Anant Goenka: Unassuming, ambitious, ardent management theorist

Anant Goenka, vice-chairman of the RPG group

Not often does a scion of a Rs 60,000-crore group start working in a consultancy along with hundreds of middle class boys and girls and then move to a demanding multinational company, unconnected to his family's group, and muddies his hands in rural India to learn the ropes. I am referring to Anant Goenka, vice-chairman of the RPG group. Anant came to head the group after assiduously earning his credentials. He has done longish stints in each of his group companies- Ceat, KEC, Zensar & RPG Life- before settling in as the group vice chairman.

What's amazing is that he has accomplished so much while still looking young enough to be mistaken for a fresh graduate out of an elite management school. I suspect he wore a jacket just before my on-camera interview for "Latha & The Leaders" series, only so that viewers take him seriously.

His unassuming demeanour can disarm a business journalist, more used to seeing young inheritors of large family businesses wear their power on their sleeve. But underneath the under-stated exterior is an extremely evolved financial and management brain.

What stood out for me in my hour-long interview with him was his mastery over management lessons: Sample this: I asked him what are his work rules: "I would spend time on only the three bold moves of each company. So I'm a big believer of the Pareto 80-20 kind of principle - that 20% will bring you 80% value. So let's just spend time on that," he said.

Anant Goenka has big ambitions: Make Ceat a global brand, KEC another L&T

Lesson number 2: I asked him which of his four group companies -Ceat, KEC International, Zensar, RPG Life - would be his fastest growth horse. I would bet on all the four horses, he said, explaining that they give him diversification. If there is a slowdown in one sector or in one geography, the other comes good. So growth with diversification - a great lesson.

Third, would he expand beyond the tyres-construction-IT-Pharma quartet. Yes, we will look for M&A even in unrelated areas, he said, bringing in his pet management formula: "We would look for S-curves." Anant explained that whether within his quartet or when looking out for a new area of expansion - the S curve would be a litmus test :"Is there a future trend of long-term good growth in that segment?", would be the big question he would ask himself.

But even with possibly unrelated expansions, he said, there would be a management method: "Does it marry with our capabilities? And our capabilities, I would say, would be in distribution, manufacturing, branding. So somewhere our capability with a great M&A opportunity, we would look at that and it should be an S-curve."

A fourth instance of management lesson one could glean from him was a penchant to experiment by growing a start-up within his legacy company. For example, in the CEAT-KEC ecosystem -or rather the mobility space, he said, his group has access to a lot of fleets and they noticed that the biggest challenge fleets face is their high fuel cost. He set up a small unit to work on how and how much fuel gets utilised. Then, "with sensor prices coming down, the unit installed telematics and sensors in all their fleet customers, put in a backend SAS model where they have a lot of visibility of whether the fuel is getting stolen? What are the habits of the driver? How can we work towards reducing fuel costs?"

This unit now has a CEO and RPG can one day spin it off or offer the services to other fleets and companies. In short Anant is using all his management learnings to grow organically and inorganically.

Fifth, Anant has clearly attended his financial management classes earnestly and faithfully. "I think there are certain thumb rules as to how much debt we will take on. So, you know your debt EBITDA ratios or debt equity ratios, let's not go beyond that. We'd rather sleep well at night than look at some kind of abnormal growth."

But the one overarching theme above all the finance, marketing and M&A maxims, was his respect for values. "Largely the way I operate is for me, values and culture of the organisation are very important.

Values in the group are unleash talent, touch lives, outperform, and be happy. Now within these four, we do spend time in making sure that are we really living these values."

Clearly a believer in professional CEOs over family members, he said the group companies are run by professional CEOs. As vice-chairman, he says, his role is to make sure companies have the right people, high quality people.

"And then I spend time on making sure some of these things are happening. Are people who are working in RPG happy? Are we making sure that our customers are happy and we are adding value to them? So I spend a lot of time meeting customers, time with the external world, whether it is investors, bankers, and so on."

Not surprising Anant's unobtrusive, affable nature and his successes in RPG group has tempted FICCI to elevate him as senior vice-president of the industry body. While delineating what industry wants, he was careful not to make a single politically incorrect statement.

Clearly, looks like a leader India will see and hear and cheer more in the years to come.

Watch the full interview here