill up the ocean drop by drop
rather than through some big bang deals. Rome, after all, was
not built in a day," he concludes.
Wanted: Agri Pros
Companies are looking for farming specialists.
Agriculture is by far the world's biggest business. Changes
in approaches to farming throughout the world and the increasing
demands of consumers are creating a wide range of career opportunities.
And with the corporate sector-read Reliance, Bharti, Godrej and
the Thapar Group, among others-entering the sector in a big way,
the demand for qualified professionals with the requisite skills
has exploded. Agricultural courses, ignored by most students till
only a few years ago, are suddenly hogging the limelight. As many
as 13 top notch companies visited IIM-A last year to recruit agricultural
specialists (IIM-A has a very good course on the subject). Says
Anurag Bhatnagar, Director General, National Institute of Agriculture
Marketing: "The demand for agri-business management graduates
is so high that we will not be able to meet it in the next few
years."
-Tejaswi Rathore
FACT BOX
WHO'S HIRING: Reliance, Godrej
Agrovet, ITC, Aditya Birla Retail, Olam International, Bharti,
among others.
WHO'RE THEY HIRING: MBAs with
specialisation in Agri-Business Management and Graduates/ Post-graduates
in agricultural disciplines.
AT WHAT LEVEL: Fresher and mid-level.
AT WHAT SALARIES: The starting
salaries range from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 9 lakh per annum. At the mid-level,
salaries rise to Rs 15-20 lakh p.a.
WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS LIKE: Exact
figures are difficult to come by but the industry is growing very
fast. With big companies coming in, demand outstrips supply by
a fair margin.
COUNSELLING
Help, Tarun!
Q: I have done PG Diploma in Mass Communication. Currently, I
am working with a news organisation and want to get into corporate
communications. Which are some of the good institutes?
If you have done your Mass Comm from a reputed institute, then
you need not do a course in corporate communications. Since you
are already working in a news organisation, it should not be difficult
for you to get a job with either a pr or a corporate communications
agency. You could start by contributing to the company newsletter
and then grow from there.
Q: I am in the last semester of PG Diploma in Business
Management from a reputed institute. I have a job offer from a
commodity exchange concern as a research associate. But my inclination
is towards investment banking. How do I make a headway in this
field?
If your inclination is towards investment banking, then you
should be applying for jobs keeping that in mind. Also, during
campus recruitment, check for companies in that arena. And in
case you decide to take up the job with the commodity exchange
concern, you will learn about certain other sectors in the industry,
analysis and research methodology. At some point, you could make
a switch.
Answers to your career concerns are
contributed by Tarun Sheth (Senior Consultant) and Shilpa
Sheth (Managing Partner, US practice) of HR firm, Shilputsi Consultants.
Write to Help,Tarun! c/o Business Today, Videocon Tower, Fifth
Floor, E-1, Jhandewalan Extn., New Delhi-110055..
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