Sunday, April 01, 2007

Cairn etches a success story in India

Edinburgh-headquartered Cairn Energy PLC has a presence in India dating back less than a dozen years; it moved headquarters from Chennai to Gurgaon only a year-and-a-half ago, which is when some serious strategising on the human resource policy front began; and an Indian entity named Cairn India Limited listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange as recently as January 9 this year.

The lack of historical baggage was coupled with an opportunity to fashion a new organisational culture. Processes and systems now in use at Cairn India (which has working interests in 15 blocks, including Ravva in Andhra Pradesh, Cambay Offshore in Gujarat and Mangala in Rajasthan) are the product of a cross-functional team that was tasked with drawing up new a new strategy, competency model, vision and ideology.

Has the fact that Cairn is one of the world's few independent players (it is not one of the large integrated oil firms) in oil exploration and production (E&P) worked to its advantage in India? Well, yes and no.

When the company first entered India, it found that talent in the E&P space was hardly plentiful, and it had to hire experienced people from ONGC and from the Middle East, and entry-level talent from the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad and the University of Petroleum Studies, Dehra Dun.

But, as head of HR and administration P Senthil Kumar explains, the successive rounds of bidding for oil blocks under the New Exploration and Licensing Policy have drawn in more players: "Today the competition for talent is very high -- much higher than it was 10 years ago. Earlier we didn't have to fight for market share in talent. We knew where to get it and we got it. But today we have to fight for talent in a competitive marketplace."

That realisation was the catalyst for serious strategizing on HR policies, whose fundamentals Kumar says are based on 'three Rs' -- 'Recruit the best, Reward the best and Retain the best'.

Compensation is in the upper quartile, and consists of a fixed component, a performance bonus that may account for 15 - 30 per cent of total compensation, and stock options that vest only after a three-year period (and serve as a retention-cum-motivational tool).

Star performers among young executives are sponsored for study programmes at such leading technical institutions as Heriot Watt, Imperial College, London and Manchester University (all in the UK) after a rigorous selection process. Four young executives have been sponsored over the past two years.

Cairn also has a robust alumni 'connectivity' programme, whose aim is to gain a good idea of the positives and negatives that an employee who has resigned is taking away with him. Says Kumar: "Both HR and senior line management are in regular touch with alumni, and we try and inspire them to return. It's like giving them a multiple re-entry visa into this organisation."

It appears to have paid off; he reveals that of the company's seven general managers, two who had left Cairn India some years ago (one for the Middle East, the other for a consulting firm) have returned. Kumar recalls that the two returned because of what they called the company's 'superior work culture' -- comprising openness, empowerment and the image of a caring employer.

However, as Shalini Sarin, general manager (people development and strategic initiatives) affirms, the feedback from alumni includes dissatisfaction on the company's performance management system, and a feeling that there is little clarity on career progression plans.

Both gaps are now being plugged through collaborative efforts between her department (strategic HR) and the line management. Says Sarin: "We have tied up with the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad for senior management and with IIM, Ahmedabad for middle management."

ISB is to customise a week-long leadership development programme to be attended by 20-25 executives in June, while IIM-A is to do the same for middle management in July or August, which will be attended by 30-32 executives. Plans are also underway to hire a talent manager whose mandate will be to roll out career progression and personal development plans.

"The Cairn Energy PLC connection has helped a great deal, but we also had to re-invent many things," she sums up

The incredible story of Tata Motors and the Rs 1-lakh car

An Indian car may soon earn a parking place in history alongside Ford's Model T, Volkswagen's Beetle and the British Motor Corp.'s Mini, all of which put a set of wheels within reach of millions of customers after they rolled onto the scene.

Tata Motors is developing a car it aims to sell for about $2,500--the cheapest, by far, ever made.

There is a lot riding on its small wheels. If the yet-to-be-named car is a success when it goes on sale next year, it would herald the emergence of Tata Motors on the global auto scene, mark the advent of India as a global center for small-car production and represent a victory for those who advocate making cheap goods for potential customers at the "bottom of the pyramid" in emerging markets.

Most of all, it would give millions of people now relegated to lesser means of transportation the chance to drive cars.

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It is a hugely ambitious project--rivals have called it impossible--for any company. But it is audacious for one that hadn't even built cars a decade ago.

For decades Tata Motors has been India's largest commercial vehicle maker--the Tata logo appears on buses, dump trucks, ambulances and cement mixers. Sturdy as elephants, they are a fixture of the Indian landscape.

Owners inevitably paint the exteriors in a cheerful riot of bright red, green, orange, blue and yellow and line the un-air-conditioned cabs with teakwood to keep them cooler in India's searing heat.

However ubiquitous, Tata's trucks faced a problem after the Indian government began reforms that opened the Indian economy in 1991: the huge cyclical swings in demand typical for commercial vehicles. To diversify, Tata would enter, at great expense, the less volatile passenger car market.

Before the reforms Indian customers had so few choices that Tata was sheltered. When demand tailed off it just worked down a waiting list, and there was never a need to concern itself with customer desires.

Sure enough, after the economy slumped in the late 1990s--just when expenses for developing the passenger car hit home--Tata truck and bus sales plunged by 40%, and Tata Motors lost $110 million in fiscal 2000. It was the first red ink seen since 1945, when the company was founded to make locomotives. Executives were stunned. "It was corporate India's biggest loss," says Ravi Kant, managing director of Tata Motors. "The crisis changed us. We told ourselves, 'Never again.'"

But Tata Motors, part of India's largest conglomerate, first had to reset its ways. Like many Indian companies protected for decades from foreign competition, Tata had gotten to 2000 still fat and slow.

Change started with a spring 2000 meeting at the Lakehouse, a bungalow across the street from the company's main factory in Pune, a three-hour drive east of Mumbai. Kant, then in charge of the commercial vehicle division, needed fresh ideas instead of rigid resistance, so in an experiment, he called a meeting of 20 of his most promising young managers--all under 35 years old.

"I have a problem," he said in his matter-of-fact tone. "The company is bleeding." He asked for ideas on how to stop the gush of red ink. Okay, they told him, trim costs.

Girish Wagh was there, just 29 then. He remembers the shock of what came next. "Ravi Kant said that 1% in cost cuts would be a rounding error. He asked for 10%!" says Wagh. "Never had we thought of such a target."

Every single year until then costs had gone up, not down. Kant told them to present a basic plan that very afternoon, in front of him and--alarmingly--all their bosses.

They worked frantically. By the 3 p.m. meeting, their wildest ideas were on the table. Taken together, they added up to 6.5%. "A breakthrough!" Kant remembers thinking. But that's not what he said. "Please go back and think again," he told them. He needed 10%, not 6.5%. "You've got three weeks."

The young team took some measures even as it scrounged for more. In came benchmarking, purchasing from Internet auctions, outsourcing parts to more efficient suppliers and boosting revenue by selling Tata-made dies to other companies. Meanwhile, the Pune factory's veteran boss bought into the project.

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The transformation of Tata Motors had begun with the searing loss in 2000, but it continued with a return to profit in the fiscal year ending March 2003. By then it was producing two car models and selling a bit abroad. Today, after buying or partnering, the company has vehicle projects around the globe and exports 11% of output, mostly to South Africa.

Efficiency is way up: It now takes between 12 and 15 minutes to change a die on the passenger car assembly line, down from two hours in 2000. The company's break-even point for capacity utilization is one of the best in the industry worldwide.

Between 2000 and 2006 nearly 6,000 workers left the company with early-retirement deals. Meanwhile, the once radical e-sourcing idea has become routine for Tata, which ran 750 reverse auctions on Ariba in the past year to bring down purchasing prices by an average of 7% for everything from ball bearings to the milk served in the company cafeteria.

Tata Motors listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2004. After thousands of changes, in the quarter ending December 2006 Tata earned $116 million on revenue of $1.55 billion. Annual revenue grew to $5.2 billion for the fiscal year ending in March 2006.

Analysts worry that high product development costs and rising commodities prices could lower profit margins for the next few quarters.

The changes at Tata Motors are coming as India itself is transforming. With economic growth charging along at 9% last year, more and more Indians can afford cars. But on the highway from Mumbai to Pune, the new cars zoom past wooden carts filled with construction materials.

Roadside markets offer chickens and geese--those chosen are slaughtered on the spot and usually carried home on motor scooters. Outside the Tata Motors gates in Pune, a woman in a flowing red sari balances a 3-foot-wide basket on her head. It holds snacks and drinks and serves as a roving roadside shop.

Inside the company gates is a modern factory complex. In one building, just past a small statue of the beloved Hindu elephant god Ganesha, robots pick up pieces of sheet metal and feed them into a series of 30-foot-tall stamping presses every ten seconds until the left-side door of a Tata Safari SUV is formed.

In a building nearby, workers in navy-blue uniforms use computer-aided designs from Tata engineers to create tools and dies used to make those sheet-metal stampings. Tata Motors boosts its revenue by making dies for Jaguar, Ford, General Motors and Toyota, too, just as it does by allowing the made-in-India Mercedes to be run through its paint shop.

Workers at the Tata Motors factory have been trained in Japanese manufacturing techniques that call for continuous improvement. A worker building Safaris noticed that each day on average, one front grille was ruined when a worker leaned over to work on the engine and accidentally scratched the grille with his belt buckle. Cost: about Rs 2,500 -- $57 -- a day, or $17,000 a year.

Tata designed a simple protective cover for the grilles, plus a slip-on fabric cover for belts and watches that is now used to cut down on expensive waste at each of Tata Motors' factories. Cost: about 25 cents per vehicle.

That's the sort of thing that Girish Wagh, one of the breakfast-meeting whiz kids, was working to foster when Kant called him in unexpectedly in December 2000. Kant needed someone to take on a risky project--to extend the truck line beyond the sturdy Tata mainstays. Kant wanted one cheap enough to compete with three-wheeled, motorized rickshaws and even considered building a small, three-wheeled truck.

Before starting the project, Wagh did something no one at Tata Motors ever had: He talked to customers. The three-wheeler men inevitably insisted on a cheap, dependable truck that could go from village to market carrying, say, 200 chickens, a ton of onions or potatoes, or 2,000 eggs. One night, as sunset approached, Wagh stuck with one rickshaw driver.

"I kept asking the question. Why? Why? Why do you want a four-wheeler?" Wagh remembered. Finally, he got the real answer. It turned out it wasn't really a problem of chickens or eggs. "If I had a four-wheeler, I would have better marriage prospects in my village," the young man said. Drivers of three-wheelers are looked down upon in India. Wagh realized that four wheels had emotional, not just practical, appeal.

When Tata Motors brought out the bare-bones Ace truck in May 2005 for just $5,100, it had a monster hit: The company sold 100,000 in 20 months. To try to keep up with demand, it offers the truck only in white to save the time it takes to change colors in the factory paint shop. Tata is building a new factory that will be able to turn out 250,000 a year starting this month.

So when Tata Motors needed someone to take charge of the company's most ambitious plan yet--to build the world's cheapest car ever--Ravi Kant, who by then had become the company's managing director, again turned to Wagh.

Wagh remembers what he learned marketing the little truck. "People want to move from two-wheelers to four-wheelers," he says. "Today they can't afford it."

More and more can, but Indian car buyers today represent a tiny slice of a potentially giant market--India has just seven cars per 1,000 people. India's auto industry has grown an average of 12% for the past decade, but just 1.3 million passenger vehicles were sold in India in the fiscal year ending March 2006. That means a billion Indians buy about the same number of cars in a year as 300 million Americans buy in a month.

If four wheels cost as little as two wheels, that could change fast. About 7 million scooters and motorcycles were sold in India last year, typically for prices between 30,000 rupees and Rs 70,000, about $675 to $1,600. Tata is targeting a price of Rs 100,000 -- Rs 1 lakh, in Indian terms of measurement--or about $2,500 at current exchange rates, for its small car.

That sounds impossibly cheap in the West but remains three times higher than India's annual per capita income. The average pay for factory workers at Tata Motors is just $5,500 a year.

Within a few years 2 million of those motorcycle owners may trade up to buy the Tata car, figures McKinsey and Co. partner Ramesh Mangaleswaran in Mumbai.

Trying to build a car cheap enough for motorcycle buyers seems to make sense now but seemed crazy several years ago when Ratan Tata, longtime chairman of Tata Motors and scion of the nation's giant Tata Group conglomerate, first mentioned his dream of building a one-lakh car in 2003.

"They are still saying it can't be done," he says, insisting that it can and will. "Everybody is talking of small cars as $5,000 or $7,000. After we get done with it, there will hopefully be a new definition of low-cost."

Many low-cost car producers have set up shop in India, and McKinsey believes it could become a global hub for small-car production the way the U.S. is for pickups.

Hyundai and Suzuki build their small cars in India, and Toyota is considering an India hub. Passenger vehicle exports grew by 13% last year to 192,000, according to J.D. Power and Associates, with Hyundai exporting more than 110,000.

A one-lakh car is unlikely to be sold in the U.S. But it wouldn't be aimed only at India, either, Ratan Tata says. Bottom-of-the-pyramid markets would be the best fit: places like Africa, Southeast Asia and maybe eastern Europe and Latin America, wherever income levels mirror India's.

The cost target is tough, but there are plenty of other hurdles at home. India's inadequate roads, for one. Roads and highways are being built nationwide, but if India goes car crazy, maddeningly slow traffic is inevitable for several years.

By far the biggest struggle in India is political. The People's Car factory is already caught in the crossfire, as politicians and pressure groups squabble over forcing destitute farmers off their land for a project expected to bring 10,000 jobs to industry-hungry West Bengal.

The company signed the final deal with the state last month and has begun the property's boundary walls, land leveling, and road and building plans. "We've lost four months," says Ratan Tata. So far.

He is still personally driving the People's Car project. It is a rear-engined, four-door, four-seat car that will get around on 33hp--more pep than the Model T or the VW Beetle had when they drove onto the scene.

The cheapest versions won't have air-conditioning or power steering, but Tata hopes its cute looks will make up for missing creature comforts--just as happened with the VW Beetle and the Mini long before it.

Tata Motors has not released a photo of its prototypes, but Ratan Tata, a trained architect with a penchant for designing consumer goods, sketched its outlines for a reporter's eyes only. He drew an egg-shaped car with a ceiling high enough to handle his tall frame. He pointed proudly to the air intake scoop in front of the rear tires and the vertical taillights similar to those found on the Tata Indica.

Under the front hood it will have a small storage space, "like an overhead bin" on an airplane, Tata says. "It is not as small as a Smart," he says. "It is not a car with plastic curtains or no roof--it's a real car."

The design was outsourced to Italy's Institute of Development in Automotive Engineering, but Tata himself ordered changes along the way. Most recently he vetoed the design of the windshield wipers. His solution: a single wiper instead of two, giving the car a cleaner look.

And cutting the cost of windshield wipers for the People's Car in half.

Tata in Tacoma?

The cheapest new car available in the U.S. is the Korean-made Chevrolet Aveo. It sports a sticker price of $10,560, quadruple what Tata Motors is aiming to hit in India.

The consultants at Roland Berger argue the Aveo's not cheap enough, leaving an underserved American market. They estimate sales of cars priced under $10,000 could grow by 65% in the U.S. by 2012.

So, will U.S. burger-flippers be able to run to a dealership anytime soon and roll home in a brand-new Tata? Not likely.

Roland Berger estimates it would cost as much as $4,000 on top of Tata's $2,500 to engineer the car to meet U.S. safety and emissions regulations, transport it, pay tariffs, market it, pay lawyers and offer warranties. The same would hold true to meet European or Japanese standards.

Meanwhile, the Tata would have to compete, too, with a used-car market that turns over 43 million cars a year. A quick Web search shows that $6,500 could buy a 1998 Cadillac Seville with a V-8 engine and a leather interior, or a 2002 Dodge Caravan that seats seven.

Would a little wagon with 30hp really figure in that equation? "It wouldn't attract Western consumers; it is designed for pure mobility needs," says Erkut Uludag, an author of a recent Roland Berger study of low-cost cars. "It may be cheaper to start from scratch and build a new car specifically for export."

Indeed, Tata, though it says it has no plans to export the People's Car beyond developing countries, may be able to leverage what it learns from designing and producing the world's cheapest car. For all the attention China attracts from those fearful of an auto onslaught, it may be India--and Tata--that lead the way.

"They are on a steep learning curve; I am very impressed with the company," says Jeffrey Liker, a lean-manufacturing expert and professor at the University of Michigan. According to Roland Berger, Indian quality is superior to Chinese quality in general. "Somewhere the next Hyundai is out there, working from a low-cost base," Liker says.

Remember the sneers about Hyundai when it first arrived in the U.S.: It couldn't compete with used cars. Hyundai now sells 450,000 autos a year here. -- Jonathan Fahey, Forbes

The inspiring success story of CavinKare

C K Ranganathan, chairman and managing director of CavinKare, has shown the world it is possible to beat the multinationals even in the most difficult market of fast moving consumer goods.

Ranganathan's journey, which started from a small town of Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu, has been an amazing one. A business which he started with only with Rs 15,000 is now worth Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion).

He learnt the first entrepreneurial lessons from his father, Chinni Krishnan, who started a small-scale pharmaceutical packaging unit, before moving on to manufacture pharmaceutical products and cosmetics.

In an interview with rediff.com, the CavinKare chief speaks about his inspiring journey.

His father, his inspiration

My father, Chinni Krishnan, an agriculturist, was also into pharmaceutical business. As I was poor in academics, he wanted me to either do agriculture or start a business.

My siblings were good in studies -- two of them became doctors and another a lawyer. I was the odd one out. While my siblings studied in English medium schools, I was put in a Tamil medium school. I used to suffer from an inferiority complex because of my poor academic record.

Studies did not interest me, but rearing pets did. When I was in the fifth standard, I had a lot of pets -- more than 500 pigeons, a lot of fish and a large variety of birds. I used to earn my pocket money out of pet business at that time. Perhaps, the entrepreneurial spirit in me showed its first streak.

The origin of the concept of sachets

My father died as I entered college. He had come out with the sachet concept a couple of years prior to his demise. He felt liquid can be packed in sachets as well. When talcum powder was sold only in tin containers, he was the one who sold it in 100 gm, 50 gm and 20 gm packs.

When Epsom salt came in 100 gm packets, my father brought out salt sachets of as low as 5 gm.

'Whatever I make, I want the coolies and the rickshawpullers to use. I want to make my products affordable to them,' he used to say.

Selling things in sachets was his motto as he said, 'this is going to be the product of the future.' But my father could not market the concept well. He moved from one innovation to another but never thought of marketing strategies. He was a great innovator, but a poor marketer.

Joining the family business

After my father's death, my brothers took charge of the family business. In 1982, when I joined them after my studies, they had launched Velvette Shampoo. Within eight to nine months, I left the business because my ideas clashed with theirs.

As I was in the manufacturing unit, I did not know anything about marketing or finance. But, my inferiority complex notwithstanding, I was somehow confident of doing business better.

Starting his own business with Rs 15,000

I had left my brothers saying that I did not want any stake in the property or business. That was a defining moment for me. I had saved Rs 15,000 from my salary and that was all I had. Yet I was confident of achieving success. I did not feel anything about riding a bicycle after having got used to cars.

For a week, I could not make up my mind as to what business to do. I knew only two things; making shampoo and rearing pets. I didn't want to venture into the shampoo business as it would initate a fight with my brothers. However, I decided to do the same later as I could only make shampoo.

I rented a house-cum-office for Rs 250 a month against an advance of Rs 1,000. I took another place for the factory for a rent of Rs 300 a month and against an advance of Rs 1,200. I bought a shampoo-packing machine for Rs 3,000.

How Chik Shampoo was born

I named it Chik Shampoo after my father. The product did not succeed immediately; we learnt many things during the process. In the first month, we could sell 20,000 sachets and from the second year, we started making profits.

I moved to Chennai in 1989 but our manufacturing unit continued to be in Cuddalore. It took me three years to get the first loan because banks asked for collateral. I did not have any. But one particular bank gave me a loan of Rs 25,000 which we rotated and later upgraded to Rs 400,000, Rs 15 lakh (Rs 1.5 million), etc.

You know what the bank manager wrote in our loan application? 'This person does not have any collateral to offer but there is something interesting about this SSI unit. Unlike others, this company pays income tax!'

I must say my business never looked back because I was very particular about paying income tax.

Strategies that made Chik Shampoo No. 1 in South India

When Chik entered the market, Velvette Shampoo was being marketed aggressively by Godrej. But a scheme of ours became extremely successful -- we exchanged five sachets of any shampoo for a Chik Shampoo sachet, free.

Later, we altered the scheme -- we started giving one free Chik Shampoo sachet in lieu of five Chik Shampoo sachets only. Soon, consumers started asking for Chik sachets only. The sales went up from Rs 35,000 to Rs 12 lakh (Rs 1.2 million) a month.

When we introduced jasmine and rose fragrances, our sales went up to Rs 30 lakh (Rs 3 million) per month and with actor Amala as our model, our sales rose to Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) a month! Each idea of ours was rewarded by our customers. There has been no looking back since then.

Our market share increased and in 1992, we became the numero uno in South India. It took nine years for me to overtake my brothers' business.

How Chik Shampoo conquered the rural market

Multinational companies sold products in big bottles and not in sachets and they sold only from fancy stores. They did not look at the small kirana stores, nor did they look at the rural market.

We went to the rural areas of South India where people hardly used shampoo. We showed them how to use it. We did live demonstration on a young boy. We asked those assembled to feel and smell his hair.

Next we planned Chik Shampoo-sponsored shows of Rajniknath's films. We showed our advertisements in between, followed by live demonstrations. We also distributed free sachets among the audience after these shows. This worked wonders in rural Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. After every show, our shampoo sales went up three to four times.

Today, the Indian rural market is growing at a pace double than that of the urban market.

Launching Meera Herbal powder

We continued with Chik Shampoo for seven years before venturing into anything else.

Meera Herbal powder was actually not our idea. Shaw Wallace already had a herbal product but it was marketed very poorly. We felt there was a demand for herbal products and we made a good product. I felt we should be the leader if ours was a good product. And guess what? In the third month itself, we topped the market. In six months, we had 95 per cent market share, while Shaw Wallace had only 4-5 per cent.

How Beauty Cosmetics became CavinKare

As we planned to expand to new products, we thought the name Beauty Cosmetics would be restrictive. In 1998, we ran a contest among our employees for a name and one of them suggested CavinKare; with C and K spelt in capitals. CK, my father's initials. Cavin in Tamil means beauty and grace.

Perfumes for the poor

We wanted to cater to those who cannot afford (high priced) perfumes. Good perfumes came at a huge price -- they were beyond the means of ordinary people. We decided to come out with a Rs 10 pack Spinz. We were successful in that too.

Shampoo market share

In the last two to three years, our market share has come down though we are growing. It is mainly because of the anti-dandruff shampoos in the market. We do not have an anti-dandruff shampoo yet. From 0 per cent, the anti-dandruff shampoos have taken over 25 per cent of the market.

Only 75 per cent of the market, therefore, constitutes ordinary shampoos. We hold 20 per cent of the market share.

But we are the largest brand in rural Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, etc. and we are the number one in many other states as well.

On the decision to launch a fairness cream

We decided to launch Fairever in 1997 as we saw a huge demand fairness cream. We are the second largest player in the market in this.

Research states that when a product is good, consumers do not shift to a new brand. Our team told me not to venture into the fairness cream market as the consumers were quite satisfied with the existing products. But we went to launch our product containing saffron -- which is traditionally used to get a fair complexion. In six months, our sales galloped.

This was followed by Indica hair dye.

Two and a half years ago, we launched Ruchi pickles in sachets and we became number one there too. We sell close to 5,000 tonne of pickles per annum. We hope to double this in two to three years. Food is a huge market: we have understood that.

Our target is to be a Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion) company in another three years.

Reasons behind his success

Teamwork is the main reason for our success. We have good professionals who work really hard. The second reason of our success is innovation. We have executed innovative ideas as well.

CavinKare Ability Award

This month, we presented the 5th CavinKare Ability Foundation awards for physically disabled achievers.

I stayed as a tenant at Jayashree Ravindran's place (the woman who started the Ability Foundation). Once, she said she wanted to start a magazine for the disabled. Though she did not ask for sponsorship, I gave her a cheque of Rs 25,000. I also became one of the Foundation's founder members.

Once we came to know about the disabled who have climbed the ladder of success, we -- Ability Foundation and CavinKare -- decided to institute an award for them.

I feel each of us has to give something back to the society. I have great admiration for those who fight against all odds and attain success. When I started my career, I only faced shortage of funds but these people tide over graver difficulties. We must applaud their fighting spirit.

C K Ranganathan, chairman and managing director of CavinKare.