Veterans Unpacked | R. Seshasayee: "You have to respond with speed today in the market or you perish"

What have you been up to since hanging up your boots?

I have been getting into three different sets of boots, though some of them are carry overs.

First, I continue to learn about the corporate world through my non-executive leadership position in the Hinduja Group, and directorship in public companies in India and the US. I also get national perspectives through my various roles in CII.

Second, I spend some very satisfying and substantial time, promoting and working with social institutions in the health sector, education and rural development.

Third, I read and write.  A lot. My first novel is due for publication and the second is a work in progress. Both are in English. The first one is really an exploration of religion in a variety of hues and colours and is a fictionalised account of a real person. The second one traces the history of Tanjore and goes back 400 years, during which time there were the Andhras, the Kannadigas, the Maharashtrians, and the Dutch, the Danish, the British, and my thesis is on how these have shaped culture there. I have also recommenced writing in Tamil, after half a century and mostly short stories and articles in magazines. I had a literary background in the sense that my mother was a well-known name in Tamil Nadu literature so it's nice to restart that.

What keeps you busy now?

I am busy learning about the amazing things that are transforming our lives - technology, discoveries in science and new economic models.  I read up on a variety of businesses and auto which has always been of great interest.

I  have also been following developments in renewable energy and also been fascinated by how fintech has developed and how technology has created a moat, and its impact. It's something I see in businesses where I am on boards or review but I also keep a close tab on it.  I do that through my involvement in the corporate world, reading and interacting with some incredible people.

Music (Carnatic) is a passion for me, and I have learned it formally.

Looking back, can you tell us about three interesting events or anything that has stayed with you since?

When I look back on my years in Ashok Leyland, one thing that stays with me was the decisive step that we took to breakaway from dependence on imported technology and to launch the company on atmar nirbhar, self reliance, from the beginning of the millennium. That was a defining moment in the history of the company. It was when I had taken over as MD in 1998. At that time IVECO was a shareholder and technical partner and we had a road map to assimilate IVECO technology at the vehicle level and also to import vehicle design and engine design. It was all done and signed and sealed and then when I took over I realized we were betting the future of a company on a company that held equity in us and we would always be playing second fiddle to them apart from being reliant. So I scrapped that and grew our own development centre. It grew from 100 engineers to 1,200 engineers by the time I left. Of course the support I got from the Hinduja family was extremely helpful and it would have been impossible to pull off without it.

Which takes me to the second thing that stays with me was the broad opportunity that the promoters and the Board gave me to be entrepreneurial. My team and I launched almost a dozen ventures in various areas, ranging from pure technology to non-banking finance. Not all of them were uniformly successful, but we learnt from our mistakes.

The third is the opportunity that I had, to meet and work with some amazing business leaders, some of whom continue to remain close friends. Because of my involvement in CII for 30 years, I met a variety of business leaders and equally to other boards that included EID Parry and ICICI Bank thanks to the freedom I got from the promoters at the Hinduja Group. It is perhaps very unique for a group to have allowed for so much confidence in the leader and that shaped me.

The pressure to perform. All sportsmen, I guess, miss the pressure, and the thrill of playing in the field, when they retire. I also don’t miss the same pressure of facing the ball because you are only focusing on the ball.  To some extent it cuts both ways when you become unidimensional and I have always been multidimensional. The common thread of course is the quest for learning and one has always been hungry for that.

If you had to relive your corporate career, what would you do differently?

I had a dream run in Ashok Leyland. I joined as an internal auditor, but went on to do what I enjoyed doing - corporate strategy, marketing, product engineering and acquiring a 360-degree view of the company and our customers. Parallelly, I had also the opportunity to widen my perspective through board membership in companies like ICICI, Infosys, CISCO.

One thing that I would do differently is to communicate to the stock market better, especially about what we were doing to get the company to be future ready. Remember, that in the early 2000s the market was not such a dominant factor in corporate management's mind, especially when promoter groups were wanting to do what was good for the long term. The mistake I made was in treating the market as secondary in importance and I think the market has a great role to play in communicating what you are doing for the present and the future because the market is a huge arbitrator. So  that I would have liked to do better and have been a staunch advocate of communicating to the market and boards.

What are the changes in the corporate world that you see now that are vastly different from your time?

Happily, greater agility, given the changes in the environment which is the pandemic. It is incredible how companies have responded to keep moving and going with a focus on employees and sustaining during bad times and quick action taking during cost cutting and new ways to penetrate the market. You have to respond with speed or you perish, today. Compared to the way businesses were run in the 1970s, the pace was very different as was the challenge.

Sadly, the changes are also the vanishing virtue of loyalty and the emotional connection with the organization that you serve. It's become very transactional and I think it's also the employer's attitude that influences employee attitude. Being very transactional is not a great way of building institutions because it requires culture and interactions and a certain ethos and story telling and having some sort of emotion for an abstract entity called a company. That is what is missing.

Which business leader in the current crop impresses you?

Many. I am in awe of youngsters who have built world-class organisations, especially in the technology space. I am a great fan of Elon Musk and none can deny his vision and audacity to translate that into reality. There could be several slips but having the courage is extraordinary. The point is that you require Elon Musk to effect a non-linear change in the entire industry.

How did you plan for life after retirement?

I don’t believe in retirement and I am not retired, if that means stopping to learn and ceasing to be productive. It was sort of a transition that went from MD to executive chairman and then non-executive, and so transition has been that way very gradual and the mix of what you say and do in a day keeps changing. Today, for example, I spent more than one-third of my time on social initiatives. That will change tomorrow. I will say that social enterprises don’t fight for market share but have a multiplier effect unlike most corporate objectives.

Is there anything you would tell your younger self?

Be more focused. Spend more time with the family. I am still a failure on both. One thing I would tell myself as a younger person is that timing is very important in terms of entrepreneurs, and if you are way too ahead on the curve or too late, you lose. I floated a company called Transport Exchange which was the Uber of CVs (commercial vehicles) but it was in 2001 and we set up something like 100 kiosks and truck centres and an electronic platform to do the matchmaking, but when you run losses, no one sees the future. My board let me do it but I was also accountable to deliver results, and so I stopped it. Timing is the key and it is also a matter of luck.

What is your advice for the next cadre of corporate leaders?

Get to going global. That’s not only the right strategy for a company, but is also the only way for India to gain a high growth rate. The challenges in doing that are that it takes the ability to take risks and the resources to take them in one's stride. Risk taking by itself is not a problem but most don’t have the resources to back that with capital. Going global also means taking risks of a different level.