CEO SPECIAL................. HARSH MARIWALA

HARSH MARIWALA

Never Lonely at the Top

Marico Chairman Harsh Mariwala on a lifetime of learning

    Our family business, Bombay Oil Industries, was into edible oils, and I had heard about this Shalimar brand that was selling huge quantities in Eastern India and we were supplying them in bulk. Parachute as a brand was in bakeries and some parts of Maharashtra. Some distributors had taken initiative but nobody from the family was attending to the business. After a couple of years of joining the business, at the age of 20, I took a car and visited the Vidarbha belt. I went to retailers with the distributors and wherever there were no distributors, we went on appointing them. It was that kick of actually going into the retail shop and selling, that set me thinking about building a business based on brands.
    I didn’t know much about marketing so I went to Professor Labdhi Bhandari in IIM Ahmedabad. I used to go to Ahmedabad once a month, spend the entire night discussing marketing and then return in the morning. Simple things like how do you advertise? How do you improve your packaging? We appointed Clarion as our agency and then I spent a week with them learning what advertising is.
    A friend of mine who I played squash with was the head of HR at Monsanto, and from him, I gathered small things like appointment letter finalisation, leave policies. I have always learnt from the professionals I hired, so I have developed a leadership style that’s highly participative and that in turn has helped me overcome blind spots.
    They say it’s lonely at the top, but when I want to talk to someone I just ask, be it my board, my team, or individuals I trust like Ram Charan, Bipin Shah, Bain’s Ashish Singh and a leadership coach who works with our top team. I was introduced to Ram Charan through Bipin Shah of Unilever and since then he has been a sounding board to me and the Marico board whenever advice is needed on strategy or execution.
    I have borrowed ideas from friends and acquaintances too. When we were starting Kaya, the initial idea of laser hair removal was brought by Asif Adil who was earlier with Mckinsey. Both of us went to London, New York, to get a feel of business models beyond laser hair removal. We ordered two machines which were put up in our office and friends, acquaintances and staff experienced the services. Then we developed a business model around the idea.
    I always wanted to build a culture around innovation and I hired Erehwon Consulting to do creativity workshops which were attended by brand managers, our advertising agency, research agency, even the dermatologists. I rely on my gut when it comes to starting a business. When I wanted to starch my clothes at home, it was too much hassle, so I asked a friend to create a product that we then branded as Revive. I try and make sure that the organisation also keeps learning, even from failures. I encourage executives to take risks, telling them its okay to fail. I believe that people should be just thrown into water, and they will learn how to swim.
    There have been times when I have picked up ideas from management books too. I read a lot of CK Prahalad’s work, Ram Charan’s books on boards and lately I have been reading a lot on the purpose of organisations. I used to attend the CEO forums that CK Prahalad conducted and found them very energising. I liked Firms of Endearment and their idea that you need to be responsible to all the stakeholders not just shareholders. We are donating 2% of the sales of Shanti Amla to support child education. We have a Dial-a-Dietician service for people who have heart conditions. Each brand should have an agenda to make a difference to the society.
    We are a young country and I like being in touch with the youth. I used to have Pop Corn sessions with the management trainees and young managers. Take ten random managers and discuss a topic that I have researched with them, even topics like what happiness is. Our global forays have also taught me a lot. We decided we will enter emerging and chaotic markets like Bangladesh and Burma, where competition intensity will be low. We sent teams to Egypt to identify acquisition targets. We identified the brands, the bankers and then completed the deal. Global growth is not just for financial reasons but also for knowledge transfer, reverse learning and exposing ourselves to modern trends.
    Acquisitions deals can be interesting experiences. When we were trying to acquire Nihar, I wanted to save some money since we didn’t have any competition. One of the board members, Rajiv Bakshi, said this is a strategic acquisition, so I shouldn’t think about trying to save money because if we lost the deal I would have to repent at leisure.
    Failures have been teachers too. We acquired a small business in US that didn’t work. In many categories we under estimated competition, like in Baby Care. We entered a market that was small like Saffola cholestrol atta. You may be a pioneer and the market may be blue ocean but you need right frameworks.^CD
    (as told to Vinod Mahanta) CDET140229