The Secret Recipe by Inc. India

GROW YOUR MAY 2011

OWN

ENTREPRENEURS PAGE 59

THE SECRET RECIPE

The Magazine for Growing Companies

CASE STUDY

A DAUGHTER RISES,

AND HOW! PAGE 26

LESSONS IN

GREAT CUSTOMER

SERVICE PAGE 43

PR SAGEMA BRA AR’S

HOWMOVES DID IT I PAGE 54

THE SECRET RECIPE

The MAGAZINE for GROWING COMPANIES

Meet this breed of professionals turned company owners. They’ve got formal training and loads of acumen. Here’s how they cooked up their business platters. PAGE 30

Manu Mohindra has set up more than 600 restaurants. His experience in whipping up great meals as a five-star hotel chef has surely come in handy.

THE WAY I WORK

MAKE MINE GUILT FREE,

PLEASE

G.S. BHALLA

PAGE 64

May 2011 | 150 | Volume 02 | Issue 04 A 9.9 Media Publication

May 2011

CONTENTS

A Rare Moment Prema Sagar has the top seat at one of India’s best-known PR firms but she finds it very, very hard to sit still.

43 Customer Service How May We Help You? 44 (Re)learning to Listen Bill

Crutchfield’s customers taught him everything he knows.

by kasey wehrum

49 The Makeover A bustling new beauty chain, Drybar, gets some tips from the pros.

30 On Top of Their Class

54 How I Did It Prema Sagar

Twenty two years ago, Prema Sagar helped a not-so-popular hotel become Delhi’s talking point. Since then, Genesis Burson-Marsteller, her public relations firm, has helped many companies get shiny, gleaming images. by shreyasi singh

It’s fashionable for tycoons to be college drop-outs. But isn’t it equally cool to work that professional training into a business advantage? by sunaina sehgal and shreyasi singh

32 MR PERFECTLY ADAPTED

Jay P. Desai, Management Consultant

34 A SAUCY MIX

Sonia and Monu Mohindra, Chef/F&B Manager

by leigh buchanan

36 FAST LEARNER Lina Ashar, Teacher

26 Case Study A Fiery Start

38 AN UNLIKELY CHOCOHOLIC

Chandrakant Morde, Food Technologist

Disha Doshi joined the family’s printing business a few weeks before it was gutted. Will it be her baptism by fire?

40 THE NATURALIST

Manit Rastogi, Architect

PHOTOGRAPH BY SUBHOJIT PAUL

by shreyasi singh

THIS EDITION OF INC. MAGAZINE is published under license from Mansueto Ventures LLC, New York, New York. Editorial items appearing on pages 10-11, 21-22, 43-52 were all originally published in the United States edition of Inc. magazine and are the copyright property of Mansueto Ventures, LLC, which reserves all rights. Copyright © 2009 and 2010 Mansueto Ventures, LLC. The following are trademarks of Mansueto Ventures, LLC: Inc., Inc. 500.

on the cover

Manu Mohindra, founder of Under One Roof, a restaurant consultancy. Photographed by Subhojit Paul in Forgetful Elephant, Delhi. Cover design by Binesh PS.

MAY 2011

INC.

CONTENTS

May 2011

05 Editor’s Letter

07 Launch

A bit of good advice at the GrowCo Summit The Ticker Is your company spending too much on travel? A Skimmer’s Guide to Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industrty, by Stephen Denny

10 Get Real

By Jason Fried How do you keep employees when their only way up is out?

12 Passions

Suruchi Wagh uses dance to connect with the divine.

14 The Scuba Sutras

Guhesh Ramanathan Don’t worry about big sharks. Keep a lookout for the small fish. It can sometimes gobble you up.

16 Innovation

A “super-fertilizer” which is fuss-free and fruitful.

INC. | MAY 2011

18 Guest Column

By Harsh Chopra Trace an organisation’s lifecycle. Where is your firm headed to in the roller coaster ride?

21 The Goods

Mobile apps that make your smartphone safer Direct mail sings a new tune A primer on some flagship Android phones A portable scanner is a handy travel tool Tech Trends, by John Brandon: Can you fly solo with a tablet? Erik Kullenberg uses Threadsy Things Gaurav Bhagat cannot live without

Guidebook, No. 4

How to ensure better cash flows. Find the Guidebook following page 24.

68 I Wish I Knew Then...

V.R. Govindarajan, co-founder, Perfios Although on his third venture, Govindarajan is still eager to learn.

STRATEGY 59 MANAGING Inventing intrapreneurs—make your top employees co-owners to get the best out of them 61 SALES & MARKETING Healthy pills that pack in the goodness of fruits 62 ELEVATOR PITCH He’s raring to go with a unique LPG kit for twowheelers. Can Rajesh Nair raise 1 crore to power a zippy ride?

64 The Way I Work

G.S. Bhalla doesn’t believe in taking breaks at work. No wonder his frozen yoghurt chain, Cocoberry, is rapidly moving to nearly 100 outlets. He knows he’s got a treat of a business. as told to rohini banerjee

CONTENTS

Inc.com

5 THINGS TO DO

ONLINE THIS MONTH

1. GrowCo in Las Vegas If you couldn’t make it to our GrowCo conference in Las Vegas, April 6–8, check out video dispatches from the scene and follow the conversation on Twitter, using the hashtag #growco. www.inc.com/growco

2. Hack for Profit

The word hacking used to be a dirty one, but now, writes Inc.com columnist John Gerzema, the practice of hacking is going mainstream— and creating value.

5. ‘Like’ the Best Facebook Fan Pages

We scoured Facebook to find 20 of the most engaging small-business profile pages. How does yours compare?

www.inc.com/exploitingidea-marketplaces

www.inc.com/online-marketing

3. Learn How to Think

View a video of a live chat with Saras Sarasvathy, whose research was the basis for Inc.’s recent feature ‘How Great Entrepreneurs Think.’ Sarasvathy, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, answered questions about the ‘learnable’ aspects of an entrepreneur’s mindset.

4. Dream Big

American businesses need the next generation of innovators to step up. Tuck School of Business professor Vijay Govindarajan might know how to find them. www.inc.com/bringinginnovation-to-market www.inc.com/raises-andpromotions

MANAGING DIRECTOR: DR PRAMATH RAJ SINHA PRINTER & PUBLISHER: ANURADHA DAS MATHUR EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR: SHREYASI SINGH CONSULTANT FEATURES EDITOR: PAYEL MUKHERJEE ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR: ROHINI BANERJEE FEATURE WRITER: SUNAINA SEHGAL CO-ORDINATOR: AKHIL BERY DESIGN SR CREATIVE DIRECTOR: JAYAN K NARAYANAN ART DIRECTOR: BINESH SREEDHARAN ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR: ANIL VK SR VISUALISER: PC ANOOP SR DESIGNERS: PRASANTH TR, ANIL T, JOFFY JOSE ANOOP VERMA, NV BAIJU, VINOD SHINDE & CHANDER DANGE DESIGNERS: SRISTI MAURYA, SUNEESH K SHIGIL N & CHARU DWIVEDI CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER: SUBHOJIT PAUL PHOTOGRAPHER: JITEN GANDHI

INC. | MAY 2011

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EDITOR’S LETTER

A great syllabus My favourite cousin, and the family’s blue-eyed boy, was super intelligent.

A school topper, he aced board exams and studied metallurgical engineering at IIT. We expected him to invent things or become a paper-publishing academic. Instead, after a top-notch MBA he began working for a giant FMCG brand, marketing their line of infant nutrition products. Twelve years later, he’s still at it. And says his engineering degree seems like something out of a past life. While Sunaina Sehgal and I worked on our cover story, I was constantly reminded of him. He’s hardly an exception. Today, several of us work in areas that have little to do with what we have been trained in. The late-night cramming sessions and exam stress, in fact, seem like a big waste. In entrepreneurial circles, especially, there is a healthy irreverence for formal education. We are often told survival and scale aren’t found in textbooks. Yet, the six people we feature in our cover story this time are a great example of how it is possible to actually use that degree. We have a great mix—a teacher, a chef, an architect, a management consultant and a chocolatier—all of whom have managed to build flourishing, large brands around their core “skills”. In today’s web-enabled THINGS I LEARNT times, freelance consultants and IN THIS ISSUE professionals working for themAdapt constantly. selves isn’t uncommon, of course. Success isn’t But, the people you’ll read about on possible without that. Page 30, have long transcended It’s possible to take “home-office” days. We hope you frequent holidays, enjoy the package. even if you are a busy A few weeks ago, Inc. India entrepreneur. Thank you, G.S. Bhalla. partnered with GrowCo for a day-

long summit on challenges entrepreneurs face in the decade ahead. We had a stellar line up of speakers, and the sessions were interactive and thought-provoking. Yet, it was such a disappointment to have just one woman entrepreneur in a room full of participants. We are thrilled to buck that skewed ratio in this issue. On Page 54, read about Prema Sagar, who began her career as an office receptionist, and in the early 1990s founded Genesis Burson-Marsteller, a leading communications and public relations firm. Before Genesis PR, Prema ran a printing press with her brother. Our case study this time is also about a printing business, and its spirited second generation. Twenty-five year old Disha Doshi is infusing her family’s business with new colours. You’ll find her story on Page 26. There’s also a special feature on customer service from our US edition on Page 43. Don’t miss that. It’s been wonderful to hear from many of you. Please continue sending us your feedback and suggestions. We always look forward to them.

Shreyasi Singh shreyasi.singh@9dot9.in

MAY 2011

INC.

News, Ideas & Trends in Brief

LAUNCH

Meaning Business The audience at the GrowCo Summit were all ears (top right). Sanjeev Aggarwal, Ashutosh Garg, Sunil Srivastava, Sanjeev Bhikchandani (bottom right to left).

A Bit Of Good Advice Day-long session on India Inc. throws light on pragmatic leadership and marketing skills Spring: a time when flowers bloom, birds sing, and business talk gets imbued with a spirit of newness. There couldn’t have been a more perfect time to talk about entrepreneurship. The GrowCo Summit 2011 picked up on the season of newness with its theme, “Embracing the New Decade: New Opportunities, New Horizons, New Growth Models.” The recently-held, day-long session at Radisson, New Delhi, began with an opening note by Anuradha Das Mathur, publisher, Inc. India. Mathur confessed to being “diseased with optimism”, and urged India Inc. to put on their battle gear and fight for the “right to profit”. The pep

talk was enlivening, and got the participants geared up for an illustrious speakers’ panel—Alok Mittal, managing director, Canaan India, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder, InfoEdge, and Sanjeev Aggarwal, founder, Helion Advisors, to name a few. Pragmatic leadership, marketing and promotional skills–ideas were bounced off and juggled in each session. Pramath Raj Sinha, MD and CEO of 9.9 Mediaworx, shared his thoughts on leadership, while Srikant Sastri, country chairman of VivaKi India, spoke of digital marketing, emphasising on how mid-sized firms should exploit the process. His tip: think PDA tools, productive top-down

selling and leveraging the social media. The honcho with a sense of humour, Naukri’s Sanjeev Bikhchandani, added zing to the proceedings with his ever-easy style. Bikhchandani’s take on constraints was to convert them into opportunities. His mantra: “Face it, some business models, products or services are more scalable than others”. “We took 21 years to reach where we are—even though we were the first movers in the classified space. We hit upon an unsolved problem and simply solved it,” said he about Naukri, an online job search engine. He also emphasised that, “The NDA of scalability is to take the continued on the next page

MAY 2011

INC.

LAUNCH

The Ticker

A Bit of Good Advice continued

first step. Everyone has a vision but it is important to begin somewhere. Thus, “let go when the time is right” or wait till you “get lucky”. Ashutosh Garg of Guardian Lifecare added to Bikchandani-speak by warning entrepreneurs of “systems that fail”. It is as important to recognise inefficiencies and work around them as it is to identify successes, he said. Garg spoke about how he protected his brand name. “We left no scope for others to misuse our brand. Therefore, we registered our company under two names. One as Guardian, and the other as Guarjian since several Indians pronounced it such,” he reasons. Of course when it came to the nitty-gritty of running the pharmacies, surprise walk-ins have always helped him stay on top of his shop staff as have the video cameras he’s installed in his 230 outlets. “Many of them are dummies,” he confessed. The lively session complimented the “class on finance” headed by Alok Mittal. He warned businessmen of “trade-offs”. “Getting financed is more than just about money. Bigger issues such as strategy, vision and goal form the basic reason for a venture capitalist (VC) firm to back a company,” stressed Mittal. “Be sure to contact the right people from the start,” suggested he about choosing appropriate VCs. Do a thorough homework—company portfolio, funding sizes, mentors—on the VC firms to save time. In VCs’ defence, he stressed: “Out of a portfolio of 100 companies, only two to three can help a VC firm recover costs. Considering this, we have to 8

INC. | MAY 2011

constantly push businessmen to optimise.” General manager of State Bank of India, Sunil Srivastava, added a dash of honest-to-god advice. His take was that “banks look at whether an entrepreneur can service their debts and repay them.” He stressed that constant communication is the key. “The owners of firms should continuously engage with the banker. This helps solve many practical problems which pop up on the route to growth. It keeps the banker in the loop about a firm’s progress as well,” he advised. Srivastava initiated an hour-long session on probable exit strategies, crises where owners are asked to step down and issues of transparency in VC firms. The final bit was presided over by Helion Advisor’s Sanjeev Aggarwal. He shared lessons learnt from founding and running Daksh, a BPO he later sold to IBM. He clearly stated how he “hired experience in the middle-management and not just professionals”. Aggarwal’s key suggestion was to “empower employees”. “De-regulation allows a team to paint their own canvas,” said Aggarwal. Referring to the tradition of holding town halls, he spoke of their role in creating transparency and keeping staff in the loop. “The idea is to focus on creating a larger pie,” he declared. Conducting monthly town halls was one of the several must-do things he advised entrepreneurs for their firms’ well-being. A word of advice: close each session with an encouraging note and a review. It helps nip bad-boss tendencies. Point taken.—Sunaina Sehgal

Persistent and Headstrong— nope, they aren’t adjectives we use for people but eyeball-grabecko bing news headlines. First, Pune-based Persistent. The DeshpanDe product development firm joined hands with US-based telecom firm Sprint Nextel to connect India better. Anand Deshpande's Persistent also took over Infospectrum India to tap into aerospace, defence, maritime and logistics sectors...It could be Headstrong, but it's Genpact's new addition, as the corporation was acquired for a reported $550 million. Headstrong’s 3,700 employees have a strong domain expertise in capital calling investments in markets, which Genpact believes will help it to expand operations...While talking about additions, Avendus Capital has a new member in its firm. It has hired Robert Davis as the head of mergers and acquisitions..."Dial 1298 for an ambulance" and make IDFC happy, as it has invested 47 lakh in Ziqitza Healthcare, Mumbai's medical ambulance service...In more investment news, International Finance Corporation will pour in $30 million through a mix of equity and debt in Karnal-headquartered Dunar Foods, makers of Basmati rice… India’s largest staffing and education company, Bengalurubased TeamLease, has raised 100 crore from ICICI Venture and Gaja Capital Partner, an existsabharwal ing investor, to fund vocational education expansion. As the founder of TeamLease Manish Sabharwal must be saying, let the lessons begin. —Inc.India

Egencia, a leading corporate travel firm, and an Expedia group company, says

airlines and hotels are likely to up their prices this year to take advantage of the increase in travel demand. Egencia's report titled 2011 Cost Avoidance Strategies for Corporate Travel Managers, says the Asia Pacific region has already seen prices going upwards as economies do well. The report reveals some interesting travel anecdotes, and offers several tips that managers can use to reduce their growing corporate travel costs. Let’s take a quick tour:

BOOK ONLINE

16%

(The more your travellers book online, the lower the average ticket price. In a 2010 study, Egencia India clients saved an average of 16 per cent on point to point tickets booked online compared to offline purchases.)

RE-NEGOTIATE RATES

(53 per cent of travel managers were negotiating additional amenities or better terms into their hotel contracts. 72 per cent negotiated free breakfast, 66 per cent demanded free Wi-Fi, and 41 per cent wanted free parking.)

PURCHASE NON-REFUNDABLE TICKETS

(Non-refundable tickets cost up to 54 per cent less on average than refundable tickets on domestic routes in India. In most cases, these savings more than make up the loss from the small percentage of cancellations with only 10 per cent of overall tickets purchased in India changed.)

54% BOOK IN ADVANCE

(72 per cent of travellers fail to book far enough in advance. Set a 21-30 day advance purchase policy. A recent Egencia study found that, for example, by booking 21-30 days in advance to Mumbai, travellers saved as much as 14 per cent compared to booking “the last minute"—i.e. less than a week.) TRAVELLERS SAVED AS MUCH AS 14% COMPARED TO BOOKING “THE LAST MINUTE”

14%

41% 72% 66%

ASKED FOR FREE PARKING

NEGOTIATED FREE BREAKFAST

WANTED FREE WI-FI

(SOURCE: 2010 EGENCIA COST AVOIDANCE SURVEY OF APAC (AUSTRALIA, INDIA, CHINA) TRAVEL MANAGERS)

—Compiled by Inc. India

A skimmer’s guide to the latest business books

The book: Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry, by Stephen Denny; Portfolio. The big idea: Dominant, deeppocketed companies are often so myopic they don’t notice the upstarts sprinting between their feet. Identify competitors’ vulnerabilities and exploit the hell out of them. The global Davids: Some of the best stories in the book describe triumphs by small, foreign companies that understand their own turf. For example, during apartheid, South African cosmetics maker Black Like Me produced marketing that recognised the misery of township life. Search engine Baidu plays to its customers' sense of identity by reminding them it's stronger than Google in Chinese. If you read nothing else: Although Killing Giants is divided into chapters based on strategies, readers can simply graze case studies. Among the best: Adobe piggybacking on a Microsoft Black Friday promotion; JetBlue’s $599 All-You-Can-Jet campaign; and Classe’s programme for encouraging retail salespeople to buy its high-end audio products for their homes. Rigour rating: 7 (1=Who Moved My Cheese?; 10=Good to Great). Denny interviewed a few primary players at each of his 32 Davids, but he does not delve into the Giants’ side. So, for example, he chalks up Scott Brown’s Massachusetts Senate victory to savvy use of social media and technology, virtually ignoring his opponent’s notoriously complacent and gaffe-riddled campaign. —Leigh Buchanan MAY 2011

INC.

ANTHONY VERDE

Is Your Company Spending Too Much On Travel? A recent report indicates that’s likely. But, you can bring costs down

GET REAL BY JASON FRIED

When the Only Way Up Is Out

I’ve always run a flat company— no hierarchy, no managers, just smart people focused on their work. Then a prized employee said, “I want a promotion”

Something strange happened at work a couple of months ago: We parted ways

with an employee. That doesn’t happen too often at 37signals, the Chicago software company I co-founded. In 11 years, we’ve lost just five people—and one of them came back seven years later. But the really strange thing was the reason this employee and I decided it was time to part ways. The issue was ambition—not a lack of it, but more of it than we could use. She had been in our customer service department for about three years and had always done quality work. Her smarts, initiative, and productivity had never been in question. Now, she wanted that performance to be rewarded with managerial responsibilities and a new job title. It wasn’t about the money. You may be wondering how this possibly could be a problem. After all, what business owner doesn’t crave an office staffed with motivated people looking to take on more work? In fact, companies often go out of their way to create positions, responsibilities, and job titles to hang on to their most ambitious employees.

INC. | MAY 2011

At 37signals, however, we have a different position on ambition. We’re not big fans of what I consider “vertical” ambition—that is, the usual career-path trajectory, in which a newbie moves up the ladder from associate to manager to vice president over a number of years of service. On the other hand, we revere “horizontal” ambition—in which employees who love what they do are encouraged to dig deeper, expand their knowledge, and become better at it. We always try to hire people who yearn to be master craftspeople, that is, designers who want to be great designers, not managers of designers; developers who want to master the art of programming, not management. Instead of rewarding high performers with managerial responsibilities—which often drives people further

GET REAL

away from the job they are actually good at—we reward with responsibilities closer to the work. We also throw in above-market salaries and generous benefits, including four-day workweeks in the summer, as much time off as they would like (within reason, of course), and plenty of freedom to make their own decisions about the projects they’re working on. This has served us well over the years. But recently, as we’ve brought on more people, that model has been showing signs of strain. We’re now at 26 people. And, as many entrepreneurs have learnt, once your business reaches a certain size, matters you didn’t have to consider before become dif-

We’ve experimented with promoting a few people to manager-level roles. In some cases, this has worked out; in others, it hasn’t. But one thing we’ve found is that groups that manage themselves are often better off than groups that are managed by a single person. So when groups do require structure, we get them to manage themselves. For example, back when we had three people working in customer service, we hired someone to manage the team. His responsibility was to review everyone’s tickets, keep an eye on tone, make sure our customers were getting prompt and proper responses, interact with our developers to let them know what our customers were

Adding a dedicated manager and creating a hierarchy is not the only way to create structure. Sometimes a team can manage itself. ficult to ignore. In our case, HR terms like departments, managers, and titles have begun to pop up more often. Besides being small, 37signals has always been a flat organisation. In fact, flatness is one of our core values. We have eight programmers, but we don’t have a chief technical officer. We have five designers, but no creative director. We have five people on our customer support team, and no customer support manager. And because we don’t have a marketing department, we don’t have a chief marketing officer. Even as we’ve grown, we’ve remained a lean organisation. We do not have room for people who don’t do the actual work. Nearly everyone at 37signals touches our products at one point or another. From writers writing and updating support documentation to designers designing the user interfaces to programmers writing the code to our operations people, who make sure the servers keep on serving, we don’t have delegators who get paid to tell other people what to do.

requesting, and measure our overall support performance. He might jump in and handle a few tickets here and there, but his main responsibility was to step back and improve the department. It didn’t work out. This isn’t a knock on that particular manager (he was a great guy who knew how to run a department, and we helped him find another job). It wouldn’t have mattered who was in the role; the role itself was unnecessary. But because we expected the department to grow, we thought it would be a good idea to get some structure in place. After all, everyone knows that as you add people, you add structure. What we learnt is that adding a dedicated manager and creating a hierarchy is not the only way to create structure. Instead, we decided to let the team be entirely selfmanaged. There’s still a team leader, but that role rotates among the team every week. Each week, a new leader sketches out the agenda, writes up the notes about problems and performance, and steps up to handle

any troubled customer interactions. One of the things I like about the arrangement is that it frees us from the often toxic labour-versus-management dynamic, in which neither party truly understands what it’s like to be on the other side. This is where you’ll find a lot of conflict in companies. But because we rotate management duties weekly, everyone is more empathetic toward one another. When you’ll be management soon, you respect management more. Same with labour. It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, by the philosopher John Rawls: “The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.” Our support has got better, and our customers are happier. We’ve measured the difference, and we know it works. Observing the performance of the customer service team reminds me that promoting horizontally instead of vertically can benefit everyone involved. Moving ambitious people upward tends to lock down other capable people on the team. If there are three or four people capable of managing (in a traditional sense) and we promote just one of them, the teammates might feel stuck. We would rather everyone work together in an environment in which everyone has a chance to move proudly and thoroughly sideways. In the end, no one here is happy when an employee leaves. But as a business owner, I have to think about the long term. Moving someone up to a managerial position just because he or she outgrew his or her current position isn’t reason enough. Adding managers to the mix sends a strong cultural statement about flatness giving way to hierarchy. We’re definitely not ready for that now. I hope we never will be. As it happens, this story has a happy ending. Our ex-employee didn’t find another job—she launched her own business. She runs the show, and she’s having a blast. We’ve even provided advice and helped her promote her new business. It definitely was the right move for everyone.

Jason Fried is co-founder of 37signals, a Chicago-based software firm, and co-author of the book Rework. MAY 2011

INC.

Most seek the Lord in silence. Some like Suruchi Wagh find the divine in the rhythm of the ghungroo and the taal of Carnatic music. For this 25-year-old, “nothing is more devout than dance.” She is also the founder of nextLeap, a personalised web-based service for students. Wagh took her first rhythmic step when she was 10 at the Nritya Zankar Academy in Aurangabad. That spring in her step has stayed. She’s also put her dancing feet to good use. Last year, she helped raise thousands of dollars for non-profit Pratham.

PASSIONS

INC. | MAY 2011

Life Outside the Office

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dance makes my life disciplined, my acts more expressive, and me, graceful.â&#x20AC;?

Perfect mudras Performed the Tarangam, a specific Kuchipudi style where the dancer balances a pot on her head Participated in Marathi street plays in Aurangabad and Jalna, Maharashtra

Personal favourites Bharata Natyam Ganesh Vandan Enjoys dancing to parodies of film songs

Twinkle-toed Junior diploma from Nritya Zankar Academy Certificate from Prayag Sangit Samiti

Suruchi Wagh

PHOTOGRAPH BY JITEN GANDHI

Bharata Natyam

REPORTED BY SUNAINA SEHGAL

THE SCUBA SUTRAS BY GUHESH RAMANATHAN

Remember, small trigger fish can be more dangerous than sharks

Every time I come back home from a dive, people ask me, “Did you see any sharks? Weren’t you scared?” My answer is mostly the same.

“Sure, I saw a shark. But, they aren’t really dangerous.” Few people take me seriously though. Yet, it’s absolutely true. I’ve dived with white and black tip reef sharks in the Maldives, nurse sharks in the Andamans, and watched in awe as a school of majestic grey reef sharks swam around us, curious about our noisy, bubbling figures. I’ve even seen a leopard shark in Tioman. Nobody ever asks me about the other marine life we see far more often. Fire coral, stone fish, lion fish, and even the most common of them all, trigger fish never get a mention. Over the years, I’ve figured out a pattern to these questions—the larger the fish, the more dangerous people perceive them to be. That’s amazing because in my experience, Size Does Not Matter Take the time the smaller the fish, the more potenout to identify the trigger fish in tially dangerous it can be. your business. It might have more bite than you thought possible. Let’s take the trigger fish, for example. Trigger fish create nests in shallow waters up to 40 meters deep, and are tremendously aggressive when it comes to defending their territory. An unsuspecting diver who dives into a trigger fish’s “territory” is in for an interesting dive. Picture this. You are skimming along the top of a reef, and you see a titan trigger fish. “How interesting,” you probably say. “A solitary guy pecking at the reef. Let me see what he is at.” Before you even realise what’s happening, the fish is attacking you with

INC. | MAY 2011

all the pint-sized ferocity of a Pomeranian dog, nipping at you while you try to wave him away in panic. In a snap, he’s torn away parts of your wetsuit. He’s also got a hold of your (really hard plastic) fins, and is hanging on grimly. By the time you get away, you have suffered great damage (more to your ego really) to your wetsuit, and your fins seem like they’ve been chewed up by a fairly vicious bullPHOTOGRAPHY BY COLUMNIST

THE SCUBA SUTRAS

dog. You thank your stars that you’ve escaped, and wonder if that fish was rabid. In just the same way, entrepreneurs are far more wary of large organisations as competition. In reality, most times, we needn’t worry about the larger fish in our seas. It’s the small, “next-door” operator that we should be careful of. Are sharks really scary?

During the early days of my company, Help.com, our constant worry was that the competition would slaughter us. That competition was IBM, HP and Compaq. After all, they had a large, well established service network, the financial muscle to invest in setting up new centres, hire great

We had undercut Acer on that deal, and they’d looked like they’d cut us to ribbons after that meeting. But, you can’t say no to a meeting with a top boss, so we went. In the plush waiting room, we crossed our fingers, hoping we wouldn’t get too badly hurt. We were bracing for a terrible encounter where Acer would rip us to shreds and refuse to provide us with the spare parts that we’d need to service our accounts. Acer spare parts were the cheapest option in the business, and we were definitely not ready for a price war at this stage. But, the story unfolded differently. The CEO welcomed us warmly, made us comfortable and called in his head of services.

Most times we needn’t worry about the larger fish in the sea. It’s the small, next door operator we should be careful of. people, and train them well. As a start-up, we had to think multiple times before making any investments. We tiptoed around our competition tentatively. We’d quietly open a centre in a city, and sneakily inform our retail clients. We never made big-bang press announcements, had no direct connections with corporate clients even though doing so would have helped us get a much larger number of installation orders. We’d only gun for corporate business when we reached a certain revenue bracket in that geography. Despite doing our best to steer clear of the big guys, one dreaded day, we felt we were going to be had. Acer, a powerhouse in the computer business, called us to fix up a meeting with their CEO in Bengaluru. Our blood turned to ice-cold water. We had just closed a deal in Hyderabad for providing maintenance services to a mid-sized corporation, and had pitched against Acer there.

“I’ve been watching your company for some time now,” said the CEO. “You guys are good. Our customers have been telling us how much they enjoy interacting with your service teams. We wanted to check if you would be willing to partner with us across the country? We’ll direct all our retail and mid-sized corporate customers to you. And for the larger corporate clients, we can use your help in providing tech-support staff there. Would you be interested?” We’d gone in expecting the shark to rip us to shreds. And, here it was, offering us a partnership deal. We never expected that.

benefit of technology and know-how from organizations like 3M. It was a simple partnership. We’d hand over all the broken plastics to this vendor and he would re-fix them using special glues. The cracks would be invisible and the part’s life expectancy would go up dramatically. Within six months, we thought we could do that ourselves. We decided to drop the small vendor and take a go at it on our own. We’d quickly developed an understanding for these repairs, and were confident we could do a job as good as our vendor. What we did not bargain for was the fight this small “trigger fish” put up. To protect his territory, he went to 3M and told them that if they dealt with us, he would drop his business with them (which was significant for 3M), and go with a competitor. Needless to say, 3M refused to service us. When we went to the 3M competitor, our vendor was there before us, telling them that if they wanted to do business with him, they should give him exclusive territory rights. This was for all the geographies we wanted to support. With his specialised experience, there was no way 3M could say no. For a couple of months, we gamely tried to fight him off. His company was onetenth-the size of Help.com, and we thought we could overpower him. But, we failed. Each time we threatened his territory, he was there before us—his sharp teeth bared, and ready to bite into us. We finally backed off and retreated. We made our peace with him in the only way he’d give up the fight—promising him that we would never compete with him again. In fact, we had to resume our business relations with him. Our trigger fish taught us many important lessons. But, do you even know who are the trigger fish in your business?

Now, a trigger fish example

One of the most easily damaged parts in a laptop is the plastic. These break, crack, and generally, cost a fortune to replace. We decided to go against the tide, and began working with a small, specialised vendor to repair plastic parts. Our vendor had the

Guhesh Ramanathan is a mentor at the entrepreneurship cells of IIM Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad. He serves on the boards of several companies, and is an advanced certified scuba diver. MAY 2011

INC.

INNOVATION

Companies on the Cutting Edge

A spray of growth

T. Sampath Kumar’s interest in creatures with fins could have been labelled “fishy” when it began. After all, Kumar, a vegetarian and a chartered accountant was not your average marine biologist. However, one day he read news of the “red tide” (a concentration of algae changing the colour of water) and wanted to know more. His interest led him to study the aquatic food chain and diatoms, a group of algae found in oceans, freshwater and soil. As his obsession with the diatom grew, he realised that the micron-sized diatoms subsisted on sub-micron food. Kumar decided to recreate this nutrient to grow crops better, and the Nualgi Foliar Spray, a super fertiliser, was born. Fish to farm—the flow spelt green for both Kumar and farmers. Nualgi, a powdery substance, has 12 micro nutrients from copper to zinc. A hundred gram of Nulagi dissolved in 200 litres of water feeds an acre of farmland. The spray won an original patent in 2006 and a combination patent in 2010.

INC. | MAY 2011

NUALGI FOLIAR SPRAY

Growithus

“Nualgi is a fourth-generation super fertiliser. ” — T. Sampath Kumar, founder and CEO, Nualgi Nanobiotech

The progress so far: Annual sales of over 10 tonnes; 100 gram for 300 Department of Rice Research, Hyderabad, confirms using Nulagi yields a better crop of paddy Banana plantations battled Chlorosis (iron deficiency caused by leaves

producing insufficient chlorophyll) sucessfully after being sprayed Size of fruits increases in Sapota plants (chikoo) In Karnataka’s Hassan district, potato plants flowered within two days of application.

PHOTOGRAPH BY S. RADHAKRISHNA

REPORTED BY SUNAINA SEHGAL

GUEST COLUMN BY HARSH CHOPRA

An Entrepreneur’s Roller Coaster Ride

From selling an idea to dear-ones, or ‘courtship’ to a firm’s death Lifecycle of an Organisation

Organisations are like living organisms. They

Growth

exhibit predictable and repetitive patterns of behaviour as they grow and age. At each stage of Stable their lifecycle, entrepreneurs face a unique set of challenges. It all begins with “courtship” just before an organisation is born. The founder is Prime excited and is constantly selling his idea to famAristocracy ily, friends, bankers, partners, and whoever else Unfulfilled Entrepreneur is willing to listen. He’s testing the viability of the Adolescence idea, and building commitment for tough times Divorce ahead. At this stage, entrepreneurs must be carePremature Early Ageing ful to do a reality check. Many get carried away Bureaucracy by their own ideas. Some are likely to give away Go-Go Founder or significant stakes of ownership to financiers at Family Trap this stage only to regret it later. They don’t know Bureaucracy the value of what they are giving away. Infant Courtship typically leads to a marriage, and Mortality Infancy to a child, or in this case, a company being born. An entrepreneur’s personal life is completely put on hold during this phase. A supportive spouse Affair and family become essential ingredients for Courtship Death success. Smart entrepreneurs encourage their Growing Ageing spouses to share the pain and joy of giving birth Time to the company. Business school skills are useless in a typical start-up—there is no strategy or long SOURCE: Managing Corporate Lifecycles, Dr Ichak Adizes term planning—just survival. Companies need constant handholding and supervision as they lurch from crisis to crisis. There are no policies or budgets, and administrative company selling cosmetics to buy a shopping centre. procedures will fit the back of an envelope in the founder’s pocket. It’s here that Unchecked diversification can land the founder in deep the commitment of the founder is constantly tested. trouble and wash away years of his hard work. Another If you’ve successfully navigated the infancy phase, and have cash rolling in, common problem at this stage is that everything is “top your business has worked. The company now moves to the Go-Go phase. The priority” and there are dangers of spreading yourself too wins make the founder feel he is invincible. He can’t see any problems, only thin. There simply aren’t enough resources to chase all opportunities. It isn’t uncommon at this stage for an overconfident founder of a the ideas, and sometimes the best ones get lost. Many 18

INC. | MAY 2011

GUEST COLUMN

entrepreneurs forget to prioritise in their heady rush. The founder of the International House of Pancakes famously said about his Go-Go period. “I felt the world is on sale”. The next stage—adolescence—is like a rebirth. The company can’t be managed arbitrarily any longer, and systems and controls need to be put in place. The founder has to delegate authority. The company moves from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy where the king abides by the constitution. Still, despite the founder knowing he needs to delegate, relinquishing his power and authority isn’t easy. He forgets he cannot command his teenage daughter the way he did when she was a baby. Founders must change their leadership style to match the new circumstances. Some leaders are designated as chairman but act as COO, CEO and head of sales all rolled into one. I had the opportunity to work with the world’s biggest eyewear company headquartered in Milan. Its famous founder, Leonardo Del Vecchio, had a unique management style. He lived inside his company’s factory in a village in North Italy and clocked 14 hour days throughout his working life. The organisation structure was simple. On top was God, and next to God, was Del Vecchio. Everyone reported directly to him. This went on till the company crossed the billion dollar revenue mark. He’d occasionally announce his intention to professionalise but invariably would jump back in the thick of things. He only brought in a professional CEO when he turned 70. But, even now, his home is in the same building in Milan where the company is headquartered. Typically, at this adolescent stage, the founder’s success is picked up by the business press. He starts appearing on the cover of business magazines and gets drawn into the “successful entrepreneur speaking circuit”. Stories headlining “how I made my first deal” and “my journey from a village in Rajasthan to Mumbai” start appearing. Once he gets a taste of life in the visible lane, he realises there are many more things he’d like out of life than just running a business. It dawns on him that it is only by having his company run

on auto pilot that he can satisfy his other interests. When companies make the transition from entrepreneurship to professional management, new policies and systems are created. The organisation’s culture changes, as well, and this is often a difficult time for the company. A power struggle normally erupts. The loyal old guard resents the new professional team, and constantly romanticise about the good old days when the company was run from a garage and board meetings were held in a coffee shop. The founder, who is more likely than not to be itching to resume responsibilities, hears these grumbles. Most decide the CEO is not a good cultural fit. Also, the CEO is

The riches of prime can quickly morph into the entitlement of “aristocracy”. It’s here when the company’s risk taking ability declines. Hunger for growth abates, and focus shifts to past achievements, not future glory. Managers begin to dress formally, and boardrooms are done up in aristocratic dark wood tables, soft chairs, and portraits of founders in formal suits staring down from the walls. Walls are decorated with fine pieces of classical art and often the chairman spends more time on his art collection than on business matters. The culture becomes more rigid and new ideas aren’t as well received. The company suffers from what is called the Finzi-Continis syndrome—it denies reality. This afflicts many

The firm’s risk taking capability declines at the aristocracy stage. Hunger for growth abates and focus shifts to past glory. likely to be frustrated by the resistance shown to the systems and processes he’s trying to introduce. He either resigns, or is fired, and the cycle of hiring a new professional starts all over again. Companies that are able to successfully make this transition from “adolescence” to “prime” reach the peak of their lifecycles. In their prime, companies have a well developed vision, values and an institutionalised governance process. By now, they know what to do, and also importantly, what not to do. They understand profitability, growth and the importance of relationships and corporate image. During the late prime stage, another critical shift takes place. Power is transferred from line to staff functions—finance, legal and human resource heads become more important than the sales hands. This is the first signal of the start of the decline.

founders. Escorts, led by its founder H.P. Nanda, was one of the biggest success stories of North India at one time, but its failure to professionalise sent it into a decline. On the other hand, companies like Dabur and Marico made the transition to modern, well-managed companies, and now take on the might of multinationals in a hyper competitive FMCG market. Ultimately it is the ambition, drive and mental age of the entrepreneur which decides how an organisation ages. This is not related to chronological age—some people start thinking “old” in their 40s and some in their 50s. Companies can move from stages within years or they can be stuck at one stage for decades. Harsh Chopra is the country manager and founding partner of Adizes Institute of India—a business consultancy and conflict management firm. MAY 2011

INC.

Your Business Toolbox

THE GOODS

An Ounce of Prevention Mobile apps that make your smartphone safer Security for smartphones is crucial now that so many of us use them to make business calls, check work e-mail and store information. We sampled several apps designed to take the risk out of computing on your phone. Here are the results. —John Brandon IRIS SCANNING

To use the eyeD Biometric Password Manager, you take a picture of one eye using the app and your phone’s camera. You can then store sensitive data on the app, which will unlock only after you take another photo of the same eye. We tested the app with several people, including siblings, and it blocked out impostors every time. Unfortunately, the camera flash almost blinded us.

REMOTE LOCK AND WIPE

If a thief tries to swap out your SIM card, McAfee WaveSecure locks your phone, rendering it unusable. You can also log on to the WaveSecure site to locate your lost phone on a map, lock it, and remove contacts, text messages, and media. The app, which is available for Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, and Windows Mobile phones, quickly pinpointed our phone on a map and locked it.

PASSCODE PATTERN

VOICE ENCRYPTION

Kryptos uses military-grade 256-bit encryption to scramble smartphone calls, making it difficult for eavesdroppers to listen in. The app, which is available for iPhones and Android phones, provides a separate calling interface that you can use to make secure calls over Wi-Fi. The app was easy to use, and calls sounded mostly clear, though the voices on the other end were a bit distorted. One drawback: the app works only if caller and call recipient have it installed. ILLUSTRATION BY SHIGIL N

SEARCH AND RETRIEVAL

MobileMe Find My iPhone lets you pinpoint your lost phone’s location online and do a remote data wipe. You can set a passcode to lock the device and type a message such as return my phone for a reward, that will display on the screen. If you simply misplace your phone nearby, you can command it to make a sound that will override a silent or low ringer setting. MobileMe, available for iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod Touch, located our phone in seconds and responded quickly to remote commands.

An alternative to standard alphanumeric passwords, Android Pattern Lock lets you create a passcode by connecting four to nine dots on your phone’s screen. To unlock the device, you must redraw the same pattern. The feature is included on Android phones. To use it, go to Settings, Location & Security, and Set Unlock Pattern. The passcode worked a bit too well for us: we had a hard time remembering our pattern on several occasions.

MAY 2011

INC.

THE GOODS

Products + Services

Cream of the Bunch Calling flagship Android phones Direct mail sings a new tune

If a high-end, lifestyle phone is what you are looking for, check out this pick of Android phones. Priced above 23,000, they are built to rule the roost, and tempt you to spend.

HTC DESIRE HD

The Desire HD feels like an expensive phone with its curvy body and large 4.3-inch display. The body is entirely metal, except for the small SIM or memory card cover on the bottom of the phone that is plastic, and the plastic battery cover. It has a good antenna, and the volume level is also good. A sharp camera captures great detail. A new, snappier CPU and 768 MB of RAM gives this phone killer hardware. price: 26,399 MOTOROLA XT720

XT720 is blessed with a decent interface, and it feels a bit snappier than the Motorola Milestone. It has the best camera for shooting in dim lighting with the Xenon flash being the different maker. The LED flash fires first, to enable auto-focus to lock on, and the Xenon flash emits a powerful burst that lights up a distance of 6-feet quite nicely. It also has a bundled HDMI cable. price: 25,299

The “aha” moment: Crystal Martin’s daughter received plenty of cards when she turned 4 in January 2010, but her favourite played “Happy Birthday” when she opened it. That inspired Martin, a political consultant for congressional candidate Jim Reed in California, to create a talking directmail brochure that would help her boss stand out.

Hitting the market: Reed lost the November election. But since then, Martin’s Yuba City, California, company, mailPOW, has created 100,000 talking brochures for clients, including AARP, at $2 each. Next, she plans to launch an online tool for creating audio cards. —Lindsay Silberman

INC. | MAY 2011

SHOWCASE

On-the-go fun with this portable scanner Portronics Scanny2 is great for those who travel a lot, and constantly need to scan documents. It has a motor which takes in the paper, scans it and disperses it from the other end. It scans quite fast even at 600 dpi resolution. For example, scanning an A4 paper with text, mixed document and photo takes under seven seconds. After 50 scans, the photo quality also improves, although the initial scans were a little poor. A small screen helps choose different resolutions. At 6,999, it is steeply priced, but ideal for quick scanning. memory supported: to 32 GB SD card light source: LED interface: USB 2.0

R&D: Martin found a Chinese manufacturer to make a lightweight sound module that would not require extra postage. Each 25-cent module contained a battery, speaker, sound-activation switch, and silicon chip, onto which Martin copied a WAV audio file of Reed’s voice. She designed a trifold brochure, printed 2,500 copies, sealed the modules behind the right flap, and mailed them in late January.

SAMSUNG GALAXY S

Galaxy S weighs a mere 119 grams. Although the phone is entirely plastic, it feels extremely well built. It comes with a 4-inch display. The Galaxy S is also commendable for its loudspeaker clarity and volume. The tiny vent for the loudspeaker outputs surprisingly punchy sound. The hands-free unit leaves little scope for criticism. The 5-megapixel camera captures great detail and colour, but in dim lighting the output is drab. price: 24,999

Work + Play

THE GOODS

tech trends john brandon

Have iPad, Will Travel Can you fly solo with a tablet? FIRST PERSON

How Threadsy helps me avoid data overload erik kullenberg, founder and ceo, cake web services, dallas

Tablet computers are becoming more popular for web browsing on the couch, watching Netflix movies in bed, or reading books on the train. But can a tablet replace a laptop for business travel? To find out, I grabbed an Apple iPad and the Lenovo IdeaPad U260, a new ultra-portable notebook with a 12.5-inch screen, and headed from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. Getting the 1.5-pound iPad through airport security was a breeze, given that the TSA does not require passengers to remove e-readers, tablets, and other small electronics from carry-on bags for screening. Even though the IdeaPad looks more like a netbook than a laptop—it measures just 12.5 inches by 8 inches and weighs 3 pounds—I still had to remove it from my bag. On the plane, both devices connected easily to Delta’s Wi-Fi service, which is provided by Gogo Inflight Internet and costs $11 for 24 hours. You can connect only one gadget at a time, so I checked out some websites and sent a few e-mails on the notebook before switching to the iPad. In both cases, the Wi-Fi ran at about 1MB per second, fast enough for light computing but not for downloading large files or streaming movies. The IdeaPad, which is powered by a 1.33GHz Intel Core i5 processor and starts at $899, ran faster than the iPad, which has a 1GHz processor and starts at $500. One big plus to flying with the iPad is that it fits more comfortably on a seatILLUSRTATION BY PC ANOOP

back snack tray. But I prefer typing longer documents on a physical keyboard to tapping away on the tablet’s 9.7-inch touchscreen. To get around that, I brought along some portable keyboards that connect to the iPad over Bluetooth. My favourite was Microsoft’s Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000 ($89.95), which weighs just 14.6 ounces. I paired it with Mophie’s Workbook case ($49.95), which lets you prop up the iPad at different angles. Using the iPad accessories, I got more work done on the tablet than on the notebook during my four-hour flight. It didn’t help that the IdeaPad’s fully charged battery conked out after just three hours. The iPad, on the other hand, still had six hours of juice left when I landed at LAX. Still, there are some big drawbacks to flying solo with the iPad on business trips. Unlike the IdeaPad, it does not have ports for peripherals such as phone chargers or USB drives. And the current version does not have a camera for video chats, though the iPad 2 has front and rear cameras. None the less, I plan to leave my laptop at home the next time I hit the road. For my purposes—basic word processing, e-mail, web surfing, and watching movies at the hotel—the tablet worked well and added less bulk to my bag. If you need to do more serious computing, grab the laptop instead.

After I started my Web design and social media company, in 2008, I realised I needed a way to streamline communication with my clients, employees, and personal contacts. For about a year, I’ve been using a free webbased service called Threadsy, which lets me access my e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook accounts in one place. You can access Threadsy through a web browser, but I use a Mac app called Fluid to turn it into a desktop application. I like Threadsy’s intuitive layout. The right side of the screen features my Twitter and Facebook feeds aggregated into one stream. When I want to monitor my clients’ social media activity, I can load their accounts into the feed as well. The left side of the screen features my inbound correspondence, including e-mails, Facebook messages, Twitter replies, and direct messages from Twitter. When I click on an e-mail from someone, his or her recent social media activity pops up in a window. Threadsy also includes Meebo, a built-in app that lets me have quick chats with my three employees or freelance designers via Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, or Facebook. That’s just one of many ways the service helps me stay on top of everything without getting overwhelmed. —As told to J.J. McCorvey

MAY 2011

INC.

THE GOODS

Beyond Business

Things I Cannot Live Without... Price cards These are from my first game, Stock Market.

An Apple a day The MacBook is an ideal buy.

Shantanu&Nikhil pens They have replaced the Mont Blanc I used earlier.

FOUNDER, CONSORTIUM GIFTS

Gaurav Bhagat

Not without my phone There's nothing better than a BlackBerry to help organise one’s thoughts.

INC. | MAY 2011

Gaurav Bhagat may have ventured into corporate gifting with his company Consortium Gifts in 1999 but his entrepreneurial adventures began in school. At 16, a board game designed by Bhagat—Stock Market— was snapped up by Leo-Mattel. Bhagat tasted blood making around 50,000 pieces. Today, his firm clocks a turnover upwards of 10 crore and has tie-ups with manufacturing units in China and France. An avid traveller, he visits trade shows with his faithful Mac. “It has a battery backup of eight hours,” says the Apple fan, who also loves playing games on his iPhone. But it's the Blackberry that helps "clear things" for this 35-year-old. Working with designer duo Shantanu and Nikhil tickles his creative bone.—Sunaina Sehgal

...and What I Covet Making mountains of gifts Running the country’s largest gift making factory.

All Stacked Up Disha Doshi helped her familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s printing business double capacity in three years. Her only toolâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a brain buzzing with new ideas.

CASE STUDY

Her family’s printing press is gutted to the ground. Can Disha Doshi’s mint fresh ideas heal wounds?

BY SHREYASI SINGH PHOTOGRAPH BY JITEN GANDHI

n early 2008, when Disha Doshi joined her family’s printing and packaging business, it was an

7-crore company run out of a single plant in Mumbai’s Vasai industrial area. Her father and uncle, who together managed H.K. Printers, were content with the 18-year-old firm’s slow but steady growth. Like a typical 22-year-old, Doshi wanted to shake things up with her brash, new ideas. But, her father and uncle indulgently laughed most suggestions off till a huge crisis lashed the business. On March 25, 2008, the company’s Vasai unit went up in flames due to an electrical short circuit. The stocks of paper and chemicals lying around ensured the sparks quickly became a raging fire. “We were reduced to ground zero and couldn’t salvage anything,” says Doshi. Clearly, this was a big blow to an extended family for which the printing press was the sole breadwinner. Doshi’s father and uncle quickly transferred operations to a temporary, rented site. “Within 20 days, we were at 40 per cent of our capacity,” she recalls admiringly. Still, the future seemed shaky. Employee MAY 2011

INC.

CASE STUDY

Experts Weigh In morale had hit an all-time low. And, many were worried GETTING THE BASICS RIGHT they’d be asked to go. “They didn’t have faith in the comDisha Doshi is blessed with innate business acumen. She showed the pany’s ability to bounce back.” Doshi realised they couldn’t ability to identify what the company needed. Her engagement with employees made perfect sense. Theirs is a printing unit, not a typical reconstruct the business without employee buy-in. “I had manufacturing company. It’s also driven by the concept of services so recently read Narayana Murthy say in an interview that, people become very important. It was crucial for her to take care of ‘my assets go in and out of office every day’. It’s a thought them. When you do family learning programmes, it helps in everybody that stayed with me.” in getting connected to each other. The company can form bonds with Doshi thought of a day-long employee meet to which their employees’ spouses and children. People think if we can do it together, we can achieve it. That’s a very exciting thing to happen to a families would also be invited as the perfect way to forge company. She needs to continue these employee engagement prodeeper bonds. Not surprisingly, her bosses were hesitant. grammes so she can further connect with her people. She did a great It wasn’t the best time to spend 50,000 on a fun picnic. In job with her market expansion efforts as well. I think when the secany case, such employee engagement tricks were untested ond generation comes in, how they are portrayed by the first generaconcepts her father and uncle, both cut to a more tradition leadership makes a huge difference to how successful a new entrant will be. If confidence is shown in their competence and ability, tional business owner mould, had little hopes from. great results can take place like in this case. Equally, the younger But, Doshi pushed the idea. And, with their backs generation must think of no as just an input, not a rejection. They against the wall with the fire, her father and uncle decided should know that often the ‘no’ is based on historical reasons, and to try out whatever it might take to help things along. On those must be understood. a weekend in May, the company’s 60 employees, with SAMISH DALAL | PROFESSOR | Centre for Family Managed Business, S.P. Jain spouses, children, and parents in tow, met at a small resort Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai on the outskirts of Mumbai. Old employees were recogCONTINUE APPLYING KNOWLEDGE nised for their contribution to the company, newer ones The turning point really for any business today, as Disha realised, is were told how much they were valued, and a series of fun employee participation. Blue collar workers now have as much games made the outing enjoyable for the families. “At the access to the world through media, television as us. They are as much part of the modern world as we are. Many organisations now end of the day, wives were so proud of their husbands. Each regard them as their primary clients. With their support and enthusione of them felt they really mattered. We had managed to asm the company has a different energy, you can just build on without instil such pride,” says Doshi. worrying about the back end. Disha has demonstrated great business The event was also a great platform to ask for support acumen. She really applies the knowledge, like implementing someand ownership in rebuilding the company. Her father, thing she’s read about. She’s up there with everything. Getting an ISO certification was a very smart move. Most printing businesses aren’t Harish Doshi, admits to the huge impact those few hours in gear with ISO. People continue to look at it from a manufacturing had. “There was such an attitude change towards the comorientation. She didn’t. All the models and structures are out there pany. We told their families to help our employees be more with various organisations, she had the acumen and enthusiasm to productive, more involved. In fact, absenteeism went take and apply what she needed. down by over 50 per cent over the next few months.” RANJIT SABHANEY | OWNER | Genesis Printers, Delhi It also made sure that not a single employee left H.K. Printers at that crucial point. Today, the annual family outing has become a tradition that is much-awaited. “If it gets delayed, people begin asking us when the next meet is,” says bles, and hoped her prospective clients would appreciate the can-do Doshi Senior. This deep focus on employees is now a core value spirit the company had displayed. “They visited our factory and were within the company. very happy. They were confident we could be reliable suppliers Emboldened by her first big win, Doshi was determined to try because of the positive reaction they got from our employees.” out her other ideas. It was a good time to try new things anyway as Ferrero Rocher quickly signed them up to print three crore the company tried to piece itself together. She knew “real” growth marketing leaflets. Today, Ferrero Roche contributes to 10 per couldn’t come from their existing roster of micro, small and cent of H.K. Printers’ turnover, and is keen to expand the scope medium clients. They had to cast their nets wider to take advantage of work including sourcing from them for their international of the booming packaging industry in India. operations as well. Already, they order more than 10 crore leaflets Her elders didn’t have access to spiffy multinationals or big a year. Such dramatic successes helped her win the trust and condomestic players though. Through an article she read in a business fidence of both the employees and her own family. “When she magazine, Doshi found out that Ferrero Rocher, the chocolates began, employees wouldn’t respond. But, respect and confidence brand, was setting up a test plant in India, and were on the lookout in her has grown by leaps and bounds. They are very, very posifor packaging and printing vendors. She pursued them aggressively. tive,” says her proud father. H.K. Printers was still working out of their makeshift location but Doshi knows there’s been similar change in his attitude, as well. Doshi didn’t baulk in calling the Italian chocolatiers for an inspec- “My father and uncle didn’t expect much when I joined the business. tion visit. She told them honestly about the company’s recent trou- I was a young girl, nobody thought I was going to have a huge 28

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CASE STUDY

years. They now convert more than 400 tonnes of paper monthly. And, the exporter tag has helped them avail duty waivers on equipment as well. So, inputs costs have gone down and upgrading machinery has been manageable. Buoyed by such positivism, H.K. Printers now has a turnover of 15 crore and three productions units across the world—the original one in Vasai, another plant they bought in Mumbai in 2009, and a new one, believe it or not, that’s coming up in Lusaka, Zambia, at an investment of 2.5 crore. In 2008, H.K. Printers expanded its export portfolio as well tapping the huge west Africa market. The decision helped them build on their fledgling export efforts to a handful of companies in east Africa which they had begun in 2003. Again, Doshi went in fearlessly. And, now with the new plant in Zambia, their future inroads into the continent seem very well-mapped. “This will give us a major push. Africa is the next growth story. We have tied up with big FMCG companies and soon over 80 per cent of our production will come from there,” she says calmly, adding that she now spends up to three months a year in Africa. A plant in Zimbabwe is next on her wish list. “That’s something I want now. As one plant gets ready for production, we should have another one on paper.” Not willing to stop at anything, it seems, the “turnaround heroine” as many call her, is also enhancing their production capabilities. By June 2011, they will get a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) licence (a food production safety licence) that will allow them to manufacture packaging which directly comes in contact with food. They already manufacture external packaging for pharmaceuticals. “The HACCP is going to instantly impact our bottom line. I am in advanced talks with fast food companies in Africa,” Doshi says confidently. Her father admits that in hindsight the fire was almost a silver lining. “Most importantly, we aren’t afraid of anything. Nothing more than that could have gone wrong and we came out of it. It’s given us the guts to take on and try anything.” That’s a smart realisation for him to have considering how fast his daughter is flying. She laughs, “Everybody is amazed that my ideas are getting bigger and bigger. People warn me that I think too fast, too soon, and that I want to run too quickly.” In the face of a momentum like hers, sometimes giving in is the only option. “She has an answer to every argument. When we have no debate left in us but she still has many more arguments, we just decide to go ahead and give it a shot,” pitches in Doshi Senior. It’s possibly that spirit which made sure that despite walking through hot, burning coals, the Doshis aren’t scarred, only renewed and stronger.

“People warn me that I think too fast, too soon, and that I want to run too quickly. ” impact,” she says honestly, though joining the business was a given for her even as a young school girl. “I started coming to the factory when I was just seven.” Maybe it’s this gut feel for the business that has led to such transformation. And, Doshi’s achieved much more than just smart HR tricks and aggressive selling. She enrolled into S.P. Jain Institute of Management Studies’ course on family management of business and diligently applied classroom knowledge to the shop floor. She introduced her company to favourable export regulations, smarter bank financing schemes and worked hard to get an ISO certification—none of which were priorities before she came in. These efforts have meant a doubling of capacity over the last three

MAY 2011

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On Top of

ON TOP OF THEIR CLASS

their

Jay P. Desai seeks sound management strategy in evolutionary biology

Class

Here’s a group of company owners who have effectively converted their professional knowledge into successful brands.

Lina Ashar couldn’t ever be anything but a teacher

BY SUNAINA SEHGAL AND SHREYASI SINGH PHOTOGRAPHS BY SUBHOJIT PAUL AND JITEN GANDHI

Sonia and Manu Mohindra have perfected a great working style

INC. | MAY 2011

Manit Rastogi wants to make India a hub for cutting-edge building design

Chandrakant Morde has crafted many chocolatey firsts

Bill Gates dropped out of college. So did Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell and Richard Branson. Closer home, there are similar examples. Dhirubhai Ambani never went to a college. Zee Group’s Subhash Chandra didn’t bother to finish school. And Adani Group’s Gautam Adani is a famous college drop-out. Ratan Tata, though, took a different route. But, it’s unlikely that his architecture degree from US’s Cornell University helped much in building and managing the giant TATA Sons. In the business world, it seems, formal training and success are inversely proportional, or at best, unrelated. You don’t need to study aerospace engineering to become an aviation tycoon, or pour over complex problem sets to ace (and sell) computers. The entrepreneurs you’ll read about in the next few pages aren’t as famous. However, they are heartening examples of how professional skills and experience can be a perfect starting point for a brisk business sprint. A quick sample of the stories—a trained food technologist from Mumbai, who spent years researching chocolate variants at Cadbury’s India and poured that knowledge into building Morde Foods, India’s largest manufacturers of bulk chocolates. Or the effervescent Mohindras (husband Manu is on our cover) who run Under One Roof, a Noida-based restaurant consultancy. Their entrepreneurial journey has been flavoured with methods learnt while working at the Taj and ITC Group of Hotels. So, here’s a new lesson. Professional training and working FIND INSIDE experience when loaded with 32 | Mr Perfectly Adapted spunk can sometimes equal great 34 | A Saucy Mix business success. We hope you 36 | Fast Learner enjoy reading about this breed as 38 | An Unlikely Chocoholic much as we did meeting them. 40 | The Naturalist

MAY 2011

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Mr Perfectly Adapted A management graduate uses deft excel skills to crunch out a smart strategy consulting firm.

BY SHREYASI SINGH

INC. | MAY 2011

JAY P. DESAI | MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT

“I don’t see myself as either a traditional entrepreneur or a traditional management consultant,” announces Jay P. Desai, the founder and CEO of Universal Consulting, a boutique strategy firm based in Mumbai. His clean-cut, glass-partitioned office immediately validates that. The conference room is lined with posters of master philosophers, inventors and scientists, and there’s no space devoted to entrepreneurial icons or typical management spiel. Desai is, in fact, most animated when talking about Charles Darwin or the book on public accountability he’s writing. Yet, Universal Consulting, or UC, is a leading, genuinely home-grown strategy PHOTOGRAPH BY JITEN GANDHI

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firm. Since 1994, when Desai founded it with less than 50,000 in investment, it has advised some of the world’s largest multinationals, as well as major Indian and Middle Eastern companies, through its Mumbai and New Delhi offices. UC has conducted nearly 700 cases for its 265-plus clients, and, in 2007, tied up a strategic partnership with LEK Consulting, an 800-people global strategy consulting firm. Much of UC’s work, upwards of 75 per cent, comes from existing clients and referrals. “That’s a very, very high percentage,” says Desai proudly, adding that his 60-people firm is a compelling value-for-money player, and a viable option for companies who need topnotch consulting, but might not be willing to pay the hefty prices a McKinsey, Accenture or Bain Consulting demands. These are fantastic feats for somebody who “almost felt guilty being an entrepreneur” and accidentally “stumbled upon an MBA”. His mother was a pediatrician, and his father a celebrated cardiac surgeon. “I knew when I was 17 that those shoes couldn’t be filled.” Although he took on an undergraduate degree in life sciences from St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and followed that up with a Master’s in molecular biology at Purdue University, USA, Desai knew “he didn’t want to spend his life in a lab coat.” He went to Willamette University for an MBA, and found his profession for life. When he moved back to India in 1989, he found a job in Andersen Consulting’s (now Accenture) Mumbai office. It was his project with a “small 5-6 crore client” that first got him thinking about the market opportunity in serving small and mid-sized firms. “They were interested in implementing recommendations, and the passion of the entrepreneur was infectious.” The idea got the better of him by 1994 and he quit Andersen with savings of 50,000. His mighty savings couldn’t even buy him a laptop, let alone a rented office. So he borrowed 50,000 from his father-in-law, and used his father’s house as office. “I didn’t worry whether it was going to work. I just wanted to create my own organisation, to see if people would talk to me if I didn’t have a huge consulting firm’s name on my

HisMaster

Strategists WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

His deep understanding of human emotions and interpersonal dynamics is still so relevant to managing people in modern organisations. ALBERT EINSTEIN

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Physicists thought there was precious little left to discover. But Einstein used existing theories and equations— synthesising them to reach dramatically new conclusions.

visiting card,” says the 47-year-old, who for somebody who never imagined himself to be entrepreneurial, made astute business decisions from the word go. “I didn’t attach my name to the firm. I didn’t want myself to be the bottleneck in its growth.” Desai’s vision attracted UC’s current four founder directors to join him within the first two years. “We were absolute rookies. I was 30 years old, and they were all in their early 20s. When we went for client meetings, I told them all to grow moustaches to look older,” laughs Desai. And then came along the big break. Sterlite’s (now Vedanta) Anil Agarwal asked for an organisational structuring exercise for their aluminium sheets and foil business in Pune. He gave them several other projects in the next few years. Still, most of the nineties was a constant struggle. Consulting, per se, was a cottage industry in a newly liberalised India, and Desai almost fondly remembers the “cold calling and street selling”. “I was okay with not knowing how we’ll get next month’s salaries. I can do without navigation charts.” By the turn of the century, UC began gathering critical mass. Desai credits the success to luck, and their focus on delivering good quality work. “I used everything I had learnt at Andersen. I couldn’t have built Universal without working there.”

His diversity of knowledge is an inspiration that it’s important for all of us to explore a wide range of disciplines and transfer learning from there to business management.

The UC of today, however, began to take shape in 2002-03 when Desai adapted to a changing environment. “We decided to focus on strategy because clients needed that. We also moved from small and mid-sized firms to mid-sized and large firms.” Now, 65 per cent of Universal’s work comes from multinationals. Still, a professional services firm can never be too secure. “This is not an annuity business. We still don’t know where our revenue is going to come from three months later.” He confesses, “I wouldn’t do this again. A consulting business is tough to scale up.” That said, Desai continues to be driven to create a “great Indian” consulting firm. He hopes their new focus, doing entry strategy work for foreign companies coming in, will come in handy. “That’s among the fastest growing businesses.” This ability to constantly evolve isn’t limited to company strategy. Desai has carefully moulded his entrepreneurial innings, moving away from execution in the last five years, and focussing only on meeting new clients. Apart from his book, he’s also immersed in research on how evolutionary biology can be applied in business strategy. “The natural world is the world’s greatest lab. Most things happen by accident. I want to explore accidental strategy.” He could almost be talking about himself. MAY 2011

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In the usual corporate world, defined by a

sacrosanct set of dos and don’ts, Manu and Sonia Mohindra’s way of working could be deemed inspirational, at best, or quixotic, at worst. But, the co-founders of Under One Roof (UOR), a restaurant consultancy firm, hardly care. When it came to building their own business, the couple decided to inject the work matrix with a liberal dose of fun. “Throughout our careers we followed rules galore. So when we started our own company, we decided the only rule we’ll have is that ‘there are no rules’,”says Manu. Sample the following: “We can smoke and drink in office,” says he, rather seriously about his 14-year-old Noida-based company. “As long as we don’t get drunk.” You wonder if he’s joking. His easy laugh and twinkling eyes raise those doubts. But, a well-stocked bar stands testimony to the unique company culture. UOR’s 70-odd employees don’t have to punch in cards, or get involved in other “obsolete” systems. Like their enviable policies, the couple’s journey into entrepreneurship is equally fascinating. Both Manu and Sonia met (and eventually got married) while studying at Delhi’s famous Institute of Hotel Management. He became an executive chef, and she an F&B (food and beverage) manager at the ITC Hotels. They then

A Saucy Mix A husband-wife duo garnish their flair for food with loads of business masala. BY SUNAINA SEHGAL

moved to the Taj Group of Hotels. In 1997, during a time-out-cum-job-hunt in Mumbai, the duo decided to brave the choppy waters of entrepreneurship. Life had just thrown them a tempting opportunity. “The owner of the hotel we were staying in got talking to us. He wanted to set up a restaurant and we found we could help him,” recalls Manu about their very first client. Luckily for them, that project—an Oriental restaurant in Mumbai called the Yin and the Yang—became the talk of town. The Mohindras realised many standalone hospitality entrepreneurs could benefit from the expertise they had gathered working at India’s best hotels. High on their debut success, they landed two Chandigarh-based projects, both of which became winners too. “Good reviews of our past work helped,”

Favourite Recipe Beach Bum Ingredients

Dark Rum Light Rum Vodka Crème de Bananaas Coconut Cream Sugar Syrup Pineapple Juice

INC. | MAY 2011

For Garnish

Pineapple Slice Cherry 30 ml 15 ml 15 ml 10 ml 30 ml 5 ml 45 ml

1 slice 1 no.

Method 1. Mix all the ingredients

together. Pour it into a tumbler or a Zombie glass. 2. Garnish with a slice of fresh pineapple and cherry. Serve chilled.

says Sonia, who handles operations. Within two years, the couple decided to focus on building on their good start. “We thought we’d doodle about for a while and get back—with the same salary—if things didn’t work out,” they say, almost in unison. But, they managed to cook up a not-sotough start-up phase. The Mohindras claim they’ve never had to hunt for clients. “Our projects were doing great and word spread quickly,” says Manu, who handles almost all creative aspects. “Actually, with our new set-up, we were more actively engaged with the hospitality industry than ever before,” says Sonia, adding she never understood when people wondered whey they had “left” their industry to go out on their own. UOR works on all aspects of the hospitality industry—from designing the concept of the diner to the menu to training and acquiring the staff. They also honed skills they had picked up as professionals—demographic study, market surveys, consumer spending patterns and real estate costs. “We were being paid for the project and not time. Thus it became important for us to maximise our output,” say the co-founders. They also understood they must quickly dish out a delectable portfolio of successful projects to break out of the “non-serious” freelance consultant bracket. “In the first year itself, we made a 25-project bench mark.” Since then, they have set up 600 restaurants and 90 hotels across 39 cities in India, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the

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MANU MOHINDRA | CHEF SONIA MOHINDRA | F&B MANAGER PHOTOGRAPH BY SUBHOJIT PAUL

United States. UOR has set up several popular joints like Delhi’s Shalom and Amici. As their proportions increased, the couple confronted the many pains of building a business. “There were clients who would drag their feet on payments even though we had finished their projects,” recounts Sonia. They decided to divide their assignments into different stages and asked clients to pay up at various stages of completion. They also mixed in muchneeded canniness. An important lesson was you couldn’t reveal all your cards at once. “In the first meeting itself, I’d discuss every stage of setting up a restaurant. Some would then choose to avail only limited services,” Manu admits. They’ve fought off other misconceptions as well. “Since we locate and hire stewards or waiters for our clients, people thought we were taking placement fees,” says the couple who make 400 plus placements every month. In fact, they have laid out stringent checklists for their clients especially where employees are concerned. Sometimes, they have put in monetary penalty clauses on them when HR policies are misused. “This, too, is just an empty threat. We want restaurateurs to understand that their venture’s success directly depends on their stewards. Hospitality industry is an HR incentive business. You can’t afford to not respect the staff,” advises Sonia. If there’s something they refuse to negotiate on it is compromising what’s good for the hospitality industry. They never hire more than two people from the same location, restaurant or department. “It would be unethical. I can steal the entire working staff by luring them with a few more hundred rupees. But that will be selfish. I’ll be putting another restaurateur jobless,” exclaims Manu. It’s evident from their long list of clients that these values haven’t gone unnoticed. It also makes perfect business sense even though it would’ve undoubtedly hindered quick expansion. But, the Mohindras are united on this. Manu puts it well, “The hospitality industry has given us so much. I don’t want to exploit it. I am not that hungry for success.” MAY 2011

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Fast Learner A teacher ducks rote learning to ace her entrepreneurial innings. BY SHREYASI SINGH

Lina Ashar says she found her calling when

she was just three years old. “My mother tells me I’d sit children down and read books to them. I’d show them pictures because I didn’t know the alphabets myself. I was destined to be a teacher,” recalls the 47-year-old founder of the Kangaroo Kids Education Limited (KKEL), a chain of schools. Ashar spent her early years in Tanzania, Kenya and England. Her father, a textile businessman, eventually settled down with his family in Australia. Nobody was surprised when Ashar enrolled for a Bachelor’s degree in Education at Melbourne’s Victoria College. That passion has benefitted more than 10,000 students in the last 18 years. KKEL runs 63 schools under two brand names— Kangaroo Kids, her flagship pre-schools, and Billabong High International School, fullfledged K-12 schools, across 17 cities in India, and international branches in Dubai and Maldives. She’s also invested in Brainworks, an early school player. For a “simple” teacher, these are tremendous feats. Yet, Ashar maintains things “happened mostly by default.” Her career always seemed to be well chalked out till she took a sabbatical in 1991 to spend a year in India. Her curriculum for life changed here. She took on a job as a teacher in a suburban Mumbai school and was appalled by how unimaginatively young 36

INC. | MAY 2011

children were being taught. Ashar saw the need to establish a learning system which put the child at its centre. “There was so much opportunity and such necessity for newness.” She went back home to Australia and asked her father to help out with a seed fund. Much like the way her students now have to in the entrepreneurship programme her schools run, Ashar’s father asked her to prepare a whole project report detailing cost break ups and likely returns. That hurdle crossed, she invested the 30 lakh, loaned from her father, in her first preschool in Mumbai’s upmarket Bandra neighbourhood. She aptly named it Kangaroo Kids, and started classes with just five students in 1993. “Within six months, we were full. Our parents told their friends about us. We had kids coming from Versova to Bandra, and Nariman Point to Bandra.” She threw a lot of conventional wisdom out of the window. Take school uniforms, for example. Instead of starched, cotton shirts and nylon, full-length trousers, Kangaroo Kids introduced comfortable day clothes in bright colours. “The purpose of uniform is to be uniform, not to be uncomfortable.” She’s always determined to leverage contrarian thinking. In every meeting, Ashar makes sure at least one person in her team comes up with an argument for the

LINA ASHAR | TEACHER

opposite, something that counters seemingly logical and established notions. Her innovative thinking saw several fresh concepts being introduced such as a researchbased curriculum, low teacher-student ratios, parent partnership model and thematic learning. The methods were a runaway success with both children and parents. Inspired by the response, her business acumen sensed there was more to the deal. “You know what they say about Gujaratis, we are born to do business. Hanging around my father’s office had helped, it seems. I am not saying I had all the competencies of a business person. But, I understood the ones I had and the ones I didn’t, and I knew how to plug the gaps,” she says pragmatically. So at a time when franchising wasn’t really a buzzword in India, especially for an PHOTOGRAPH BY JITEN GANDHI

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of ABC Entrepreneurship The

Entrepreneurs can be mentored and trained. Ninety per cent of our actions are due to the sub conscious mind, only 10 per cent is due to the conscious mind. So children’s ideas and notions are shaped by the conditioning they have been through.

The biggest reason people don’t try is fear of failure. We’d rather be in a comfort zone. Which is why in my schools, we have an entire process of how we approach mistakes.

We have an entrepreneur programme in our school curriculum. We believe kids need to build entrepreneurial mindset right from the beginning. It isn’t just the skills or the knowledge but the correct attitude, taking a certain amount of risk, and having positivity.

old-school sector like education, Kangaroo Kids hopped on to that model. It was a clever way to build both loyalty and a committed network. It also allowed her to optimise her strengths—building curriculum with a specialist in-house team, and getting inside the minds of the children. “Our parents have grown our school. The Delhi school was started by a parent whose child studied in the Worli school, our only other owned branch. The Hyderabad branch was opened by a parent from the Delhi school,” Ashar explains. Today, Kangaroo Kids has grown its brand to 53 branches. It was only in 2007 that her entrepreneurial skills were really put to the test. Her wins in the pre-schooling system had shown her she could impact definite changes. It seemed only natural now to go the whole school route. A full K-12 school blossomed. Billabong High International School was started with a franchisee in Mumbai. But, the deal soured quickly, and the franchisee pulled out. Ashar remembers many painful lessons from that encounter. “We got a lot of bad press. Parents were unhappy with me because they had come to the schools for Lina Ashar.” She had to re-learn the business, stepping out of her comfort zone to understand construction and administrative mechanisms. “I tell my students, if you choose a comfort zone and just sit there, life will slap you out of it. And, it’ll keep slapping you again and again till you get off. That was my slap. I knew I had to take control.” The learning curve was steep and uncomfortable. Ashar remembers her first meeting with angel investors. “I didn’t know the difference between debt and equity,” she chuckles. She admits somewhat unapologetically, “Even now, when I look at a balance sheet, I still get confused about what EBITDA and PAT are. Somebody has to drive that for me.” Over a year ago, Ashar started researching on how the workings of the subconscious mind, and how the subconscious and conscious minds interact. Educators, she says, can use this knowledge to expand the boundaries of children’s minds. “If you look at the way the world is turning, the people who’ll make it are those who build different sets of competencies.” MAY 2011

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CHANDRAKANT MORDE | FOOD TECHNOLOGIST

AnUnlikely Chocolatier A food technologist works up a deliciously rich business from the wonder that is cocoa. BY SHREYASI SINGH

Morde Foods Private Limited operates out of a tiny office located on an arterial Mumbai road. Pretty easy to miss, the office shares nothing with the delightful imagery associated with the product it manufactures—chocolates. In his basic, no-fuss clothes, Chandrakant Morde, the company’s owner, also seems to be cast of that same mould. Still, Morde Foods is India’s leading manufacturer of bulk chocolates. Last year, the company sweetened its revenue slab to nearly 150 crore and is the chocolatier of choice for marquee clients like the Taj Group of Hotels, Oberoi

INC. | MAY 2011

PHOTOGRAPH BY JITEN GANDHI

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Hotels, McDonald’s, Yum Foods, Baskin Robbins and Kwality Walls Group. Founded in 1983, Morde manufactures an impressive 40 tonnes of chocolate a day, producing milk, dark and white chocolate slabs, chocolate chips and several other categories. So, if you’ve had an ice cream cone dipped in thick, molten chocolate syrup at a McDonald’s outlet, or dug into an sinful chocolate mousse at a swanky restaurant in Taj or Oberoi, you’ve savoured the Morde brand. Morde’s journey is a delectable success story but he’s himself more than a little amused Inc.India found him. “We’ve been constantly engaged in just doing our business. I never realised our products were so popular,” says the 64-year-old. His rootedness is easily explained. The eldest of seven sons of a fruit trader in Crawford Market, Morde grew up in Mumbai chawls and studied in government schools. A good student, he wanted to become an engineer. “I’ve always been a technical person.” During his school holidays, Morde would help out his father. Those early experiences told him he wasn’t cut out to be a marketer. “I could never sell. That was not my skill. I thought I was a failure,” recalls Morde. Unfortunately, or almost fortuitously, his school-leaving grades didn’t qualify him for an engineering course. He turned instead to an undergraduate degree in science from Bombay University, and grudgingly had to make do with his fourth choice, a course called food production for his Master’s. The course taught selection, preservation, processing, packaging and distribution of food. “I didn’t know what you could do with it.” But Morde threw himself into the subject. In 1972, a professors got him a job at Cadbury’s India research and development team. Morde spent the next 10 years working on products like Krisps, Nutmate, Turkish Delight and Double Decker. He also developed a new food substitute for an ingredient that went into the iconic 5 Star. Soon Morde knew every secret that went into Aztec’s most-prized discovery. “These products were all very new. I got a very rich experience at Cadbury’s.” By the late 1970s, Morde, egged on by his father, began to seriously think about his own business. There was, however, only

one thing pulling him back—his perceived inability to sell. Which is why it made perfect reason to enter the chocolate business, not exactly a dog-eat-dog world. “There was only one competitor, Sathe Chocolates apart from Cadbury’s.” But a chocolate factory needed heavy investments in specialised tools. Morde didn’t have any money but knew he could improvise. India had just about started growing cocoa in Kerala. Morde knew this because Cadbury had invested in plantations there. He snapped up a bag of locally-grown cocoa beans to see if he really stood a chance. What followed were a series of ingenious improvisations. Morde used a basic coffee roasting machine to roast the beans and a chunky masala grinder, bought secondhand, for grinding. He used easily available mixing equipment, and voila, had his first batch ready. He wrapped them up in half kilogram packets and sold them to neighbourhood confectioners. Morde also took his samples to Mongini’s, a newly-launched bakery in Mumbai and to Kwality Ice Cream. “They were all very encouraging.” The confidence was a great toss into the mix. Morde continued his job at Cadbury’s but spent every minute outside of work scouting for a site to set up his factory and arranging for the 5 lakhs needed to begin operations. His hunt for space took him to his native village Manchar, some 60 kilometres from Pune, where he converted the family’s old outhouse into a temporary factory in December 1983. The first three years were spent getting a feel of the market. “That was a testing time for me, to realise who were our customers. In the kitchen, the chef is the king and they’d only want to use imported chocolates.” Although Morde recovered his 5 lakh investment within four years, things sweetened only towards the end of the decade. In 1986, they set up a dealership in Delhi and sold their chocolates to the prestigious Taj Air Caterers and Taj Hotel, Mumbai, in 1987. The Oberoi Hotels, Ambassador Flight Kitchen and the ITC Welcome Group quickly followed. Other achievements ensued including the feat of becoming the first company in India to make chocolate chips. “Kwality Ice Creams asked us to do this. They used to have a group

A Sweet Trail

1983 Founded the company with 5 lakhs in investment 1986 Started a dealership in Delhi 1987 Got Taj Hotel, Mumbai, as a customer

1990 Became sole supplier to entire Taj Group of Hotels; sold them around 40 tonnes of chocolate a year 1991-93 Added Oberoi Hotels, ITC Welcome Group, Ambassador Flight Kitchen as customers 1998 Crosssed the 10 crore turnover mark

of women cut chips out of slabs.” Through much of the 1990s, his plant continued to be an early flag bearer of frugal innovation. “After 1995, it became difficult for us to make do with Indian equipment. We had to upgrade our quality, increase our capacity so we started buying European equipment.” Today, more than 60 per cent of his plant is of European make and his brand is firmly entrenched in a robust food economy which is growing exponentially. With opportunities, competition has also kicked in. Everyone wants a bite of the tempting chocolate pie. Morde knows he’s stacked up well for the fight. He’s looking to flavour the business with more layered textures including an expansion into retail. As long as there are cocoa beans, this chocolatier can work up a sinfully-decadent business from them. MAY 2011

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When it comes to business growth, Manit Rastogi, managing director of Morphogenesis, a leading Delhi-based architectural firm, works by a clear rule—adapt to the environment or die. “Laying down a business plan in a creative field or profession will thwart its growth. One needs to constantly change, adapt and create.” That’s what separates Morphogenesis from the crowd. Started in 1996, Morphogenesis aimed to be a change agent to transform India’s image as a not-so-attractive design centre to a hub of post-modern avant garde designs. Co-founded by Rastogi, his wife Sonali, and a team of talented architects, the firm leveraged the advantage of new technology, and combined it with aesthetic designs to build sustainable structures. Their savvy design sense has gone beyond innovative architectural aesthetics, and helped build a flourishing business. Today, the firm has swollen to a 120-strong team of architects, civil engineers and urban planners. Last year, the raked in 50 crore in turnover, and have to their credit several definitive projects like Gurgaon’s MGF Metropolitan Mall, The British School in Delhi, Maker Maxcity in Mumbai, and buildings for well-known names like Jubilant, YWCA, Ernst&Young and PVR Cinemas. This is no mean achievement since it’s easy to get lost in the creative buzz or lose the creativity in the process of growth Much of this has been achieved because nobody at Morphogenesis takes their simple mission statement—design excellence—lightly. Nature inspires Rastogi to excellence. Even as a little boy, Rastogi was fascinated by nature’s design—wondering why broccoli was

INC. | MAY 2011

The

Naturali s Tiny, crawling ants help an architect scale mounds of growth. BY SUNAINA SEHGAL

shaped like a spiral or why snails crawled at snail’s pace—were a few questions that crossed his curious mind. And, an article on ant-hills inked his fate. He knew designs would rule his life for good. “I learnt that ants construct their habitat with one aim, to keep the queen’s chamber at a constant of 2 degrees Celsius. This is because the queen can produce only at that temperature,” he recalls. “The ants managed to achieve the temperature even in a desert where it drops down to three degrees at night, and goes up to 55 in the day,” says the 41-year-old, who confesses he’s still awed by these tiny master architects. He studied architecture at London’s Architectural Association, and specialised in Energy and Environmental Studies for his master’s. After studying and teaching abroad for a few years, he decided to come back to India. “My wife, also my business partner, was determined to live in India,” explains Rastogi. “I remember feeling like a young Victorian. The economy had opened up, people were expecting a dotcom boom; things were looking up,” adds he. A born rebel, Rastogi, who dropped out of several boarding schools including the uppity Doon School, was never a great follower of rules. “I wasn’t rebellious because I wanted to be popular but I didn’t

understand why rules—especially the unnecessary ones—were important,” he says defensively. Considering his maverick attitude, it’s no surprise that Rastogi encouraged parallel hierarchy in his 120-employee firm, from the very beginning. “We decided to approach entrepreneurship and growth with a purely organic outlook. We didn’t think up the next best thing,” says Rastogi. The best just flowed from their auto cad pens. Right off the bat, in 1997, they won the Apollo Tyres Design Competition in Gurgaon. Since, the design was “radical”, Rastogi conducted frequent training sessions with workers and contractors. The results did not disappoint. The high-precision and environmentfriendly corporate building with all its “radical, yet do-able” tricks like the use of glazing, shading and automated systems turned many heads, and ensured the industry watched their next moves. Though most of the learning was along the road, the Entrepreneur’s Organisation— a networking platform for businessmen— helped a lot. In 1999, Rastogi was one of the first founder-members of a community of industrialists and corporate houses. “It was like earning an MBA for free. The ins-andouts of running a business were constantly discussed,” recalls Rastogi. PHOTOGRAPH BY SUBHOJIT PAUL

ON TOP OF THEIR CLASS

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But, Morphogenesis differentiates itself by expanding the borders of architecture and environmental design. Again, Rastogi dipped into nature, seeking inspiration from exquisite architectural forms around us, and loaded these with a site’s local character—climate, traditions and urban fabric—to create unique structures. For example, at their award-winning, Pearl Academy of Fashion in Jaipur, Rastogi’s team used clever features like an inner courtyard pool, an outer periphery of jaalis, and a deep underbelly to the building. Even in the searing heat outside, the building stays cool. Projects like these have been milestones, and worthy ambassadors, especially because by law, architects, lawyers and doctors aren’t allowed to advertise in India. “Heading a business with your hands tied behind your back is very tough. You can only rely on quality work,” says Rastogi. To ensure his office is in sync on that, Rastogi created a sort of interactive, online referral encyclopaedia of in-house projects. This database helps new hires become a part of the “creative” system by detailing projects that went on to become duds, and ones that were voted hot. “It helps lay down key processes from the conception of the idea to the occupancy of the product,” explains Rastogi. As, employees follow the process, which is further broken into several sub-processes, the aim is to improve every sub-process, and subsequently improve the process as a whole. “Where expansion is the kiss of death for creativity, this has helped us to survive, if not thrive,” he says. Their ability to constantly change and adapt has always worked too. “At one point, we decided not to undertake smaller projects. We also stopped taking on outstation work. It took up lots of time and was non-profitable,” recalls Rastogi, as he tells us how his firm survived the IT bust in 2001. But as new markets and demands emerged, they changed tracks. “Being far too boutique, and far too niche, is far too dangerous,” says Rastogi, adding that in India, certainly, one needs to be plural. Clearly, broad basing his appeal hasn’t come in the way of excellence. 42

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An Inspired Design Grid PEARL ACADEMY OF FASHION, JAIPUR

The design blends the indoors with the outdoors seamlessly. It won the tag of ‘Best Learning Building’ at World Architecture Festival Awards in 2009.

SWABHUMI HOTEL AND CULTURAL COMPLEX, KOLKATA

Organic streets, natural ventilation and self shading have been cleverly incorporated into the structure.

GLYCOL CORPORATE OFFICE, NOIDA

The idea was to create a work place which becomes an ‘an integral part of an employee’s life rather than a separate entity of specified hours of confinement.

MAKER MAXITY, MUMBAI

A commercial complex with offices, luxury hotel, shopping malls, service apartments, 10 screen multiplex and recreational areas—all in one!

Morphogenesis has dozens of prestigious global honours, including the Best Learning Building at World Architecture Festival Awards in Barcelona, Green Good Design Award from the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and the Chicago Athenaeum in its kitty. But one achievement, that is closest to his heart is successfully restoring Delhi’s 21 stormwater drains or nullahas. Historically built to carry excess stormwater

from Delhi’s hilly “Ridge” to the river Yamuna, these have now turned into sewage dumps. Rastogi’s vision was to turn them into public spaces. “Last year, a directive was passed by the Lt Governor’s secretariat stating that all the drains will be refurbished. That was a great feeling,” he says. To him, the decision encapsulated all that he and his enterprise stand for. “I am still inspired by the ant-hill. But, equally, I make sure I am not bogged down by rules.”

CUSTOMER SERVICE

How May We Help You? At Ritz-Carlton hotels, each staff member can spend up to $2,000 to resolve a customer complaint. Zappos’s customer loyalty team will stay on the phone as long as a caller wants and assist with any query, even one unrelated to Zappos. Nordstrom once refunded the purchase price of a set of tires, even though the department store has never sold tires. Not every company can be a Ritz-Carlton, a Zappos, or a Nordstrom. But any company can provide service that, in overused industry parlance, “delights” the customer. Yes, product innovation is critical for companies’ brands and for the economy as a whole. From a utilitarian standpoint, however, companies can earn the greatest outpouring of love from the greatest number of people by investing in service. That’s even true—scratch that—especially true in times of economic stress. It’s not just the economy that is prodding companies to become service heroes. The boundary between buyers and sellers is blurring, with customers acting as brand evangelists and influencing product selection and even participating in research and development.

Consequently, great service is not just about speed and accuracy but also about warmth and personalisation. In the new, generally technology-based service model, companies want to avoid disappointing friends. And heaven help those that make enemies. Services such as Yelp, Twitter, and YouTube broadcast to millions the primal yawps of enraged customers. Corporations, meanwhile, are winnowing supply chains, forcing suppliers to hone every customer interaction with an eye toward retaining—and improving—their positions. The following stories depict companies that are striving to provide dazzling service in three very different industries. We hope you enjoy them. Please let us know if there is any other way we can be of help. MAY 2011

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Learning, and relearning, to listen BY KASEY WEHRUM

“This is customer service,” Bill Crutchfield takes the liberty of explaining, because to the untrained eye, it looks an awful lot like someone hacking into a brandnew stereo receiver with a screwdriver and a flashlight. “A lot of companies get into trouble, because they think customer service is just how you deal with your backend complaints,” he elaborates. “Customer service is everything you do.” In Crutchfield’s case, that includes hiring technicians to dissect stereo equipment. We are in the Charlottesville, Virginia, headquarters of Crutchfield, the namesake electronics retail business Bill Crutchfield started 37 years ago from the basement of his mother’s house. Specifically, we are in the research department, a bunkerlike space in which Crutchfield’s tech team is busy poking, prodding, and measuring the latest models of flat-screen TVs, speaker systems, and a slew of other high-end audio-visual gear, all in the effort to make sure the employees are familiar with every detail of each of the 9,000-plus products Crutchfield sells. The techies will share what they learn with the copy department, where all those details will find their way into catalogue descriptions; and with the sales team, which will use them to steer customers toward the right product; and finally with the company’s call centre and tech support staffs, which must be ready to answer any question that comes up. 44

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Sure, manufacturers provide spec sheets for their products, but those spec sheets often don’t give enough details; and when they do, the details are often not clearly explained. The Crutchfield research team will take measurements, count the inputs and outputs, and make note of every feature. If the company is going to promise a customer that a new speaker is powered by a pair of 6.5-inch woofers, there is only one way to make sure. “We’ll have the warehouse send one over, and we’ll take it apart to see what’s going on inside,” says Phil Jones, director of Crutchfield’s tech support. Why would any retailer go through the trouble and considerable expense of doing such in-depth nosing around? Zappos is famous for its customer service, but it’s not cutting up the latest pair of Air Jordans to see exactly what kind of stitching Nike uses. Here’s one way to think about it: imagine being on the phone with someone who has absolutely no concept of how to tie a necktie. Now, imagine it is your task to walk him or her through the process of tying the perfect Windsor knot. Could you do it? Or would your patience run out the fifth time you had to explain exactly which end went through which loop? PHOTOGRAPH COURTSEY SUBJECT

Ready to Serve Frank feedback from all their customers saved his company, Bill Crutchfield says.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Crutchfield, by the Numbers You now have a glimpse into the life of a Crutchfield employee. Only instead of helping people master their neckties, Crutchfield’s tech support team fields calls from frantic car owners who have just pried open their dashboards to install their new car stereos, only to get the queasy feeling that they are in way over products available from their heads. Or homeowners staring at boxes Crutchfield’s website full of home theatre components and not having the first clue where to begin. Easing such vehicles Crutchfield’s customers’ fears and answering their quesresearch team tions are Crutchfield strong points. has taken apart sales advisers with for its car-stereo With annual sales of roughly $250 million personal bios installation database and about 500 employees, Crutchfield is and direct telephone numbers listed on barely a blip on the radar screen of big-box Crutchfield’s website retailers like Best Buy, which had sales of more than $49 billion in 2010. But Crutchweeks of classroom and field is debt free and has managed to avoid installation training required layoffs throughout its 37-year history. The of sales advisers before they company has a five-star rating from Yelp, and begin taking calls it is the only online retailer to win the Circle of Excellence award for 11 consecutive years from BizRate, a website that rates the custhe year Bill Crutchfield tomer service provided by online retailers. was inducted to the consecutive Circle of It’s all about putting yourself in the Consumer Electronics Excellence customer awards customer’s shoes, says Bill Crutchfield. Hall of Fame from BizRate, the most of “If they want to buy a car stereo, one of any online retailer the first things they are going to ask is, ‘will it fit into my car?’ or ‘will I run into any probyears of combined experience held by Crutchfield’s tech lems installing it?’ If you don’t know, you support specialists really aren’t serving the customer. The only way to know is to do what we do: take the car apart, and check it.” He is not kidding. Buy a car stereo for, say, your 2009 Ford F-150, and you will receive Crutchfield’s custom-produced, 15-page instruction All retail businesses, of course, depend on their customers, but booklet specifically for a 2009 Ford F-150. The booklet details Crutchfield’s bond with his goes especially deep: he insists his cuseach step involved in removing the car’s original radio and tomers helped save his fledgling mail-order car-stereo business replacing it with your Crutchfield purchase. Included in those from an early demise. In 1974, Crutchfield was a 31-year-old bachinstructions are photos of Crutchfield technicians pulling out elor living with his mother in the house he grew up in and workthe factory radio in a 2009 Ford F-150, stripping door gaskets, ing as the general manager of a forklift company. Fair to say, life running wires, and unscrewing door panels to install the new wasn’t going as planned. Four years earlier, Crutchfield had been speakers. Crutchfield has guides for more than 16,000 vehicles the commander of a Titan II intercontinental missile crew while in its database, many with photos of the tech crew working on serving as a commissioned officer in the Air Force at California’s specific models. (To get those photos, Bill Crutchfield arranged Vandenberg Air Force Base. After leaving the service, he headed to a handy barter agreement with the owners of Charlottesville’s Hollywood, where he wrote a screenplay about his experiences as a local car dealerships. They let Crutchfield’s technicians photomissile commander. Despite a few nibbles, Crutchfield couldn’t graph demonstration installations in their vehicles, and, in find a buyer for his movie, and before long, his savings ran out. He return, the dealerships receive a lifetime of free service for the loaded up his car and returned home to Virginia. stereo systems in the cars on their lot—provided the stereos are Once he began working for the forklift company, Crutchfield brands Crutchfield sells.) started squirreling away his salary with thoughts of starting a

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business of his own. He decided he would launch a venture that would incorporate his latest hobby, restoring classic sports cars. Crutchfield settled on the car-stereo business after trying in vain to find a do-it-yourself stereo for an old Porsche 356 he was hoping to restore and sell for a profit. But he quickly learnt that the $1,000 he had so far saved wouldn’t go very far toward launching a mail-order electronics business. There was a catalogue to produce, ads to buy, and most daunting of all, inventory to purchase. Help came in the form of a bank president, himself a Porsche owner, who understood at some level the value of the business Crutchfield was hoping to start. Without asking for a business plan, the banker extended Crutchfield a $25,000 line of credit. The company was a one-man operation. Crutchfield was the customer service department as well as the shipping depart-

With that in mind, Crutchfield got to work producing a more polished and user-friendly catalogue that included an easy-to-follow article on car-stereo installation techniques, helpful photographs, and, for a dash of marketing, a few customer testimonials from the survey. Something clicked. In the first quarter of 1975, monthly sales were under $4,000. After the mailing of the revised catalogue in April, sales leaped to $13,763. The following month, sales rose to $22,000. That survey, Crutchfield says, taught him the importance of listening and responding to customers. It was that simple, and it worked. From 1975 to 1982, the company’s sales continued to rise. As the auto industry started to produce cars that came equipped with high-quality stereo systems, Crutchfield diversified his product line to include home audio products, telephones, and other personal electronics.

“We don’t need a 500-page manual on how to behave. Just treat people the way you want to be treated.” ment, technical support department, catalogue producer, copywriter, and company photographer. Because he was still working full time at the forklift company, many of the customer service practices in place today were born of necessity, like same-day shipping. “I’d leave my job at 5 o’clock, race down to the post office to pick up the few orders that were in the P.O. box, race home and pack them in my mother’s basement, write a personal thank-you letter, pack them in my car, and drive them to UPS to make sure they got out the same day,” Crutchfield says. To field late-night customer service calls, he had a separate telephone line run to his bedroom. Despite these personal touches, seven months into the business, Crutchfield was $20,000 in debt. It was only a matter of time, he realised, before he would have to concede defeat and liquidate the business. But as a last-ditch effort to understand where he had gone wrong, Crutchfield mailed a one-page questionnaire to everyone who had requested a catalogue, customers and non-customers alike. The feedback from that questionnaire, he believes, saved the company. Customers didn’t have a problem with Crutchfield’s pricing. The product selection was more than adequate. They simply were intimidated with the prospect of installing their own car-stereo systems.

Yet as the company grew, Crutchfield soon found himself overwhelmed. He had difficulty transmitting the company’s service culture to his middle managers, and without the help of effective managers, he was unable to keep close tabs on his 50 employees. Customer service representatives were losing their focus and zeal. Salespeople were looking to pad their commissions by selling customers high-end equipment they didn’t want or need. The warehouse was so bureaucratic that same-day shipping had simply evaporated. Sales had continued to grow each year through 1982, but the rate of growth was slowing. Then, in 1983, sales fell 10 per cent, and the company’s earnings turned negative. All this while Crutchfield was paying to construct a new building. “We didn’t have the resources to last more than another year or so,” he says. When the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce examined Crutchfield’s situation for a 1984 case study, the faculty case writer concluded that “increases in sales just seem to lead to greater increases in inefficiency in operations. Crutchfield Corporation has got bigger than Bill Crutchfield can handle. This loss in operating income is a very obvious signal that things are going wrong.” Crutchfield had already come to a similar conclusion. “It’s like when you start gaining weight: it just creeps up on you very MAY 2011

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gradually,” he says. “I woke up one day and realised that this was not how I built this company. A lot of dysfunctional behaviours had crept into the company from the time I started adding layers of management.” Crutchfield dug in and started looking at every aspect of the business. He listened in on customer service calls, read letters from disappointed customers, and broke down the compensation plan for the sales team. To return the company to its roots, Crutchfield wrote down a set of core beliefs that harked back to the days when the company was still young: namely, exceeding customers’ expectations, maintaining a passion for continuous improvement, and treating co-workers with dignity and respect. Crutchfield met with each employee to explain the importance of the core values and the consequences of not adhering to them. Staff members were given a chance to adjust and improve, but those who didn’t buy in were soon let go. “From that

“You can’t train somebody to enjoy helping other people. That’s either there or it isn’t.” moment on, it really made things very easy,” Crutchfield says. “We don’t need a 500-page manual on how to behave. Just treat people the way you want to be treated.” Adherence to those core beliefs helps explain why character, not technical know-how, is the most important thing managers look for when interviewing new employees. “The fundamental question I ask prospective hires is, ‘Do you like helping people?’” says Phil Jones. “It sounds stupid, but some people don’t. You can train them on the tech stuff, but you can’t train somebody to enjoy helping other people. That’s either there or it isn’t.” Those who do like helping people tend to stick around. “I’ve been here 18 years, and there’s a guy in my department who still calls me ‘the new guy,’” says Jones. “He’s been here for 30 years.” The company’s ties with its vendors are also solid. “Crutchfield is fair, but they’re also demanding,” says Bob Weissburg, president of sales and marketing for D&M Holdings, owner of consumer electronics brands such as Denon and Boston Acoustics. “They require a lot from their vendors by making sure that we can always back up any claims we make.” Good relations with vendors paid off in the 1990s, when cat48

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alogue companies were struggling to make sense of the thennew phenomenon of e-commerce. Crutchfield got a leg up launching its web business, when, for instance, it was the only retailer authorised by Sony in 1996 to sell its products online, a monopoly the company held for close to three years. Internet orders now account for about 70 per cent of the business, but Crutchfield is still very much in the catalogue business; it mails out more than 30 million per year. “Contrary to what some internet consultants will say, the catalogues will continue to be around,” says Crutchfield. Add to that the tollfree hotlines whose numbers are plastered all over the company’s website, throughout the catalogues, and on the boxes the company ships to customers. “It’s a three-legged stool,” Crutchfield says. “All three of those components are just our way of making it easy for our customers to communicate with us.” Of course, no company is perfect. If you want to find a TV with a lower price than Crutchfield’s, you probably won’t have much difficulty. As one commentator on BizRate complained, “Prices are a little on the high side for middle-income folks.” That’s something Bill Crutchfield won’t deny. “We’re never going to be a Walmart or an Amazon, and you can go on the internet and find hundreds of retailers who are selling this type of product for less than we do,” he says. “But you’re not going to be able to find a retailer who provides the level of service we provide. People have the assurance that if they call us, there will be a highly trained, nice person on the other end of the phone who can truly help them if they need it. To some people, that’s very important.” It also costs a lot of money to provide. “We run an expensive operation, and it is a big investment,” he says. “Our overhead is probably significantly higher than most of our competitors’. If I were to sell the business to a company that was looking for short-term profits, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit here. A lot of money could be made by cutting out all these services and then riding the coattails of our great franchise. But in the long run, they would ruin the company, and in five years, there would be nothing left.” If that sounds familiar, it is because that is pretty much the path Circuit City followed on its way to oblivion. In 2007, the struggling electronics giant announced the layoffs of 3,400 of its most experienced and best-paid salespeople. They were replaced with lower-paid but far less knowledgeable workers. Crutchfield says he will never let that happen as long as he is in charge. “Ours is a business where you need to be able to relate to people,” he says. “Crutchfield is a business you need to run with soul.” Kasey Wehrum is a staff writer for Inc.

Brother-Sister Act Siblings Michael Landau and Allison Webb, in their West Hollywood salon, one of four they operate in the Los Angeles area. They plan to open 12 to 15 locations a year.

A hair-drying chain gets a makeover

BY LEIGH BUCHANAN

Hollywood loves concepts that can be pitched in a few words. So it’s ideal terrain for Drybar, a Los Angeles start-up that sells $35 shampoo and blow-drys—blowouts, in the trade—and not much else. Unfortunately, simple concepts are also copy-catnip. With the breath of imitators warm on their necks, co-founders Michael Landau and Allison Webb are determined to make Drybar a national brand. Landau and Webb, who are siblings, plan to make their mark with exceptional service. They know that although a beguiling product lures people in, service brings them back. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY SUBJECT

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But how to ensure great customer service when your company is growing at a breakneck pace? Drybar, which broke even on sales of $1 million in its first 10 months, derives about 70 percent of its business from repeat customers, says Landau. But given their plans to open 12 to 15 Drybars a year for the next three years, the founders say they lack time to gradually refine practices. The year-old company, which has 142 employees, four outlets in California, and a franchise in Dallas, needs to make sure that far-flung stores deliver a uniformly flawless experience. The challenge: to codify fabulousness. So Inc. invited two customer service experts to help. Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon are co-authors of Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization. Inghilleri is a veteran of that pinnacle of politesse, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, at which he created the Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center and Learning Institute. He is executive vice president at Atlanta-based West Paces Consulting. Solomon is a popular speaker on customer service who draws on the practices he engineered at Oasis Disc Manufacturing, the entertainment-technology company he founded in Delair, New Jersey. The two sat down recently with Landau and Webb to discuss Drybar’s strengths and areas in which it can improve. The experts immediately appreciated that customer focus is bred in the bone for these entrepreneurs: Their father modelled a service philosophy every day at his clothing store in South Florida. “My dad would bend over backward for every customer, acquiesce to their every demand,” said Landau, 39. Landau and Webb, 35, tried to emulate that approach when they opened two Nicole Miller boutiques in the late ’90s. “I’d go in disguise to see how employees were treating customers, and I was disgusted by how they talked to people,” recalled Landau. “When women left the shop upset, I literally chased them down to apologise.” Landau moved west to help Seth Godin launch the internet marketing firm Yoyodyne; later, he became an early employee at Yahoo before starting his own marketing company. Webb, meanwhile, worked as a hairstylist and in public relations in New York City. She moved to California in 2005 and four years later started doing blowouts in women’s homes to break up long days of caring for her two young children. When that business grew beyond soloist scale, Landau invested $200,000 and raised another $1.5 million from friends and family. The first Drybar opened in Brentwood in February 2010. With their business taking off, Webb and Landau were eager for some pointers on polishing their service to a fare-thee-well. Here are lessons from their meeting with our experts.

1. Have them at hello

First impressions carry outsize importance because of how memory works. “If I read you a long list of spices—cinnamon, marjoram, turmeric, etc.—you would remember the ones at the beginning and at the end,” said Solomon, after Webb outlined 50

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Drybar’s greeting procedures. “The ones in the middle would be a blur. That’s how people remember customer service.” A visit to Drybar lasts half an hour to 45 minutes. The first point of contact is the receptionist, called a bartender in the brand’s cocktail-themed vernacular. She greets the customer, checks her in, and offers her coffee, tea, or Drybar’s signature citrus water. “We urge them not to start with, ‘do you have an appointment?’ said Webb. “It’s more like, ‘hi. welcome to Drybar. Have you been with us before? Can I get you something to drink? I love your earrings.’ I always tell them to make conversation.” But when a reporter pretending to be a customer approached the desk, the bartender opened with: “Welcome to Drybar. Do you have an appointment?” The experts praised Webb’s model greeting but suggested she create a written script to ensure employees remember to use it. Drybar strives to prevent lines by turning seats efficiently, without making patrons feel rushed. The company ditched a walk-ins-are-welcome policy when the stores had to turn away business, which angered customers. Inghilleri urged that if a store does become unusually crowded, the bartender still acknowledge every customer the moment she enters. “It can be a simple eye contact and a smile,” he said. “If you are on the phone, use sign language: ‘I see you. I will be with you soon.’ ” He added that repeat customers should be flagged in the company’s appointment system, so bartenders can recognise them with a warm “welcome back.” The experts suggested that Drybar put at employees’ fingertips everything known about its customers, including mistakes made in previous transactions, product preferences, and comments from satisfaction surveys. Landau and Webb have already made modifications to enhance the customer’s experience. At their first store, the single desk for check-in and checkout created bottlenecks, so at subsequent stores, they set up separate stations. They also removed most phones, because the constant ringing—in concert with roaring blow dryers—was not conducive to relaxation. (Off-site reservation agents now handle calls.) The experts suggested the founders consider turning down the music. Webb agreed, but her brother argued that music boosts sales and customers love it. The music will remain loud.

2. Hire sweethearts

Drybar’s stylists aren’t just customer facing; they are customer touching. Landau and Webb have high standards for those who embody the brand. So, even in a lousy job market, they have trouble staffing the business. “The people with the attributes of good customer service may not necessarily be the best stylists,” said Landau. “You can’t hire them as a stylist if they are not good at hair, even if they have the best personality in the world.” On the flip side, some doyennes of the dryer have turned out to be what Landau calls divas. “Some stylists are so arrogant and so good that they don’t care what the client wants,” said Landau.

Inghilleri suggested Drybar start evaluating stylists’ customer service skills before their blow-drying skills. Hiring managers are sometimes so impressed after seeing someone with excellent technique that they are ready to dismiss deficiencies, such as a poor personality, he explained. He also wanted Drybar to use questions designed by a talent-profiling company to assess applicants’ service orientation. Before posing those questions in interviews, the founders should ask them of a few star employees and record the answers, then do the same with middle-of-the-roaders. Both sets of responses should be weighed against applicants’ answers to indicate which group they are more likely to emulate. Solomon questioned the company’s pursuit of outgoing, bubbly personalities. “I think what you are really looking for is people who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest,” he said. “Everyone should be able to deal with someone who is depressed or with the no-nonsense businesswoman.”

“If you don’t answer the phone promptly, I don’t know what you can do well.” 3. Be great on the phone

About 60 per cent of Drybar’s clients book over the phone; the rest use the web. Twelve operators work part time from their homes. But during peak times, Tuesday through Saturday, the company fields as many as 300 calls an hour. Customers may wait four or five rings for an answer, then get put on hold. “As soon as the telephone rings three times, you are beginning to build distrust in your callers,” said Inghilleri. “If you don’t answer the phone promptly, I don’t know what you can do well. Your hold time—no more than 30 seconds. Abandoned calls—the moment you hit 10 per cent, you are losing business.” Inghilleri suggested Drybar consider outsourcing to a call centre. Landau, who has talked to four such outfits, pushed back: “Doing it ourselves, we have a high degree of control. The girls who work for us love the brand. To try to convey that message to a bunch of people who don’t work here, it’s a little scary.” He hopes that the proliferation of franchises will soon justify Drybar’s having its own call centre. “It should be a Zappos environment— camaraderie and everyone working together,” he said.

Inghilleri and Solomon had additional criticisms after listening in on a caller making an appointment. The operator, although knowledgeable and helpful, rambled in her responses and once or twice spoke over the caller. As with the bartenders, the experts recommended the use of a script. They also suggested making lists of phrases deemed acceptable and—more important—unacceptable. (Cool: I’d be happy to. Not cool: Sure.) After a brief tussle over the use of the term no problem (as in, “Yes, I can do that for you”), which Webb defended as L.A. friendly, Inghilleri acknowledged that every business must adopt its own “style of service.” “At the Ritz, we were ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen,” he said. Landau described Drybar’s style as “a combination of whimsy and sophistication. We don’t want it to be stuffy and fancy.” At Drybar, no problem will remain no problem. The experts spent less time studying Drybar’s online booking. But Solomon loved the invitation to cancel appointments. “I think it’s brilliant,” he said. “You don’t want anyone feeling guilty about not showing up.”

4. Keep them pumped

The co-founders understand that consistent service is, by definition, repetitious. Do the right thing. Then do it again, ad infinitum. “For our employees, it’s like being onstage,” said Landau. “If you’re in a Broadway show twice a day, five or six times a week, you still have to make every member of the audience feel like it’s the first time you’ve done it.” To buoy enthusiasm, the experts recommended morning pep talks. During those five-minute gatherings, managers should alert staff to appointments by frequent dryers who deserve a little extra care, as well as customers prepping for big events. “That reminds staff that what they are doing is important to people’s lives, which is great for morale,” said Solomon. Inghilleri suggested breaking the talks into principles—such as the importance of a warm greeting, timeliness, or escorting customers. “Every day, you give people something a little different to focus on,” he said. Most important, the experts said, is to give employees permission to wax creative. Inghilleri once worked at the Walt Disney Company. “We always told the housekeepers, ‘you are not here to clean rooms. You are here to create a memorable experience for your customers,’ ” he said. “We had housekeepers who would take little Mickey Mouse plush dolls and put them in children’s beds with a note, ‘I was waiting for you.’ If your employees understand the mission and have the freedom to do great things, then they will do great things.”

5. Quantify their love

Webb and Landau get to chat with plenty of customers and employees. But Landau said there has been no time to track and MAY 2011

INC.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

analyse customer feedback. Make time, Inghilleri told him. Drybar’s only formal feedback mechanism is a demure notepad at checkout printed with the chatty solicitation “please tell.” The experts wanted more. Because customers have the option of receiving their receipts via e-mail, Inghilleri and Solomon suggested appending short surveys to those receipts. To help improve the response rate, Solomon recommended using his company’s strategy of making a small donation to a charity for every survey completed. “A high percentage fill them out, because it’s an inexpensive way to make a donation,” he said. Customer surveys should start with an overall rating, followed by a drill-down into specific aspects of the visit, the experts explained. “You want to start out with the two questions that really matter: Will you come back and, will you refer your friends?” said Solomon. A rating is also a defence against attacks on sites like Yelp. The ability to assert, “On a scale of one to five, 97 per cent of customers gave us a five is powerful ammunition against an isolated blast of disgruntlement.

who are not buying on price, he said, companies should consider a thoughtful present or service. He approved of Drybar’s restitution for an unusually long wait—which happens occasionally when the previous client turns up late or has vast quantities of hair. In that case, the client may receive a free scalp massage to help pass the time.

7. Have them at goodbye

After the stylist escorts the client to the front, a bartender inquires once more into her happiness before checking her out. Inghilleri urged that receptionists indulge in another moment or two of conversation after the credit card has been returned. “Make sure the last moment they are with you is not the signing of a bill,” he said. “What you want them to remember is people thanking them for coming and saying, ‘we look forward to seeing you again.’ ” The experts weren’t crazy about Landau’s plan to let customers check out and pay from their seats using an iPad app. (The iPads will be positioned at every station and will also be loaded with magazines.) “If you eliminate the faceto-face checkout, that’s one less opportunity to pick up on problems,” said Solomon. “Maybe you are gaining some convenience. But you are losing an opportunity for human touch.” The experts’ advice Landau and Webb seemed least likely to take was to slow down. Drybar is hot: In just a year, the company has accumulated a database of more than 25,000 clients and received more than 1,000 inquiries about opening franchises. “They say, ‘I was in your store in Los Angeles. Now I’m back in Tennessee, and Memphis needs one so bad,’ ” said Landau. “The pressure to grow is coming from everywhere.” But Inghilleri and Solomon advised the founders to resist that pressure for three months. They wanted Landau and Webb to use that time to perfect a single store: map processes, aggressively train staff, and lay an unshakable foundation for a service culture. Inghilleri told a story from his early days at the Ritz, when, despite accolades from the industry and the press, management doubled down to obliterate imperfections it knew were lurking. “At that time, one customer out of four was experiencing defects,” Inghilleri said. “So we went back and worked on processes and took out defects. We tracked those mistakes and analysed the data until it was one out of 10 customers experiencing defects, and then one out of 100. With service, you have to be obsessive. You know, excellence is a pain.”

“With service, you have to be obsessive. You know, excellence is a pain.” 6. Make it right

From his Nicole Miller days of sprinting after angry clients, Landau learned “the power of turning customers around.” Drybar’s co-founders and the experts agreed that resolving customer complaints is among the best ways to earn loyalty. In their book, Inghilleri and Solomon recommend lengthy apologies to give customers the chance to connect emotionally. Drybar wants stylists to practice reading client reactions to their work and to act forcefully if they sense dissatisfaction. “Last week, I had a customer, and her hair wasn’t exactly what she wanted,” said Webb. “She said, ‘No, no; you don’t have to fix it.’ I said, ‘I want you to have it exactly the way you want.’ So I fixed it for her. I talked to the stylist later, and she said, ‘I told her I would like to fix it. But the customer said, “No, no, no.” ’ She tried to push it. But she didn’t push it enough.” If a customer is unhappy with her blowout, the stylist will offer to do it again. If it’s still not right, Drybar will comp the visit and, if the client is especially unhappy, the next one as well. (Out of 2,500 blowouts per week, the company comps four to eight.) Inghilleri observed that money is not always the best remedy. Particularly for customers 52

INC. | MAY 2011

Leigh Buchanan is an editor-at-large for Inc.

HOW I DID IT

PREMA SAGAR PITCHING IT WELL

I was born in Kanpur in 1953. My mother is Swiss and my father

Sindhi. My parents were so much in love that I think they almost forgot about my brother and me. My brother and I spent a lot of our time together while growing up. We are still very, very close. My father was in the Indian Air Force. We moved around with him.

I had a challenging childhood. I was very rebellious, mainly

because my father said no to everything. Somebody just had to tell me I couldn’t do something, and I wanted to prove I could. I did my schooling from Sacred Heart Girls High School in Bengaluru, and my pre-university from Hislop College, Nagpur. My father, posted in Nagpur, wanted me to continue college there. I wanted to go to Sydenham College in Mumbai but my father didn’t want me to go there. He said I could go to Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi if I got through the merit list. I think I chose to do BCom because it was the new, unexpected thing to do. I got through SRCC, becoming one of the eight girls to get in that year. My father let me go. I jumped on a train and came here. I knew not a soul in Delhi.

I dropped out after two years at SRCC. My dad was very upset. I

decided to get a job. I asked my father to help me find one but he refused. He told me nobody had helped him find a job, and he wouldn’t help me.

Those were different times. There weren’t as many opportunities.

My cousin sister worked as a receptionist in a law firm called Sagar

INC. | MAY 2011

Prema Sagar helps some of the world’s largest companies—think Microsoft, HP, Pepsi—carefully craft their image. But, it’s tough to slot Sagar, founder and principal of Genesis BursonMarsteller, one of India’s best-known public relations firms, into any category. She’s at once a college dropout, a serial entrepreneur and a genuine do-gooder. For somebody who hones corporate pitches to perfection for her 120 clients, Sagar’s also disarmingly frank. Almost anti-status quo, she’s currently busy turning her nearly 250-people firm inside out.

AS TOLD TO SHREYASI SINGH PHOTOGRAPH BY SUBHOJIT PAUL

A Born Rebel All Prema Sagar ever needed was for someone to say 'no' to turn things around.

HOW I DID IT

& Co. She was getting married and leaving for the US. I asked her to introduce me to her bosses to fill her position. She said she wouldn’t because her employers didn’t want to hire more women. Their last three receptionists had gotten married and moved to the US. I knew the law firm’s office was in a build-

ing called Kanchanjunga in Connaught Place. It was on the ninth floor, and that was the first time I saw an elevator. I was too scared to get inside so I ran up all the way to the ninth storey to meet Dr Sagar, who headed the firm. He wasn’t there but I was sent to a A.R. Lall who agreed to give me my first job as a receptionist. I began with 600 a month. And, they raised it to 700 after a month. Within months, I was handling accounts and administration. It taught me a lot. I worked in Sagar & Co from January 1975 till July 1976. I met my husband, Jyoti, there. He was one of the

extrovert. He said he’d take care of the printing, and I could focus on the marketing, finance, and driving (actually pushing) our 1950 Morris Minor all around town. A friend of my husband’s told me he’d

introduce me to Ravi Suri, the general manager of the Maurya Sheraton. Mr Suri met me, and told his purchase manager, Mahinder Garg, to give me work. Garg asked us to submit a quote for the luggage tags that hotels use even today. We didn’t even know how to prepare a quote. So, we went to somebody my husband knew who ran a very successful printing unit. He helped us calculate a price. It came to 11 paise per tag. Garg brought us down to 9 paise per tag and gave us an order for three months. Soon, we realised we had under quoted. We were paying out of our pocket. But we learnt a lot and Maurya gave us lots of work after that. This was the biggest break we got.

“ I told our people no one would go to journalists till they had a definite story idea. We didn't want to just hand out press releases.” young lawyers. After we married in 1976, I worked in another firm for a year and a half. I’ve always followed my heart. I remem-

ber one day waking up and thinking I wanted to start a printing business. My son Rahul was one and a half years old then. And, as we had our morning tea, I told my husband about my plan. He’s always been very supportive but he didn’t think I meant it. I, however, set to work. My brother worked in the tea gardens but was in Delhi for a holiday then. He was excited with the idea and we partnered to start the business. He gave up his job in Assam and moved to Delhi. I didn’t think siblings working together was a good idea. But, he convinced me. He’s an introvert, and I am an

INC. | MAY 2011

The printing business grew steadily after

that. In 1983, I went through a difficult pregnancy, and subsequently lost the child. I was bedridden for six months. That’s when I started working on the Genesis City Guide. My brother was running the press, so I could focus on doing something else. In any case, I am very restless. I hate more of the same. The city guides were very successful in hotels and bookshops for 13 years.

It was during a meeting for the city guides, and our printing work that I first heard of public relations. I was in the office of Anil Chanana, general manager, Maurya Sheration, when his assistant told him a journalist was waiting to meet him. He didn’t like the idea and I went deeper into why he

felt that way. Wasn’t it good to be in the media as the GM of a wonderful property? Around the same time, in late 1989, Priya

Paul of Park Hotels called me suddenly. She asked me to do their PR. Their Delhi hotel had a mere 3 per cent occupancy at the time. Priya was 23 when she had to take charge of the hotel chain. We had started printing and graphic designing for them. I didn’t know whether it was going to be a success. But, I was soon spending half a day there.

It was really a very decent hotel even then.

All it needed was for people to come see it. While reading March McCormick’s book on public speaking, the idea of a public speaking event came to me. I told Priya all we need is coffee and biscuits to do this. We branded it Going Public @ The Park. Our first speaker was Ramesh Vangal. He had just brought Pepsi back to India. He agreed to do a talk on building India Inc. We put a small ad in Times of India and were surprised to see a full auditorium. The series was a runaway success. We did it monthly. We also launched Cinema @ The Park, Theatre @ The Park at their other properties in Kolkata and Visakhapatnam. In fact, Park Hotels continues to be a client.

I told my brother to take care of the printing business, and decided to shut the city guides. The magazine was irritating me. Every month, we’d be scrounging for ads. But, PR just wasn’t. I took to it amazingly. There’s nothing like success to motivate you. I formally created Genesis Public Relations in November 1992. Thai Airways was our second client, and we worked with them for seven years. We did a lot of work for Travel House, the travel agency of ITC. My city guide contacts helped. I have never, ever done cold calling, ever. I’ll never do it. But, few people knew what PR was. They

thought PR was about being a PRO who is basically somebody who pushes files from one table to another to get a job done. In June 1992, I decided to get my fundas right by going to Frank Jefkins Institute of Public Relations in UK. I didn’t have much money.

HOW I DID IT

“If you have a sense of purpose, you’ll always be successful. If you don’t have it, find it.”

people, and have 110-plus retainer clients across seven offices and 100 cities. I really like winning. That’s the entrepreneur in me. I used to be in tears when we’d lose clients. As I recently wrote in an internal blog for employees, if you have a sense of purpose, you’ll always be successful. If you don’t have it, find it. I am blessed with a great team. In fact,

middle of last year, I almost felt I could walk away from all of this, like my role here was over. It was my lowest ebb. I felt I had lost my purpose. I am not interested if I can’t change things.

In 2010, I underwent a serious surgery in

In Thick of Things: Prema Sagar would rather be troubleshooting than sitting behind a desk. Here she's all smiles with Harold Burson, co-founder of Burson-Marsteller, and an inspiration.

But, I had a free air ticket. My husband paid 1.5 lakh for the month-long course. I loved the start-up days. We took people

who came straight out of college. I remember how two or three of us would sit together, and debate over each word in a press release.

Right from the beginning, I made a huge shift from how other agencies were working. I told my people that nobody would go to journalists till they had a definite story idea to discuss. We didn’t hand out press releases. I told them they would be treated as professionals only if they understood their domain. We did that very well in our early years. We were smaller, so we could spend more time on our domains. Also, we never approached PR from a quantity point of view. We focused on the quality of media, and what it was saying. That’s always differentiated us. We worked with some of the biggest

names. In 1993, Genesis launched the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. Sometime after, we began working with the

Indian Aluminium Company (INDAL). Looking back, I think I learnt the most from these early accounts. I remember when Sterlite did a hostile takeover of INDAL. In this case, especially, I learnt that you can’t always listen to what the CEOs are saying. Our industry is very servile. But, you have to be able to put your foot down. You might go wrong but have an independent view, put up a debate. By 1998, Genesis had spread to Bengaluru, where we signed up clients like Sun Microsystems and Intel, and Kolkata. We also tied up with Manning Selvage & Lee, the world’s seventh largest PR firm. We’ve grown from strength to strength ever since. We’ve introduced several best practices in our industry like adopting Robert Kaplan’s Balanced Scorecard Method, launching Reputation Capital, a methodology for corporate reputation management. In 2005, Burson-Marsteller acquired us. We got integrated with their Asia-Pacific regional network. In 2008, we were ranked the India Consultancy of the Year by The Holmes Report. Today, we are 250-plus

Singapore, and had a lot of time to think about what next. The surgery was a lifechanging experience and I decided that if I recovered fully, I needed to change the game plan in the company. If not, then I’d put all my time behind the Genesis Foundation (a not-for-profit she’s set up to help treat critically ill orphan and less privileged children), and open a Music Cafe.

I bounced back after the surgery, and told Mark Penn, our global CEO, that I would quit, or if I stayed, I’d change everything around. I told him India is changing very fast but we are all stuck being the way we were. The need was to give our clients integrated solutions. And, I’ve no idea why he said, ‘You’ve built the company, and I know you will do the best for it.’ Since then, we’ve begun digital market-

ing. It’s an exciting new area. We’ve also created practice areas we had lost in between like technology, corporate, consumer marketing and telecom. I am really enjoying what I do now. I am exhausted when I get home. Sometimes, I sleep for only four hours.

I love being in the thick of things. Just this

morning, I thought, I need to have somebody above me so I can go back to client servicing. I love to make an impact and help a client who is in deep trouble. MAY 2011

INC.

Managing Creating intrapreneurs might just be what your business needs. Don’t stop at giving your best employees a fat pay hike and a big promotion. Encourage them to become co-owners. page 59 Elevator Pitch Lords Automotives believes its compact LPG kit can rapidly accelerate its growth. Will investors fuel the journey with 1 crore? page 62 The Way I Work It’s easy to see why G.S. Bhalla has managed such a sweet mix for Cocoberry. When you relish a product like he does, selling is truly a cakewalk. page 64

Sales & Marketing Can its healthy foucs help Madhuban Naturals boost sales? page 61

STRATEGY Managing Inventing Intrapreneurs Talent management takes on a different role What do companies like Tata Motors, L&T, Tata Steel and Mahindra & Mahindra have in common? Of course, they are all blue-chip multinational firms that evoke immense respect. But, there’s another similarity. They’ve all implemented with great success the innovative management strategy of nurturing intrapreneurship within their companies. Intrapreneurship is a unique form of talent management. Although it fosters and encourages independent thinking, it’s very different from entrepreneurship. Many management experts say it involves more than “starting a business” even as others say it brings out true leadership. Still, others define it as creating “an organisation within the organisation”. Avinash Purandare, vice president and head, corporate global marketing and strategy, at Kirloskar Brothers puts it well. “It’s working like an entrepreneur on behalf of an entrepreneur with an in depth understanding of the organisation.” Simply put, it’s a way to make employees behave like entrepreneurs— take risks, ownership and accountability. Typically, an intrapreneur does not own the enterprise but heads a specific division of a firm. ILLUSTRATION BY PC ANOOP

MAY 2011

INC.

STRATEGY

He is an employee-cum-professional who is seeded with financial and human resources to create new products or services. While not necessarily the full owner, an intrapreneur certainly has moral custody of the unit he heads. It might be a management buzzword now but the concept is steeped in history. The Marathas’ Peshwa system gave way to India’s first intrapreneurs. Here, a king’s mantris were given full charge of running their specific departments. As long as they furnished taxes to the central kingdom, they could manage things as they liked. With colonial rule, this smart decentralisation was abolished. And, in the Indian context, the newly-minted coinage of intrapreneurship has only enjoyed limited success. “The Indian business culture and environment is such that intrapreneurship does not survive,” says Ranjan Mohapatra, president of Vision Corporate Management Consulting. “In family-owned enterprises, the lala philosophy works—boss is God, always follow his command,” he adds. Pune-based Kirloskar Brothers Ltd. (KBL), a leading exporter and manufacturer of pumps, is a worthy exception. Since the 1940s, the company has encouraged intrapreneurship. Professionals from within the company were given independent jurisdictions as head of entities like Kirloskar Ebara Pumps and Kirloskar Pneumatic. “The ability to receive and accept diversified viewpoints is essential for intrapreneurship to survive,” says Purandare who won the Maha-Intrapreneur Award in 2010, on behalf of Kirloskar Brothers. Purandare joined KBL’s IT department as vice president but really worked like a CIO to turn things around. “The department was in the midst of attrition and employee dissatisfaction,” says he. Employees wouldn’t last beyond three months in the department. Attrition was brought to zero by mentoring and involved career planning. A robust internal process was set up, and three years later, the attrition had miraculously dropped to zero. Also, today the department has become self sufficient in managing their own IT infrastructure, including maintaining a 60

INC. | MAY 2011

Who’s Who of Intrapreneurs

Here are a few companies who worked intrapreneurship to their advantage. Lockheed Martin: Its Skunk Works Group was formed in 1943 to build P-80 fighter jets. Project director Kelly Johnson gave the now-famous “14 Rules of Intrapreneurship”. 3M: The creation of Sticky Notes and Post-it Notes emerged from employees being encouraged to spend 15% of their work hours on projects they liked. Microsoft: The technology giant invested a lot of money and infrastructure into Robbie Bach and J. Allard’s XBOX idea, nurturing the project with millions of dollars and a crack team of gifted programmers.

If only they had done things differently... Xerox employees John Warnock and Charles Geschke were frustrated when their new product ideas were not encouraged. In the early 1980s, they quit, and co-founded Adobe. The rest, as they say, is history.

dedicated SAP landscape and implementing SAP with in-house resources for other units within the company. KBL’s top management noticed the difference Purandare had made and gave him the responsibility of setting up a new global marketing and strategy department from scratch, to focus on customer intimacy. Purandare equipped the department with the right resources and processes, and today it’s a fullyfunctional unit with 38 people. Of course, these privileges will be confined to a tiny minority who bleed blue. “This system helps identify prospective leaders,” explains Mohapatra. “Employees who talk about starting their own companies are, in 90 out of 100 cases, intrapreneurs,” adds he. An employee’s risk taking ability, innovative ideas, unending vigour, honesty and a neversay-die-attitude is a sure-fire check list.

But, companies that aren’t fed on innovation are unlikely to attract such employees, or effectively retain and nurture them in the first place. “It’s a dead concept for FMCG companies but an imperative in the IT industry,” elaborates Mohapatra. Since even high technology becomes redundant every few months now, it’s by staying on top of the talent game that a firm can be on par. Infosys’ ShoppingTrip360, a consumer behaviour service, is a great example of intrapreneurship in the IT industry. Intrapreneurship may encourage a firm to be dynamic in its approach and agile in its operations but it comes at a risk. “Peers, in a professional setting, may feel ousted,” warns Mohapatra. It may also ignite a battle of egos in the board room where a founder and professional may not see eye to eye. “At KBL we have formed a cross-functional team to debate and decide on matters where consensus is not possible,” says Purandare on ways to mitigate turf wars. While spotting the right leader is one challenge, constantly motivating professionals-turned-entrepreneurs is another. Performance management systems must be tweaked to recognise intrapreneurial achievements, talent experts suggest. “Today, most young-professionals don’t want to work in a bureaucratic structure. They are constantly looking for challenges, growth and intellectual freedom,” reasons Mohapatra. When done well, intrapreneurship can work wonders even in non-corporate institutions like not-for-profits. The Maha Intrapreneur Awards 2010, instituted by Praj Industries and the Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, holds testimony to this. Dr Girish Kulkarni of the Snehalaya Education Society—an organisation which helps rehabilitate physically challenged children—and Dr Madhav Sathe of The Bombay Mothers and Children Welfare Society, were awarded for the entrepreneurial zeal they brought to their work. Last year’s awards showed women leveraged the benefits well too. Mandakini Awasarmol of Morarjee Textile, a 100-crore firm in Nagpur, and Kalpana Pant of Pune-based Chaitanya are a few names to reckon intrapreneurship with.—Sunaina Sehgal

STRATEGY

Sales & Marketing Ready-to-pop fruit pills for wellness Can the nutritious kick lead to robust sales? Native to India and Iran, the pomegranate offers 16 per cent of an adult’s vitamin C needs but who has the time to extract its jewel-coloured seeds? That’s where Rajgopal Tupil steps in. In late 2008, Tupil launched Madhuban Naturals to make easy-to-pop products out of fruits many of us have forgotten. He started with supplement pills made from pomegranate extract. Over the years, he’s loaded his goody basket to include juice concentrates, fortified teas, fruit chews, chocolates, face packs and scrubs, from pomegranate and jamun. He claims the products are chemical-free and handmade. He’s nurtured the company with 12 lakh in investment and manages sales of around 1 lakh a month. But, Tupil needs to ramp up turnover by accelerating online sales and increasing sales points beyond the Bengaluru and Chennai outlets. Four experts give him a marketing diet chart.—Charu Bahri

How would you sell that?

PITCH NO. 2: Create knowledge Prableen Sabhaney, head, communications and public affairs, Fabindia Madhuban Naturals is essentially selling knowledge-based products. The products are selling for their intrinsic goodness, and the customers’ knowledge of this will play an integral part in the transaction. This is typical of wellness products, and presents a huge challenge because it’s like selling two products—one, the product itself and the other, the knowledge associated with it. If the company wants to grow its client base, it would necessarily need to first “sell” the knowledge. This, of course, calls for an alternative, educative, outof-the-box, and targeted, innovative approach to marketing.

PITCH NO. 1: Go aggressively online Kashyap Vadapalli, director, category and business development, eBay India Madhuban Naturals should aim for an e-commerce enabled website that is a storehouse of quality information. The website should emphasise information-sharing and branding— sales should be secondary. He should promote it through good SEO techniques and content partnerships with health-oriented blogs, sites and magazines. He needs to have good store-fronts on high-traffic e-commerce sites or marketplaces like ours. The store fronts should also focus on trustworthiness vis-à-vis claims about benefits, and list the full range of products. Product listings should be tagged with appropriate keywords to facilitate searches. PITCH NO. 3: Increase sales points Acharya Rajendra Dev Atal, head naturopath, Naturopathy Resort Spa, Saharanpur It would help if the range is sold through grocery stores because it can reach more customers. Considering the number of people addicted to things like chewing tobacco, the company could offer its fruit chews as an alternative, healthy option to kick the habit. Churan containing pomegranate and herbs which aid digestion will also help sales. Madhuban will need word of mouth advertising. They should set up stalls at shopping centres and offer free samples to draw customers in.

Health in a Box Will customers bite into the fruity pills to boost Madhuban’s sales?

FEEDBACK ON THE FEEDBACK Setting up sampling stalls at malls is something we haven’t done so far. We’ve tried direct dealing with health and organic food stores and found it to be a cumbersome process. We ended up making more effort for very little yield. Still, we’ll look at increasing that number. Content partnership with health magazines and sites, with links back to our site is a good idea, and we should focus on that. We’ve experienced ourselves how important knowledge selling is to our business, and we’ll definitely do more of that alongside our efforts to sell more.

PITCH NO. 4: Make buying easy Santosh Thomas Hoehne, SOS Organics Foundation, Almora Include a customer care phone number on your packaging to help people reach you. Also, clearly mention order and payments instructions. Make sure that the meta-tags on your homepage list all the relevant search words for Google users. Don’t charge extra for postage. To sell more, create your own e-mail mailing list and send customers regular updates. Build rapport with select retailers to supply directly to. New health shops require authentic organic products. MAY 2011

INC.

Driven By Success

INC. | MAY 2011

GUTTER CREDIT HERE

Can Nair kickstart a new trend?

PHOTOGRAPH BY ALPESH DHOLAKIA

STRATEGY

COMPANY:

Lords Automotives FOUNDER:

Elevator Pitch Lords Automotives wants to zoom ahead. Will investors power its ride with 1 crore?

Rajesh Nair LOCATION:

Ahmedabad NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES:

FOUNDED:

November 2000 REVENUE LAST MONTH:

75,000 (from his auto consultation services) PROJECTED REVENUE FOR NEXT YEAR:

20 lakh (expected from pilot sales) BUSINESS MODEL (PRODUCTS ONLY):

Establish a chain of dealerships or enter into tie-ups with OEMs PRICE: 7,500 per kit FUNDING SOUGHT:

GUTTER CREDIT HERE

1 crore (first round); 2 crore (State Bank of India is contingent on his ability to raise the first crore)

The Pitch “We’ve developed the world’s first compact LPG (liquified

petroleum gas) kit based on ionised and de-clustered fuel (IDF) technology for two-wheelers. With India being the world’s second-largest two-wheeler market and fuel costs steadily rising, we foresee a huge demand for the kit, especially since it can slash customers’ fuel bills by half. It also supports dual-fuel (petrol and LPG) operation. LPG is an eco-friendly product—it helps reduce tailpipe emissions, mainly carbon monoxide, up to 60 per cent. Its safety valve meets ECE R-67, a United Nations International Regulation. The tank and safety valve have been approved by the Explosive Department of India. LPG is also a safer fuel compared to CNG. CNG tanks are six times heavier and provide less storage for the same mileage. Battery-powered vehicles aren’t a market threat to us either. I estimate average annual returns of 14.6 per cent which will allow me to repay the investment in five years.”—As told to Charu Bahri

The Experts Weigh In PROVE DUE DILIGENCE

HIGHLIGHT KEY DIFFERENTIATORS

DEMONSTRATE SAFETY FEATURES

GIRISH JOIS, managing director, EnIT Group, Bengaluru

SAURABH SRIVASTAVA, director, Indian Angel Network, Delhi

SACHIN PURI, vice president, Anand Automotive Limited, Delhi

It’s an interesting concept with a high business potential. Technology-wise, the product has a future. It helps save fuel and is eco-friendly. Importantly, investors will consider its ease of installing and safety aspect, since success will depend on high volumes of low-priced units being sold. Since the position of the centre of gravity is critical in balancing two-wheelers, any shift in this position post installation, will be considered as well. As will its behaviour during accidents. Test the product before launching it.

It’s not as though two-wheeler LPG kits aren’t already available in the market. So, Lords Automotive needs to show potential investors how it is better than its competitors. It’s not enough to offer the best technology— the kit must appeal to consumers for being more compact, easier to fix, offering better mileage for price, and having a lower installation price. Investors will evaluate the business plan from the point of view of the end-user—that’s what they consider when deciding if a project is worthy of funding.

The success of any compact LPG kit revolves mainly around three questions: product safety, engine life and running cost advantages. Customers weigh safety foremost, before commercial benefits. Fuels such as LPG and CNG are considered best suited for commercial vehicles. Maintenance is also a dissuading factor as LPG and CNG are dry fuels that increase the wear and tear of an engine. Due to this, an engine run on such fuels needs frequent overhauling when compared to conventional ones.

MAY 2011

INC.

STRATEGY

THE WAY I WORK | G.S. Bhalla, Horizon Group

“Ido believe in my product strongly. My daughter and I are its biggest fans.” When he was a little boy, his granny joked that G.S. Bhalla should be married off to a confectioner’s daughter—such was his sweet tooth. His first-ever entrepreneurial venture at the age of seven also had a sugar coating to it. His limited allowance prompted him to lend his comic books to neighbourhood kids and buy ice cream lollies in exchange. The taste for sweet things stuck on and Bhalla figured the only way to satisfy his cravings would be to set up his own brand of confectionery. Identifying a rising class of young and health-conscious eaters, who are not to keen on licking off the calories from a tempting ice-cream swirl, Bhalla decided to offer a healthy alternative. And what better as a treat than an innocent cup of frozen yoghurt, liberally topped with berries, and other wholesome goodies like seasonal fruits and crumbled cookies. It’s definitely got Cocoberry, his frozen yoghurt chain humming, with Bhalla looking to even take the brand abroad. His next big dream—a Cocoberry vending machine at home to satisfy his nightly sweet cravings.

AS TOLD TO ROHINI BANERJEE | PHOTOGRAPH BY SUBHOJIT PAUL 64

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Mister Freeze G.S. Bhalla believes in guilt-free pleasures, be it yummy treats or frequent holidays.

STRATEGY

In an ideal world, I would be awake at sunrise, or 6am sharp. But that rarely happens because I don’t have a fixed bedtime. Usually, I don’t sink into my bed till about one in the night. It might stretch beyond that, depending on how many e-mails are stacked up in my inbox and whether there are late-night meetings with overseas clients and associates. I really wish I were one of those guys who can make do with just three or four hours of sleep. Unfortunately, I am not. My laziness is a weakness. By 6.30am, I finally manage to drag myself out of bed. I am not a fitness freak, but I do try to squeeze in a visit to the gym or a round of squash in the morning if I wake up early enough. I like to have a light breakfast, usually cereals or eggs, and then help get my children ready for school by 8am. My BlackBerry remains silent till 6am. It’s a great tool and my minioffice. But it’s also important to prevent it from ruling my life. Though I read my mails in the morning, I like to answer back only when I am on my way to the office. The commute is short, but on most days the traffic is so messy that I get quite a bit done. I am at work before 11am every day. Once there, I kind of sink in instantly. I am not much of a meticulous planner but there is usually a clear to-do list to go by. Business by nature is a serious matter. You can have fun only if you enjoy what you do. There is also another thing—I do believe in my product strongly. My daughter and I are its biggest fans. If I could install a vending machine at home I would. One day when I have a big enough house, I will have a Cocoberry machine installed. I really love having frozen treats at night. Cocoberry grew from two concepts—cocoa and berry. But, so far, the cocoa’s been “berried” (no pun intended here). When I conceptualised the brand, it was supposed to cover organic beverages, such as tea, coffee and cocoa drinks. The berry bit was about the creamy yoghurt. That took off really well. Sales were great from day one. So, we decided to focus on that. We still offer a range of bever-

ages. In fact, one day, we hope to justify the cocoa bit better by introducing a wider range. Personally, I love the original, plain yoghurt with fruity toppings. Our toppings are pretty good, if I may say so myself. What’s really great about the plain yoghurt is that one can mix-and-match any topping with it.

s an entrepreneur, I get to don several hats at office but as the “chief” of my ship, strategising is my biggest role. I am also largely involved in the business from an innovation standpoint. I think if one remains busy, one plans better and, therefore, has time to do more. I am a non-believer of breaks. Office means a series of back-to-back meetings. Or, it means a fair amount of travelling. I travel a lot on work, roughly 100 days in a year. Most of this is to expand our chain, which is my biggest concern right now. A lot of time goes in scouting for new locations and meeting up with potential franchisees. If I am in a city which already has Cocoberry outlets, I make sure I visit those. I rely heavily on my gut feeling when it comes to choosing new locations for Cocoberry. And that has not failed me till now. On very rare occasions, travel happens over weekends but I try and avoid that. Ideally, Sundays are sacrosanct family time. As businesses grow, they become more organised and the processes get streamlined. I hope the same will happen to us. Eventually, my travel days will get shorter. Right now, I need to network, meet new clients and take Cocoberry to more Indian cities. By the end of this year, we will cross the 100 mark as far as the number of outlets are concerned. By 2012, the plan is to take Cocoberry to 10 more cities. In the next three years, we also want to find a foothold in the Middle East and Southeast Asian markets. So, there is a lot to pack into a working day. I think it’s fascinating to watch a business grow. It’s also wonderful to have your family around. They help you focus and get there. My brother, Inder, is our sales and marketing director. He joined us right after completing his MBA in the UK. My wife handles the company’s HR. My mum is also a part of Cocoberry. In fact, she’s my mentor. I always bounce ideas off her. She has been an entrepreneur herself, and worked with my grandfather. She’s helped him out in his business. I have learnt everything I know about handling money and managing finance from her. Having said that I also believe that I am a terrific salesperson. On days that my mum’s in office we try and do a family lunch. On other days, lunch is a five-min-

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STRATEGY

“I don’t believe in breaks. Office means a series of back-to-back meetings.”

ute affair, which happens sometime between 1.30 and 2pm, or whenever I get hungry. I am not fussy about food. I was a vegetarian for a few years in between. But, it made international travel difficult. I have gotten back to non-vegetarian food for that reason. My wife and I work together. But, at office, I am definitely the boss. She might be practically next door in office, but we like to leave personal concerns at home. I am not saying we have perfected the office-home equation yet but we are getting there. I am a disciplined worker, and I expect the same from all my employees. Having said that I am a no-fuss boss, you don’t need to knock or make an appointment to have a word with me. As a growing company, one of my biggest concerns is customer feedback. Facebook gives me a lot of that. The Cocoberry page has 120,000 “fans” and it’s growing very rapidly. The beauty of Facebook is that the feedback, negative or positive, is straight from the horse’s mouth. That really helps me sort out an issue, identify where things may have gone wrong, contact the concerned department and troubleshoot on a first–hand basis. I correspond with our customers via e-mail as well. I check our Facebook page easily a dozen times a day, definitely. But that said, I am not fanatical about it. I take seven to eight holidays in a year. During those days, my time is completely reserved for my children. There is nothing more fun than packing up the kids and heading off to a place where we have never been before. Those are total guilt-free trips. If I get my work done, what I do in my spare time is my business. I love travelling. My favourite holiday destinations are Goa and London; the

latter because it is steeped in culture and the former because it has both the sun and fun. Recently, we inaugurated an outlet in Goa. If I could work there for all 12 months, I would be really happy. Maybe that will be my retirement plan.

ffice ends by 7.30pm and I am home soon after. For the next hour, I am with my children. I don’t let things interfere with that. They go to bed pretty early after which it’s “me time”. I wish I could say I am a voracious reader but books pretty much put me to sleep immediately. I might pick up an autobiography of a famous politician, entrepreneur, or leader once in a while. But, that’s about it. I am a big Jeffrey Archer fan though. I missed meeting him when he was in the city recently. But, I’ll pick up his latest book when it releases. I am basically an “outdoors” guy. I like to take my Trek for a ride. Lance Armstrong also owns one, and I get a kick out of telling people that. I love driving as well especially around the Chanakyapuri diplomatic area, but the traffic situation is such that it only happens over the weekend and that too very early in the morning. If I drove to office everyday, I would probably go a little insane. I also enjoy shooting. I am a member of the National Rifle Association of India. Whenever I am abroad, I try and check out some shooting ranges. Late nights are also a time when I catch my favourite sitcom, Friends. That half-an-hour dose of Friends, though they are re-runs, helps me relax. I invariably end up checking Cocoberry’s Facebook page before I switch off or glance through my inbox. I turn my Blackberry into silent mode by 11pm, and in another hour or so, I am off to sleep. MAY 2011

INC.

I WISH I KNEW THEN...

V.R. Govindarajan, co-founder, Perfios Govi’s (as he likes to be called) first venture as a young 31 year old didn’t play out the way he’d hoped. The offering was too “uber-chic” for its time, he now says. Not one to say die, however, he co-founded Aztecsoft, a product engineering services firm, and took it through an entire lifecycle. In 2008, MindTree acquired Aztecsoft, allowing Govi to be an entrepreneur again. He now runs Perfios, a financial solutions company, crediting his ability to “continually learn” for his successes. My first brush with entrepreneurship was while working with Digital Equipment Corporation. After completing my MS in Computer Science from University of Massachusetts, I started working with DEC, a product engineering company. For five years, I was part of a team creating innovative, world-class data base products from scratch. I had tasted blood and decided to start my own software development company in India. In 1991, I co-founded SGC Comsoft. It was one of my biggest failures and lessons. It was naive on my part to have started a high-end database system for multimedia in India; and that, too in an era where internet and product companies were alien concepts here. Basic technology infrastructure like e-mail and bandwidth was non-existent. I couldn’t sustain myself. In 1996, I set up Aztecsoft, mainly as a product company to build application servers. We got solid engineers but realised technology was a small aspect of the business—we needed access to markets to grow. The domestic market wasn’t big; US was the primary market. For a small company sitting in Bengaluru, it was close to impossible to afford marketing costs. My partner and I spent about two years in the US selling our product. But, by the time we gained any trac-

INC. | MAY 2011

Entering the services market was a tough shift. It was a challenge to change our employees’ outlook and vision. But, we managed and began building products for big companies like Microsoft. We grew rapidly. In 2000, we went public. We also acquired companies like Disha Technologies. Finally, MindTree acquired us. I still feel things could have played out differently had we gone down the service provider role earlier. Now, I am heading my third enterprise—Perfios. It provides personal financing solutions to customers in a B to C model. Essentially, we are A Good Student Govi says entrepreneurs must continually learn to survive. online money managers. When we began, we were the first movers. Evangelization tion, bigger companies like Oracle and IBM was a huge challenge. A few months later, a declared their foray into the app server mar- large corporate entered this market. They ket. It struck us that while we could make a used their brand’s might to popularise the few millions, it would be impossible to build concept. That helped validate us too. I learnt a large business only out of this product. So, an important lesson with that—a known we decided to reposition ourselves as a prod- brand, and a few full page advertisements uct-engineering services company. Instead can really help. We took off because of what of building our own products, we built them the other company did. for others. Looking back, I wish we’d done —As told to Sunaina Sehgal this earlier. In our product development avatar, we were already three years old.