Faces of Change: Business

Dhirubhai Ambani with sons Mukesh and Anil.

Guru of Business

When all is said and done,however, Ambani's greatest strength is probably his ability to keep changing to the situation in which he finds himself. He started out as an operator in international trade; when he shifted to manufacturing, the vast bulk of his sales continued to go out as exports because that is where the profits lay, given the premium- fetching import replenishment licences that he got on his exports. He then shifted from knitting to weaving, switching focus to the domestic market.And just when everyone thought that Ambani's profile was getting fixed, he did the chameleon act yet again by starting a petrochemical operation that has now resulted in the logical culmination: Reliance Textile Industries is changing its name to Reliance Industries. (The Super Tycoon, June 30, 1985)

JRD Tata with Ratan Tata in 1981.

The Lord of Bombay House

JRD is well-known as a conservative captain of industry who looks extremely carefully before he leaps. But this time, he leapt in an unexpected directionon October 21,Ratan Tata was appointed chairman of Tata Industries, the flagship, and, along with Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata group. The choice shocked quite a few professional technocrats who head the various companies in the group; many felt that the much-vaunted Tata reputation for professionalism had suffered a blow. Ratan Tata has vaulted over seasoned campaigners like Palkhivala, Mody, and Mehta who is credited with bringing about considerable sophistication in the group's planning. (Changing of the Guard, December 31, 1981)

The late Aditya Birla, Kumar Mangalam Birla, the late G.D. Birla and Basant Birla.   

Tradition of Modernity

Aditya Birla is fast spreading his corporate wings in South East Asia, K. K. Modi is concentrating his efforts on an all-out assault on the vast Indian consumer market, while Rajan Nanda has ambitious plans for matching Escorts'phenomenal success in the engineering field with a similar coup in the fledgling but potentially lucrative energy field.The examples are endless but the message, and the motivation is essentially the same-a driving desire to prove that , they are pioneers in their own right, and that whatever they have achieved has been on their own merit and not because of their family antecedents.Basant Kumar Birla,59,GD's youngest son, insists that being a Birla is not an automatic passport to corporate success: "You can't say you are a Birla and take over a company and run it.You have to prove first that you can do it, and then, like any other executive, you make your own way up." (The New Barons, March 31, 1981)

Vijay Mallya (left) with his father Vittal Mallya.

The Birth of Flamboyance

But life is not a bed of roses for Vijay Mallya. He is neck-deep in trouble with the Government for his alleged role in the takeover of Shaw Wallace's overseas shareholdings and for the conduct of business operations abroad, allegedly without the Reserve Bank's permission. His homes and offices have been raided, one of his companies' bank accounts have been virtually frozen as the Government may launch tax recovery proceedings. His port has been taken away pending investigations. He himself was arrested in January, and he has been subjected to endless hours of questioning by officials of the enforcement directorate. All this at a time when he is trying to launch an ambitious diversification programme that will take his empire into a host of new hightechnology and core sector areas. Indeed, Mallya was busy last month stomping across the country, addressing share brokers in connection with a public issue of debentures meant to raise working capital for his expanding operations. (Fighting Spirit, February 15, 1986)