My father was a very strict man. He was very wealthy, but he brought me up normally. He was a great stickler for performance and hard work. All I had for transportation was a bicycle. The nearest movie hall was 12 miles away.
He passed along many responsibilities in 2 ½ years, as he became more and more confident in my capabilities.
He dropped dead at a party. One week after he died, I was voted chairman and CEO of a public company.I wanted to be a doctor like my grandfather. My father put his foot down and said, ‘No, he's going into business.' Did I choose? No, but I came to enjoy it.
I shrunk the spectrum of businesses tremendously.
I saw Pepsi and Coke coming and I said, ‘I'm outta here.' I shut it down.This concept of competitive advantage, I must give credit to my time in the U.S. My first stint in the US really influenced my business life a lot. I looked at things in an American way, and not in an Indian way.I am in favour of one simple theory that the Almighty has blessed us with an equal degree of intelligence. No amount of intelligence, knowledge or talent can ever replace the supreme quality of self-confidence. It is the confidence that matters the most.Thinking creatively, differently and out of the box are the attributes that are essential for the creation of world class companies and brands. Life is full of ups and downs. Failures are an inevitable part of our life. Don't let them get you down.
When I was straight out of high school, and I went to do my graduation, I was actually working as well. That's when, while going through the archives of United Breweries, which was a British company my father bought in 1947, I stumbled across this label of Kingfisher Beer that had been launched in the 1850s, but was no longer in production and sale.Something excited me about Kingfisher, you know, the bird. I saw color, I saw vibrancy, I saw movement, I saw a bit of cheekiness, you know, the kingfisher sort of fishing. And so I went to my father and asked him, I said, you know, I want to relaunch this brand and I want a million rupees for it. And a million rupees, I mean, he threw me out of the office.
Then I didn't have a dad to run to and find out, you know, if I was in trouble or I was undecided. And once I got over that, I realized that you need to go forward against all odds.
Challenge is something you need to move on and not to be afraid of. You need to be gutsy, you need to have fire in your belly, and there's no point in being scared of the system or of people who are against you, there are plenty of them. They still exist, particularly in a country like India, where there's a lot of jealousy. And you know, you sort of march on undeterred. And so it toughened me up quite a lot, actually.When we launched Kingfisher [Airlines], we had certain very clear-cut parameters, brand-new planes, commonality, fuel bases between fuel efficiency and controlled costs, and then of course we did a huge market research on the name, the brand, the consumer expectations.
No airline in India is profitable because you know, in any industry where the floodgates are suddenly open, a lot of players dive in, and there is a period where there's a bloodbath, but then consolidation inevitably takes place, good sense prevails, and then everybody becomes profitable. And in a country like India where aviation growth is almost 40 percent every year, I mean, it's probably one of the most attractive sectors.I am the brand ambassador.
I went to various colleges and interviewed youngsters, 17, 18, 19 years old. I asked them if they drank beer, what kind of beer they drank. And I found out very quickly that the youngsters in India had a whole lot of aspiration. They wanted to live a more free, more western-oriented life. Because India, since independence has been a very controlled, sort of socialist economy. So I decided that Kingfisher would be a lifestyle brand, positioned on a lifestyle platform.
We started sponsoring music events, we started sponsoring sporting events, we started putting Kingfisher into yachting, and fashion. So Kingfisher over the last 30 years has grown into a sort of generic name for lifestyle in India. I mean, if you talk to anyone on the street and ask them about Kingfisher, the first thing that will come to mind is the good life or the good times.
Just before my father died I had worked for three-and-a-half years in the United States. And I learned a lot during my experience there. So you know, I was termed a playboy, I was termed flamboyant, and yes, everybody thought that I'd fritter away what I had inherited. But I was determined to prove people wrong.You know, I also have some low self-esteem. But more importantly, the biggest single moment of joy in my mind was when I bought the worldwide Berger Paints group in 1988, then I sold it in 1996 after successfully floating it on the London, Singapore stock markets. And when I sold it, I made, I think a profit of 66 million dollars.I went to my mother and I said, I earned this money, I did not inherit it. Now if I buy a yacht, a plane or a car, nobody's gonna question me about it.
I go with the flow, really. I love what I do. To me, work is not stress. I don't say, Thank God it's Friday and I'm looking forward to the weekend or I'm looking forward to a vacation. I come back from Europe at two o'clock in the morning and I'm looking around for my secretary at the airport to show me my mail and to tell me what's going on. Because I find what I do very exciting, so it's no stress at all. It's just non-stop excitement. Sure, you have a few problems and challenges along the way, but I have never found those to be sort of a dampener.
I can choose to take time off when I want, but I just enjoy what I do so much. My body tells me when to slow down. Trust me, I'm built like a tank. I've got a lot of energy, I can go many late nights in a row. But you know, when I feel that I need to get a good night's sleep or maybe just chill for a day or two I just do it, and everybody around me who works with me appreciates and realizes that.
United Spirits, with all its brands...with a huge market share, was addressing the opportunities in India going forward. But focusing on the Indian consumer and growing aspirations, it was extremely clear to me that one day the youngsters would start demanding scotch whiskey.
That was a huge gap in my portfolio, because being an Indian company, we could never produce scotch. So there was a compelling reason for me to actually make an acquisition of scotch whiskey assets and production capabilities.We were dependent on major scotch whiskey companies to source this raw material.I want to achieve market leadership in this country, because this represents the biggest challenge.My father was very clear, I had to have an ordinary upbringing. I was put to work as a lowly-paid trainee after college. I didn't like it at the time, but I can't help but feel that that was probably the best thing for me.
