 A very good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the second day of the second virtual edition of the Tekken Innovation Summit. I am Punita Sabarwal Kapoor, deputy editor, entrepreneur, media addressing budding entrepreneurs on the various nuances of setting up successful and sustainable business in India with our second keynote speaker of the day. Mr. Marivala is a visionary who has built a value-driven organization and made a spectacular contribution to society in driving an innovation culture. Much ahead of the times, he disrupted the market and his own business with products and services, which are household names today. Having stood the test of time for over three decades. A change maker, he has nurtured innovation not only in his company but across the ecosystem and is also enabling high potential broad stage entrepreneurs in their journey. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Harsh Marivala, founder and chairman of Marico Private Limited and co-author of the book Harsh Realities Story of Making of Marico, which was launched earlier this month. He's also been awarded the EY entrepreneur of the year 2020. So, we are so glad to welcome you today. The stage is all yours. Thank you. Thank you, Punita, for that introduction and good morning to all of you. All the entrepreneurs who are creating so much wealth for all the stakeholders, whether it's your own self as your promoter shareholders or your employees or your key associates, the society and I strongly believe that entrepreneurs are the only route. Entrepreneurship is the only route for India's growth engine. Entrepreneurs will drive the Indian growth to a much, much higher rate. So we need more and more entrepreneurs and I'm so happy that all of you are there and I can talk to you because you are playing a very, very important role. And as Punita had mentioned earlier, I have penned my own entrepreneurial journey through a book which I will show it to you. It's called Harsh Realities and it's a book which is published by Penguin. Its name is a pun on my name, Harsh Realities. It's my own journey. It's co-authored by renowned management guru and coach Professor Ramcharan who has written 30 books selling something like four million copies. It is in a story format and at the end of each chapter Ramcharan has given his own insights. It's very easy reading and all I can say is that it has a lot of take home value for entrepreneurs, students, professionals. So this is one thing I can assure you and if anybody doesn't get that I'm willing to do whatever you ask me to do. But all I can say is that it has a lot of learning. The whole objective in writing this book was to disseminate knowledge from my own journey and I'm 100% sure that whoever buys that book and reads that book will get a lot of take home value which you can apply to your life, to your business. Having said that just for your information because I'm talking to all the entrepreneurs are normally you dedicate the book to your family member or somebody who's paid a very, very important role in your journey. And I didn't do that and just to show this is the book dedication to all the entrepreneurs who are creating economic prosperity for the country and all the stakeholders. So I strongly believe that entrepreneurs are playing a very, very important role and congratulations to all of you for doing so. As a part of my personal social responsibility also I have started an entrepreneurship organization which is known as Ascent, A-S-C-E-N-T. And it's something which is funded by me. So any of you who are entrepreneurs if they want to join you can just go to the website and see the website is www.ascentfoundation.n And it has all it mentions how do you apply, how do you get selected, there is hardly any cost attached to it. So it's something which is funded by me. I would strongly urge that if you are running a business, look at that website and apply, we would want to have more and more members to join Ascent. As of today we have about 700 plus members who are actively involved in Ascent but it means some time commitment because you learn a lot from other peers. So this is an invite to all the entrepreneurs to join. Coming now to the topic for today's discussion which is opportunities arising out of pandemic. Yes, I know the pandemic has had its huge impact in terms of negative impact on loss of lives, loss of livelihoods. And I'm not discounting that but I think as entrepreneurs we need to have look at the other side of the coin also just like there have been negative impacts that are huge positives also and today I'm going to speak about those positives. I think the most important thing which came out in my opinion was that the leaders realize that all the stakeholders are equally important in managing a business and the whole business is just not for just promoters or entrepreneurs but they are all interlink. So whether it is your employees or your associates or your customers or the society it's very important that you look at all the stakeholders and not just yourself or the shareholders. Because all of them are interlinked if I do something good for my own employees, it will have a positive impact on their motivation, they will work better it will reflect on better corporate results. And again all the stakeholders benefit similarly, if I walk that extra mile in giving that customer experience or customer product, which is far superior than your competition you will get more and more satisfied customers repeat customers word of mouth. So again it'll add a lot of value to the business and all the others will benefit similarly on associates and if we are able to improve the lives of our associates their productivity we teach them. Then they will also feel more, shall I say more aligned to working with the organization. So what I'm trying to say is that the purpose of the organization has come out loud and clear in this pandemic and organizations have realized that it pays to look at all the stakeholders and not just shareholders or key employees. So how do you, what happened when the pandemic broke out and in the first wave of pandemic there was a lot of fear, fear is unknown people didn't know what is likely to happen. So that led to a huge degree of anxiety amongst all the employees and they didn't know what will happen to them whether the business will continue whether they'll be sacking whether there will be salary cuts. So anxiety led to stress and then on top of that sitting at home not doing anything was adding to the stress the family members the children so that first wave was very very stressful because of all these reasons. And I think a company like Mariko we went overboard and communicating with with all our members regularly. So every month the CEO would meet all the members who are a part of the company. And not only that I mean we also invited their families because families have a huge influence on the members. And in addition to that we did a lot of programs to keep the family occupied. Things like for children specific classes, fitness classes, Zumba classes, music classes, hobbies for our housewives cooking classes, meditation mental health classes physical health classes. It gave us a great opportunity to come very close to the family members and I think that's played a very very important role in in overall our engagements course with our employees. Our employees have been very very happy because they knew exactly what the organization was going through. And more importantly that the organization looked at all the stakeholders in of the family members which includes all the family members whether it's children spouse or parents. And that has played a very very important role in bringing the family members closer to the company. In terms of we also give a lot of advice on safety hygiene what kind of help you need online doctor consultations. When the pandemic when our factories opened up we took great care in in providing a lot of support to our employees to ensure that they they were looked after and in the second way also we we bought wax ventilators we bought oxygen machines and the CEO and head of HR whenever they they heard that somebody was infected they would personally call that person give them insurance. We also had some arrangement with hospitals. So that extra caring empathy which was exhibited by the top management went a huge did a very very important role in in our engagement scores motivational levels of our members. In addition to that a lot of employees took steps to do things which was beyond their role. And when the factories were operating for the half factory and we supply a lot of our products to to the retail distributors are closed. So we were mapping each and every town in terms of what is happening to distributors what is happening to retailers if there's a problem with distributors then you would try and supply them through some other route. We had been connected with all the leaders through an app where they wanted to place an order for our products they could do so. We also had an app for the consumers if they wanted to order directly any of our products they could do so our factories went off on production within a few days of the first lockdown and all the supply chain. A lot of people played a very very important role beyond their their duty you know and I think we started America recognize scheme where we were recognizing the role played by extraordinary individuals in this journey and we used to write that and share it with all the members of the organization and that role in terms of feel good factor and it it also actually encourage other people to play a role beyond their defined role to the recognition played a very very important role in recognizing heroes we also had three contest amongst our members and organize. One was how do you work from home and how do you make it effective. Number two was what are the innovative opportunities and the environment which the organization can exploit and number three because of this and other reasons which are the areas where we can improve cost structure and we got many many suggestions. We got some like 2000 entries and a lot of take home value so we have implemented that and a huge benefit of keeping employees engaged in a period where they were sitting at home and they had some time. In terms of our own customers we went overboard in terms of giving them app giving them any anything which they needed a company like which is our sister company which started doing webinars on skin consolidation. So basically get keeping engaged with the customers and you know ensuring that you are giving up products as well as informing them of what's happening. If especially in a in a service business like kaya and I think that's an important role in I think bringing customers closer to us. We also did online in sighting with our customers in terms of their preferences new product opportunities and I think that also gave us a lot of ideas in terms of what to launch. As far as associates are concerned we we gave them whatever we did with our employees we did to them, some of them needed financial help so we give them financial help so that they were back on track in terms of their supplies. All in all I think this played a very very important role in our journey the first wave as I said it was earlier was more to do with fear of unknown. The second wave was more fear of losing somebody was close to you to our overall stimulus or our response to the second wave was different than the first wave. We had mastered the supply chain so it was easier for us to get back to the market. The second wave we had to prioritize health or performance, and we said that don't take undue risk. If any of you are infected members are having infected we will go extra mile and protecting of family members as well as you in terms of ventilation, oxygen, hospitalization, and things like that so I think the second wave response was different compared to the first wave. In all in all I think this led to reflecting on what kind of leadership style is needed, and the pandemic is thrown some new insights in terms of how to deal with people. Leaders have to be far more open trusting fair fairness is very important all the employees have to have to perceive that the organization been fair to them, whether it's a salary card or if you're a layoff person, very transparent in terms of telling what's a high degree of empathy in terms of caring and very collaborative so I think these are the traits which emerged and got accelerated in terms of leadership traits through the pandemic. Now coming to the opportunities which came in because of the environmental changes, multiple opportunities the biggest one is in the area of digital shifts. Whether it is our business through e-commerce was 3% of our total turnover prior to pandemic and now it's 9% so a huge shift towards e-commerce and we had to, I mean we are proactively looking at this from an opportunistic point of view. We've seen e-meetings, e-seminals like what we are doing it, the advantage of this is that people all over India can log in. Of course there are benefits of having physical meetings, but the biggest benefit is that you know you waste less time in the past whenever there was some interviews I would call people for an one hour meeting from our station. Now I will never call because I'm so used to having these zoom calls that it will just reduce unnecessary travel and time spent. The housewife has got used to ordering goods from e-commerce. The children have got used to e-learning but there's no shortcut to schooling but I think these trends will lead to a hybrid way of working in future. There is e-consultation as far as doctors are concerned. We've started e-consultation for Akai business and that has opened up new opportunities beyond where we are present in terms of clinics to small towns, virtual meetings, work from home is a big, big area which is opened up and depending on the kind of business you are in, in some cases we have actually said that you can work from home anywhere in India and you can apply for that particular part of business wherever you're based as long as you have a good connectivity. The digital marketing also has got a big, big thrust in terms of marketing too through the digital route. So overall digital is a big, big moment for those who are dependent on China or those who are making products which are competing with China. The China disruption also has opened up a new set of opportunities to enter new markets. Now the overall awareness about health has increased dramatically. So whether it's physical health, mental health, spiritual health, so whether you're running exercise classes, yoga, gyms online, healthy food. We ourselves have launched a range of healthy foods which includes what we call noodles which is a combination of noodles and made out of water. We have launched Arsaphola honey, we have launched immunity builders like Kada and turmeric milk. So we capitalize on those opportunities and these trends will continue in terms of vitamins, nutraceuticals. So health is a big, big shift and it may not be at the same degree of growth which has happened in the last year but these trends will continue in the future. The second is hygiene, we saw a big thrust on sanitizers, wipes. We also ourselves got to veggie cleaner to clean vegetables and fruits. So again a lot of thrust on hygiene, masks and things like that. The environmental has taken a huge, huge jump and people are far more environment conscious whether it's to reduce pollution or to improve sustainability, anti pollution products. So this is something which will continue and technology will play a very, very important role in this. So any of you are in some related business, you could look at opportunities in these areas. I think the business model itself has undergone changes depending on the kind of business you are in. We have seen restaurants which were earlier selling food only in the restaurant but now they are actually, they have started, many of them have started Cloud Kitchen and that's a big source of revenue for them. For Kaia itself, we are doing as I said, we have tied up with people like cult, fitness and giving e-consultation in smaller towns also. So again, a whole host of opportunities emerging because the business model has changed. I think these are some of the work from home again has opened up a whole host of opportunities in terms of gadgets at home. How do you keep your children occupied, furniture for working from home. So a whole host of initiatives can be undertaken to tap that opportunity. So these are some of my learnings in my journey in terms of the pandemic. I think things have improved. My personal viewpoint is that the way we face the second wave in terms of the business side. I agree that on the personal side or the health side, there will be gaps in terms of hospitalization, oxygen ventilators. But on the business side, the businesses did far better in the second wave because they had already experienced the first wave of negatives. And I think now in the second wave, I'm sure that we've learned a lot in terms of oxygen ventilators, hospitalization. So I personally think that I hope that the third wave doesn't come, but one doesn't know what will happen. The whole pandemic is so unpredictable that nobody in the world can predict what will happen. There are talks of the third wave coming in. And they are saying that even if the third wave comes in, I've been in touch with some leading doctors, people who are involved in this. The thinking is that if the third wave comes in, it will be less harmful in terms of the impact on children as well as overall it will be more diluted version. But what I'm trying to say is even if it comes, we are far better equipped from all angles, whether it is the health angle in terms of healthcare facilities or the business normalcy. And I believe that we will be better faced. So I would say cautiously optimistic about the future of India. And the fact that we have already done vaccination, then that is increasing month by month. We also have to the sero-surveys. You realize that out of one reported 27 people have got infected, but it's not got reported. So combination of these issues of vaccination already infected a large number of people. And the fact that we are better equipped in terms of supply chain, managing businesses, working from home, improved oxygen healthcare. We have seen the government especially in Maharashtra. I definitely see that the government has put up some facilities just to be on the safe side. So I personally think that we are far, far better equipped. And even if it comes in, the impact will be much, much lesser unless a new mutation comes in, which is very, very dangerous. But hopefully that will not happen. So I think that's where I look at the pandemic in terms of its impact on business. I agree that one is feeling bad in the first wave. I was feeling very bad about the migrant labor who had to go back to their hometowns without any food in the heat. In the second wave, I very, very sad that a lot of family members of our own friends, I mean, they were not able to cope up with this pandemic and we lost them. So I agree that all that is negative. But I think that's behind us and we have to also look at the positive side. I'm not discounting the negative part. I mean, I'm sad about it, but I think I'm balancing it by looking at the positives in this pandemic. And I think that's what I wanted to talk to all of you. I think just to end, I'm saying that net net, I am very cautiously optimistic. We have to look at the positive side. And I think if things are back to normal, we will see far more better economic growth. I know that many sectors have not done well and it has had a huge impact on unemployment. But hopefully with with economy bouncing back things will be much better shape. We are also a bit more frustrated in terms of staying at home and not able to travel. But hopefully that will be passed. And all I can say is that I hope what I'm saying will come out true, but I'm quite optimistic that things will improve from now onwards. So with that, I just want to end by saying that, as I said earlier, the book is something which is very dear to me. I have spent a lot of time in writing the book, and there are a lot of valuable lessons in the book as an entrepreneur as a student as a professional. It talks about my own journey, how I managed family. I was a part of a large family, eight, nine members and how a family is very important in terms of managing family dynamics and all that is covered in detail in the book. How do you attract talent? How do you retain talent? How do you build a culture of innovation is another part, then how do you select your product portfolio? How do you become a market leader in each and every segment you are present in? And we've had threats from other strong competitors. How do you mitigate that threat? How do you expand internationally? How do you create a small company culture in a large company by launching a new business like Kaya? And then goes into corporate responsibility, social corporate responsibility, looks at the purpose of an organization. And finally, I end by talking of Maxims at Waterman Maxims, and I'll just read out. I think the key thing is to at an individual level, what are the key learnings which I've had. So the key thing is to leverage your strengths rather than always looking at your weaknesses. Be focused. Do a few things, but do them well. Focus leads to depth and depth leads to excellence. Take risks because every person fails and there is no harm in failing. Try and de-risk it by doing it on a small scale, but risk taking is very, very important. And I just want to read out of poem, which is there as a part of the book. To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach for another risk to risk involvement. To expose your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To believe is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The people who risk nothing do nothing, have nothing, are nothing. So all I can say is this taking is very important. Failure is absolutely all right. And it's okay to fail as long as you learn from those failures. And other maxims like evolving your vision, win-win negotiation and reinventing yourself. Have a purpose in life. And finally end with grit, which is a combination of passion combined with perseverance and determination. Because passion by itself is not enough, but you need to combine passion with determination, perseverance. So these are my thoughts and which have been very well captured. And as I started off earlier, for those who joined late, all I can say is that this book will have a lot of value addition. And papered by nuggets of wisdom from Professor Ramchand, who is a leading management consultant and author of many best of our books. So with that I end my presentation and if there are any questions, we could do that. Thanks Mr. Mario. I must say those were real nuggets of wisdom for all entrepreneurs out there. And I'm all the more excited to finish the book as early as possible. So there are lots of questions lined up. I'll just take a couple of them. I'll just read them out for you. So one user is asking what resilience would you want to see young entrepreneurs exercise and what can they learn from their tech peers? Young entrepreneurs, that's what I couldn't understand the question. They learn from them. What resilience would you want to see young entrepreneurs exercise and what can they learn from their tech peers? Tech peers, okay. I think tech is a different, I mean I reckon that you're talking about the new age tech business, which go after high turnover and high losses combined, I am not able to understand that model. But the key thing is, I'm sure there is a story in that the valuation point could be differing because the market is valuing thinking that there's a fear of missing out. But I think they are bringing in a lot of new ideas and technology by itself is a great enabler in terms of how do you integrate that in your current business? Would you want to start a new tech business? It's something which one should look at. But for any tech business to grow, the key thing is you have to have funds and you need to sell your story to other investors because there is a lot of burn if it is a difficult tech business. So you need to ensure that you are not starved of cash liquidity and this is something which was hit also, which hit many other organizations through the pandemic which had taken a lot of loans and they were not able to manage and a group like Future Group went bust almost or not bust or they are forced to sell out. So I think it's very important that the liquidity is handled properly and in tech business you will need continuous funding and you need to have a story which will make you succeed. Separately pandemic which I didn't cover was agility which came up very clearly by developing vaccines. Vaccines which normally took about seven, eight years have got developed in one and a half to two years and that is fantastic because our cycle times are reduced dramatically and that itself shows that if we put our mind to it we can condense our time cycles for developing new products or anything we are doing which is taking much longer time through innovative means of involving competitors, other stakeholders and collaborations. Sure. There's another question by a user referring to you joining the family business at an early age. So in today's time if somebody wants to join the family business what advice would you give them? So I think a lot depends on what is the family business and are you, I mean are you equipped to run that business? I don't think every person who was born in the family should go into the family business because he's a part of the family. I think the key thing is do you have skills to run the family business? You like that or not? For example, if my family business were based on high degree of technology, I'm not a technical person. I would have, it's better that I don't get into that business. I think the first is analyzing what are your strengths, weaknesses and are you equipped to run that and are there opportunities for you to add value? And I think then ultimately the family charter will determine also to what extent if there's a large family would, are they looking at adding more and more family and budget to the business? It's a double-edged sword family also is a huge, huge opportunity, huge strength, but if it is not managed well the family can also be negative for the business. Sure. I'll just take one last question before I ask my colleague Bhavana to announce the awards. So there's a question by a user which says, in this time when the consumer branch market is so competitive, how a startup can have an edge over others? So good question. I think we've seen that in the last two, three years. We've seen emergence of a lot of D2C brands and I think the route to go is to D2C, which is not physical distribution, sell it through e-commerce, not advertising on television and press but doing it through digital marketing and a lot of entry barriers have been overcome through this D2C routes. Five years back these companies would not have been able to enter the market because the money you require to have physical distribution as well as through advertising on mass media is very, very high and the other whole thing is much more condensed. So you see a great opportunities in D2C businesses. So you have to go D2C but the key thing is you have to identify something which is pioneering, which others are not offering or something innovative because this space also is getting very crowded whether it's personal care or food, a lot of entrepreneurs are looking at this as an opportunity. So have what I call the right to win. Have something unique which will cut ice with the consumer, unique in terms of quality, unique in terms of innovation, differentiated or unique in terms of the first move in terms of nobody else is not and you know something first time in India. So uniqueness which ultimately has to appeal to the consumer. So you start doing consumer and setting developer proposition which is unique and do it through D2C route.