|
 It
has taken a lot of thinking, but in the final analysis
I have come to the conclusion that my stars had intended
that I should be the marrying kind.
Melanie, my better half for
some 36 years deserves a special word of praise for
putting up with the "other obsession" in my
life and for allowing me to give more than just my waking
hours to M&M for 43 years. But it's been a lot of
fun either way.
MY EARLY EXPERIENCES
I joined this company as a Trainee
Engineer and soon discovered that no one really trains
you. It's up to you to learn. And learn I did - on the
shop floor, in the canteen, on the negotiating table,
at the dealer's showroom or the vendor's assembly line.
Gosh, I must admit that I have received more than I
have given!
I lived in an era which people now describe as the "Industrial
Age". This is distinct from what the cyber gurus
today call the "Information Age". I understand
where they are all coming from. But I want to stir a
tiny hornet's nest by telling you that every successful
manager (40 years ago or today) has necessarily had
to live in the "INFORMATION AGE".
INFO-TAKE AS A PRECURSOR
TO INFO-TECH
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| 'I
must admit I have received more than I have given.' |
Information
has been the intuitive buzz word of my life. If you
want to help a Production Manager divvy up his numbers,
you need information: on the shop floor capability,
the union posturing or even the inventory basket. Today
if you want to know how you are doing vis-a-vis competition,
you have sophisticated research tools, feed back studies,
simulation mechanisms, projective techniques and a whole
lot of modern day management processes. But at the end
of it all, you have to do a reality check.
This may mean talking to a dealer
and understanding 'share of customer' because this is
what leads to 'share of market'. I always found it useful
to measure a competitor's ROI and his profitability.
(The word 'benchmarking' wasn't invented in those days!)
When the licence era ruled our lives, we knew which
suppliers we had to keep on a pedestal and which strings
we had to keep well tuned to our bow! The FES or AS
catered to markets which did not have the benefit (or
shall I say the comfort level) of a customer sales audit
(like ORG or Nielsen).
So in the absence of armchair
statistics, we had to move our you-know-what (feet)
and pick up vital signals from daily chats with dealers,
vendors and others who had the true pulse of the marketplace.
So this great buzz-word 'learning relationships' may
not have been coined in the troublesome sixties or the
tumultuous seventies but I assure you we got a lot of
feet-on-the-ground insights from them.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Talking of customer relationships,
I'm sure the last book on this money spinning subject
has not yet been written. (My own book will be some
time coming, so you can save up for it in the meanwhile!)
After 43 years of wearing various
hats at M&M, I think I agree with the guy who said
that Customer Relationship Management is not about any
of these three words. A lot of the time I found it's
not about assembling a target profile of 'customers';
it's about pushing the marketing and sales teams to
keep making new customers and retaining old ones. It's
about giving due weightage to your 'internal' and 'external'
customers. In the latter category I would include the
sensitive universe of decision makers in government
and quasi-government organisations, industry associations
and other 'external customers'. They have to be on the
company's radar screen because they have the power to
make or mar your fortunes in the real life marketing
environment.
Coming to 'relationships', I
would say again that it's not just about relationship
building. It's about getting competitive advantage through
cutting edge information drawn from these relationships.
And finally, it's not about 'management'. It's more
about bringing a marketing mindset to each discipline
in the company. A case in point is the international
marketing thrust. For a long time, overseas targets
were not taken very seriously. But once the ground work
was firmly laid, we saw a new spring in our step and
the day is not far when M&M will emerge as a strong
contender for global honours. In the final analysis,
I guess it's all about building the right team to relentlessly
score on your goals (24x7x365).
Now talking about scoring goals,
brings me to the other passion in my life: football.
The M&M culture of building a good team and then
giving them the freedom and the motivation to perform,
enabled Mahindra United to come from nowhere and reach
the top of the pops. While the team has brought home
flattering laurels, I hope we can see our boys hit the
big time and put Mahindra where it really belongs: on
top of the world. And before I sign off, I'd just like
to dwell on another part of the M&M paradox as it
now comes to me after four decades of a beautiful relationship.
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| Beautiful
memories across the sands of time. |
A COMPANY WITH HEART
In those days Indians did not
believe in (or hadn't heard of) the delights of a honeymoon.
So just two weeks after my marriage (to my wife that
is), I was subjected to one of the most challenging
ordeals of my whole life. It arose out of a high tension
confrontation with the FES Unions at the Kandivli plant
where I guess I just happened to be the man in the middle.
It was to use a Christian metaphor - literally 'Baptism
by fire' and I'm glad my wife didn't file for divorce
when some 200 people marched to my house with much less
than hospitality on their mind.
Of course, at M&M you learn
to expect the unexpected. But what I hadn't bargained
for was a mini army arriving at a workmen's meeting
and then two formidable gunmen marching into my room.
Fortunately neither of the AK-47 wielding guys actually
pulled the trigger, otherwise I may not have been here
to tell the tale. But the company's support at such
crucial moments was most heartening.
There was another time when
I again remember being quite touched by the M&M
spirit, though this was for an altogether different
reason. It was soon after my by-pass (that was one of
the few times when there were no pretty women around
and my heart still skipped a beat). I was overwhelmed
by the number of bouquets and "get well' messages
which arrived from every corner of the country. They
came from colleagues. They came from management echelons
and workmen; from vendors and dealers and even Union
leaders who demonstrated that the spirit of bonding
and concern is alive and well in this huge M&M family.
So looking back, I think living
on the edge in the proverbial 24x7 mode has been a great
experience. The only worry is that after all these years
of being married to the job, I shall probably have to
get down to the serious business of going off on a second
honeymoon. As they say - once more with feeling!
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