 The next session is very interesting. And I'm not just saying it because I have to say it, I'm saying it because we will be talking about something that has been and kind of like, sorry, the person who will be coming out from the brand. The brand was founded in 1948 based on the belief structure quality backed by values will be. And the same belief has led the company's flagship brand cycle pure agributies to the biggest incense manufacturer that can in the country today. Let's welcome our keynote speaker, Mr. Arjun Ranga MD cycle pure agributies and managing partner and Ranga Rao and sons who aims to grow the business ethically, collaboratively and sustainably. In his address, he will be speaking on enduring legacy, essentially, very essential for family business and values. Ranga Avre, sir, Namaskara, how are you? Sir, you're on mute. Namaskara, I'm doing good. Thank you so much. Welcome sir, over to you. I'm really excited to hear from you. Thank you so much. You know, in this, when I had to choose a subject to discuss today, I kept wondering, what is the greatest challenge that I face? I mean, third generation entrepreneur, grandfather started this business in 1948 was a real struggle, you know, the way he set up the business. Coming into the next generation, my father and uncles built the business to what it is today, solid foundation. And then I've been in the business now for 20 years. The biggest challenge and fear for me is whether I will be able to hand over to the next generation, something better and something more than I received. Okay, in terms of business value, as well as legacy. So I kept thinking, how do I communicate what we are, how we've grown to what we've become. And so I've created a small docket, a small presentation, I'm just going to go over it with you very briefly. And once I do that, I will then, you know, start a discussion where we can go over my experiences and we can talk in more detail. Okay, sounds good, Viva. Absolutely. So a vision for generations to come and that's actually the glasses that my grandfather used to wear. We are known as the NR group quickly, we have diversified businesses in the group. And Rangramansans is a parent business that hands the cycle agarbati's iris lifestyle home fragrance products, lia air freshness and car freshness this top of power bags. And so the Omshan the spiritual products of kum kum turmeric oil and all of that. They have a herbal extraction essential oil business called so we do floral extracts. Thanks and technologies is predominantly to aerospace and defense that's used to technologies via the way we do agree solar firms sense of the sensing devices and NR Foundation is what we are also proud of is our non for profit division where we make a real impact in the society that we are living in. Enduring legacy essential family business value so I want to first touch upon what actually family legacy means okay. I tried to kind of look around and I found some good content in a few sites and a few people have written about it and I put in my own words as well. So it's the core purpose of the family business that binds the family values and the business together with meaningful achievements across multiple generations. So if you go about and look at you know what we stand for as a business and as a family, you will see milestones that the family is achieved and the business is achieved. And that actually constitutes the legacy of the family, and it has to be documented articulated and transmitted in the right way through proper storytelling. Okay, and that's our legacy is always paid forward. It also represents both tangible and intangible assets that the family has accumulated over the years it could be financial, social impact that you made, but most importantly the emotional value that a family one brings the legacy is determined by the emotional question that the family holds. So you know in our city, I know the legacy that the generation before me had built on the word the Ranga family. So the responsibility is with me the emotional question to be taken forward to the next generation. Also the legacy of a business or of a family. It's just not about looking back to what has been created, but it also kind of gives us a guideline of what we can expect to achieve going forward about how we treat our customers, how we innovate as an organization, also determines the organization. The legacy talks a lot about how we have actually leapfrogged through various stages of evolution of the family and also the business. One of the critical aspects, like I said, and this is one thing that I'm all constantly, you know, thinking is about how do I pass on more than what I received from the early generation. And legacy is a fundamental part of that because each family's legacy is unique, and there is no clear cut mantra for anybody to follow to pass on the legacy to the next generation, which encompasses business wealth, as well as the social question that you built and the emotional question that you built over the years. Okay, and you know it could be your bloodline and name the heirlooms of the family from what my grandfather had. And the other day, we were cleaning our house, and I found a table that my grandfather used to use 60 years ago. Now I've moved it to the museum. So these heirlooms are something that's very important part, a very integral part of legacy that needs to be safeguarded, you know the stories of the family, what we believe in, all of that. The legacy also includes the principles, the purpose of the values that are underpinned both the family and the business. So now that I've established what I think legacy means. I'll now talk about what I have had to experience and what I was handed over now have actually taken the legacy into tangible business ideas that can actually be implemented in the marketplace. Okay. And these are the core values that were handed down to me. This has been there from the 70 years of the business commitment to relationship with all stakeholders. With customers or vendors relationship is the key differentiated offerings of products and services through constant innovation, the keyword here being innovation and differentiation family business values with professional management. This means treat everybody like family, but become professional as soon as you can, and get professionals into your business ethical and collaborative growth, grow, but grow ethically and grow together. Transparency in all our operations and conduct. Transparency has been one of the key differentiators for us in our businesses. When I came back to the business in 2000, I could expand the business because we were a transparent organization, ethical organization so I could focus on growth and building the business and building on our core competence. So for me, transparency is a key aspect of our core value and be socially responsible and sustainable. So these are the core values that were handed down from to me from the earlier generation, and I've been able to build on that. Okay. Talk about ethical businesses. This is a ledger of my grandfather in 1951. Okay. If you can see here on the right side, drawing account. This is his expenses that he drinks in the office that he books as a personal expense. Okay, he doesn't book it in the company. I can't imagine this level of ethical and financial discipline and this is what my grandfather did and and that's kind of what's been ingrained in us and what is business is sacred protected, and then the family will thrive as well. Transparency in all business practices. So we are one of the first ones to bring an MRP into our products when it was not required, because we didn't want a consumer to be cheated we needed the consumer to know what he's paying for and what he's getting. So we were the first ones to put the net weight in the product as well, completely onto SAP now, all our distributors all 5000 of them are online real time ethical. We also follow global ifra international frequency such association standards for each and every ingredient that we use in our product. We are the only carbon neutral sustainable. We are the only fsc certified company that only Agrabati company that uses only fsc certified boards from regrown forests, 100% sustainable plastic materials we use as recyclable. Virgin polymer we use in each and every product of ours and by 2024 we are completely offset of plastic footprint as well so we're working on that also. Each and every product that's manufactured in cycle Agrabati is 100% carbon neutral we completely offset our entire carbon footprint. But when you actually buy a packet of cycle Agrabati from a retail outlet, you can buy it guilt free and rest assured that there's been no impact on mother earth production of that product. Collaborative growth, you know we have all the standards occupation health and safety is critical aspect for us and certified for that as well. One of the proud things for me is our school for visually disabled girl children that we run. It's been going on for about 30 years now, hundreds of students have gone through it, completely blind girl children from rural parts of my so residential school funded by the company. We manage that school is just amazing girls that have graduated from school have now become teachers doing great across the board. This is a program for all the shop floor employees close to 500 of them in the company, all the children's education we fund from the company project prayer point is something we're doing in and around my store in about 10 slums. We're trying to rehabilitate slum children, get the parents into de addiction clinics and treatments as well. Apart from that through our social empowerment for women through our businesses we have huge initiatives across the country. Similarly, for example, we're working with tribal women almost 2000 of them I've got an employer and making Agrabati sticks for us. So this is socio economic integration that we've been able to do with our supply chain, close to 20,000 families are impacted, you know, through this initiative. Now for me personally, you know the sustainability goals that that UN has determined I put this in every presentation of mine because we all need to be aware we're all part of the same planet, same ecosystem. These are the 18 goals that the UN has set the right to eradicate poverty, zero hunger, good health and well being quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry innovation and infrastructure, reduce inequality, sustainable cities and communities responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water life on land peace justice and strong institutions, partnership for goals. So I strongly believe in the sustainability goals and I try to inculcate this in any activity that I do within the organization as well. Right. Ultimately, this is our purpose. This is what we believe we stand for doing the right thing since 1948, every single time from generation to generation. Right. So this is broadly, you know, a high level presentation of what the group stands for. And you know, Simon Sinek talks about the why of the business and for us. Right. Why cycle. These are a few of the things that I strongly believe in. And this is the purpose that we are all driven by as an organization. We export over 65 countries. We have a legacy of almost three generations of fragments creation. We follow all global standards. We plant trees that heal the earth for future generations with carbon neutral. We follow all ethical practices. We are in the process of getting our fair trade certification as well. We have our GRAS standards, which is generally recognized as safe materials. So, so this is where we are now open to questions. If there's anything that we can have as a discussion as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Fabulous discussion. We love everything that you said, but I'm glad we also have a rule here. So, Ruhail is the senior editor for Exchange for Media Group. Ruhail, over to you. Thank you. I'm forward for this discussion. Thank you so much. Thank you, Bebo. And thank you, Mr. Rao. I was listening to very keenly to what you said and rightly so. I mean, so many challenges the brand in its 73rd year, if I'm right, you know, carrying on from generation to generation with the same vigor and even more. The first question to you straight away, sir, is that how does the legacy brand ensure that it's not tied to its past and doesn't carry that baggage of, you know, does away from it and reinvent itself. And related question is how often do you challenge yourself as a brand as you move on from generation to generation. Yeah. So what happens is legacy leads to the values that define your brand and your company, right? On one side, you're a purpose led brand that defines how you run your businesses and then you have the legacy of the family that determines your conduct overall. So there is no baggage at all. There's actually a lot of advantage in knowing where you came from so you know where you're going. So for me, I think our legacy actually is determined our future to a great extent. Like I said, many, many times we are at crossroads and we rely on our legacy and our values to determine the direction to take. We are always right when we go back to our values of ethical business practices, transparency in what we do, social impact and sustainability. So these are things that are part of legacy and they're never a baggage. They're actually an advantage and constant innovation is another mantra that we strongly believe in. As long as we keep reinventing and staying relevant, I think we will always be at the forefront of change and adapt to what is required for the family and the business to progress. But for me, I think legacy is an advantage. If you look at it in the right way and use it the way it's supposed to define the values of the company. Right. Mr. Mr. Ranga, I also want to ask you about, you know, we talk about this pandemic. I just want to revisit it. It's been a recent phenomenon for all of us and everyone, whoever we talk to says that a lot of reinvention happened during this phase. Giving a sense of your story as a leader because it was about leadership. Only those brands survived and did well who had the strongest leaders. From a leadership perspective, what are the big lessons to you? You know, the biggest lesson for me is that our values sustain no matter what the situation or the market condition. One of our key values is transparency. So I went out there openly to my entire organization and told them what we were facing. Many of them volunteered to come forward and take payment, you know, holidays, for example, but as an organization, we stood by each and every individual in the company. I was out there as the leader creating a town hall session. I reached out to each and every one of our 3,000 employees on a real-time basis. I was in town halls day in, day out communicating to them, spreading the message of courage and telling them to stay, believe in themselves and ensure their safety. We also brought in a lot of processes to manage remotely. We moved to a work from home situation even before the lockdown was announced, moved all our systems to homes. We ran simulations as well, went to the bank borrowed money to be able to sustain salaries for everybody. So we are one of the few companies that did not lay off anybody and we also managed to ensure that everybody got their salaries on time, whether we were working or not. And the agarbhutis are not an essential product. So we were completely shut down during both the lockdowns, both during lockdown one and lockdown two. But with the proper planning from my team, we were able to sustain everybody in our ecosystem and do the right thing every time. So being at the helm of affairs for almost two decades now. As a leader, a lot of marketers are watching us, young leaders are watching us, they are all watching lockdown right now. To build an enduring brand, that's the same, the seasons of all sorts, in terms of the market dynamics. What are your big suggestions? I think believe in your brand and brand actually, you need to live what your brand stands for. You need to know why you exist. To be a purpose lead brand. See, for me, if anybody asks me, what business are you in? I'm not in the business of agarbhutis, I'm in the business of giving people hope. When you light an agarbhutis stick and when you pray for a better tomorrow, that's what I'm actually fulfilling and that's what I'm striving for. So the purpose why you exist, need to be very, very clear with the leader. And for me, it's very clear. I fulfill a very deep, emotive need to each and every person out there who prays. Okay, so once you have that squared and everything else falls in place, that's why we have 14 different quality checks, we have such a solid ORM and CRM process internally. That is the reason why we are the largest distributed brand in the country because we want to be out there helping people's prayers day in and day out doing the right thing every time. So you need to be driven by a tremendous purpose, solid self-belief in what you do and constantly innovate and unlearn and relearn and ensure the organization also stays relevant. For legacy brand leaders like you sir, I also want to understand during your course of presentation, you also mentioned that sometimes the fear that drives you because you want to contribute more to the next generation that would take on. On the other hand, we often talked about being fearless and relentless. So how do we match the two? This is definitely a tough situation to be in. I think fear is very, very important and not to be fearful, makes you humble, makes you learn, makes you do more. Okay, and I am constantly fearful but I also have courage to face my fears. That's important. So if you just stay fearful and don't build a system of courage to actually address your fears then you'll have a problem. So building process comes out of being fearful of failure and I'm a strong believer in building solid processes to scale for growth. And that's really helped me plan for the future as well. Example being we moved into SAP from Tali and then into Microsoft Navigin and now we have a Salesforce automation system where each and every all 1900 of our sales guys have a Salesforce automation app real time where I can track real time sales across the country. These things would not have happened if I didn't fear technology becoming an enabler and ensuring that each and every sales guy gets empowered to make a difference to his career and learn more. So fear kind of manifests in different ways and mostly if you understand what your fears are, it manifests in a positive manner. And for me that's always been the case. And the biggest fear for me is whether I'll be able to do justice to this legacy brand and hand it over bigger and better than what I was given from my father and uncles before me. And it's this not for the family, it's also for my employees who are equally family. Innovation is a great term used by all the brands at most of the times and it's like broad brush. But when I talked about how often do you look into yourself as a brand and look into where the deficiencies are. Is there a time period that brands do it because how often do they innovate because in an innovation means that you have to move the entire legacy footprint that is so big. How often should brands innovate? Is it tough for legacy brands to innovate and adapt because they have a lot of other things to think about? Innovation is not a timeline. Innovation is a state of mind to constantly look at opportunity, to constantly question what you're doing, to be willing to be disruptive in your activities. So I don't think innovation has a timeline of XYZ innovations that I've done. Innovations manifest into new product development or process re-engineering or digital transformation. So there are multiple ways in which innovation showcases itself. The way you know that you're constantly innovating and staying relevant is the fact that we've remained number one in the last 40 years. Since 1980, we're the number one brand of incense in India and today by volume we're the largest in the world. The only way you can sustain your market share and continue to grow and continue to delight your consumers if you constantly innovate and stay relevant. And that manifests in different forms, technology, social media, product, process, quality, all of that. Earlier in one of the sessions, somebody said the quality of a product is the best marketing campaign that one can do. Of course, your brand has that recall value, but how do you stay differentiated in a crowded market like India where the intent is so profusely? So it's everything, it's just not one thing, right? I mean, it's all the touch points that make you different and relevant. Being carbon neutral, using sustainable raw materials, using safe ingredients, all of the quality tests that we do on the product. All of this then transform into just not a product company but as a brand and the brand then kind of encompasses what we all stand for. And that's what a consumer actually buys into. It's not a transaction but it's a relationship for a long term. And if you believe in it and if you constantly keep communicating the same thing over a period of time, the consumers start believing it as well. And a true representation of that is the testimonials that we receive on our social media platforms about how people talk about generation to generation, contact with the brand and how it's making a difference in their lives real-time and how the day wouldn't start without lighting those two psychological mistakes. And so that actually talks about what you're doing real-time. Right. So since we're on a marketing forum and also want to talk about, over the last couple of decades that you've helped this brand, broad changes have happened in the marketing domain. Where have we arrived now? What are the best ways to touch a consumer that is constantly switching from one screen to another? Yeah. For me, simple basics that I learned when I joined the business still remain. Something like in a retail outlet, that's something basic that you learn. So ensuring that your product is visible, whether it be on the digital space or in the offline space, it's perpetual. How do you become visible? How do you stay relevant is the challenge and the number of mediums have increased. And the second issue is where is your TG residing constantly? That's been the biggest challenge, the millennials, the baby boomers and the current generation acts. Who is consuming what, where and how do I stay relevant to each and every one of them? Digital, social, offline, online and with the pandemic coming in, a huge amount of BTL activations that we used to do below the line at point of sale has changed because the transaction time in a retail outlet has dropped by 60% for non-essential categories like ours. So when a consumer is spending 60% lesser time in a retail outlet, the stories that you can tell him reduces. So how do you then get in touch with him and how do you then tell him what to stand for and what to believe in? So these challenges are real time and we are addressing it through of course social and digital. And even till today, ATL still remains the biggest opportunity of inner communication for us. The other way of addressing the concept of innovation is the disruption that we use, we call it disruption. If somebody has to build a brand today, the timeline and the age of the brand sometimes gets affected by the disruption that happens in the market. But you seem to be in a very privileged space in that way because your brand of course has sustained and very few brands have this kind of history. Tell me, from here on do we, when is the vision of the brand from here on? What is the vision that you have for your brand? The long-term vision is very simple. Anywhere in the world, anybody thinks of prayer, they need to think of cycle. That's the idea. I mean prayer and cycle need to go hand in hand. And the next level of achievement would be fragrance and prayer together. So that's the way we've defined what we stand for. See we are not a vision led brand per se but we're a purpose led brand. To do the right thing to fulfill hopes, to deliver hope each and every time with each and every prayer. And that's what we stand for as a brand as well. So in the long term, if you see any way there is prayer, I want to be present. So we have our spirituality website for soulweather.com which is an e-magazine. We have pureprayer.com which is actually an app and a website where you can actually go in and do pujas in temples. So we're trying to integrate the entire prayer gambit and entire prayer space. We've launched a whole range of prayer products called Om Shanti where you have puja oil, scam fur, all of that you can use. Right. Also the focus on people behind the brand has also holds immense significance. Also I want to understand from you, how would you define your style of leadership first of all? Being so successful year after year and target after target, how would you define your style of leadership? Well, I don't consider myself a very good leader in comparison to the leader that mentored me which is my father. But I believe that I am a very trusting leader. I delegate responsibility and I expect and provide the required training and mentorship and then believe in my team to be able to deliver. And one of the beliefs I have is that a leader is one who gets things done without telling people what to do. And I'm a firm believer of that. But also the paternalistic attitude of the family comes into me where I tend to micromanage and hand hold quite a bit and spoon feed. So it becomes easier for my team to come back to me with problems rather than solutions. And that's something I'm trying to improve upon as a leader as well is learning to let go and let them take the decision and also face the consequences accordingly. But I tend to hand hold and spoon feed quite a bit. That's been one of the challenges that I'm trying to overcome as well. So the leadership, well with the leadership stage, innovative at all times, which is a must in today's age that we live in. But how do you make sure that it trickles down to the rest of the organization and they have this innovative first, disruptive first approach. And we earlier talked about on-the-go leadership, like you give them that liberty to take the decision. How do you ensure it happens? No, there are so many processes. We strongly believe in Kaisen's in the shop floor, constant and small incremental increments. A reward system for Kaisen's that happen at the shop floor is what keeps us relevant and ensures that year in and year out we constantly deliver better and better quality to our consumers. So that's on the manufacturing side. We have the best quality management systems in place, best in class. We have all the protocols that we follow to constantly keep innovating. We have Kaisen's that we do. We have the quality circles. We have all of that that's happening constantly so we stay relevant and stay focused on what we need to deliver to the customer. But the busiest way and the biggest way is through folklore. You need to learn how to tell stories of innovation. We keep talking about what we keep doing in one place, keep communicating that to the other. Identify champions who can actually tell stories so that through folklore is the easiest and the best way to communicate what you stand for and to tell people how to constantly keep innovating. If you don't stay stories, if you don't learn how to tell stories within your organization, it seems to be relevant even to them. Okay, so for me storytelling is the best way to communicate what you stand for and to ensure that the team constantly know it. Thank you, sir. What a wonderful discussion. Thanks for joining us today. I'm sure the people who listen to us go away with a lot of enriched insight. Thank you and over to you. Thank you so much. I have a few questions from the people who have been watching us. So Mr. Ranga, please don't go. Thank you, Rohail. I've really enjoyed this entire discussion of yours because I am actually based out of Bangalore and I know a lot of friends and a lot of families with the second and the third generation of business. But then I think maybe the third or the fourth generation now is so overexposed to information and to opportunities that most of them are not very keen on continuing on the family vision. What is your take on that? I would love to understand that before I move on to the questions that the audience has asked. Yeah, see for me, my father and uncles took the responsibility of grooming our generation, inspired us to come back and join the business. So if my son or the daughters in our family don't come back, I would take it up as much as it's my failure as it's theirs. So yeah, it is my responsibility to inspire the next generation and they are always ready to get inspired. I need to show them the opportunity and show them what we can do and what difference we can make to the world if they work with the family and work with this business. And that's my responsibility. So if your friends are not doing what you think they should be doing, then you need to talk to their fathers, not to your friends. I really like that, you know, so confident, bold and straight to the point. Would love to have more conversation with you, but now I need to get back to my questions. My first question is, this is by Himanshi. Himanshi, thank you for asking in your question. The question is, your association with Sri Lanka versus South Africa has been very interesting. How does the collaboration align with your larger marketing strategy? See, we believe that prayer unites people. Okay. And we look at cricket as an activity that unites the nation. And we have just entered Sri Lanka as a market and we felt that we should partner with Sri Lanka and cricket and that's the reason why we sponsored the recent Sri Lanka, South Africa cricket series. So we have been in India cricket from 2005 and we will continue to be part of India cricket for years to follow. And for us, cricket has given us tremendous brand visibility across the board, predominantly in our trade and motivation for our sales teams as well. Absolutely. And the kind of prayers that happened during Indian cricket match. It's crazy. Absolutely. I will all be praying today for RCB as well. Yes. Yes, we are Karnataka boys and we hope that RCB does something better this time. My next question to you is, how do you manage to keep your positioning intact while diversifying into newer portfolios? See, as long as the core philosophy of the brand stays relevant, the positioning in the consumer's mind will not get diluted. See, one of the principles that the earlier generation told us that stood the test of time. What my father told us is that don't put your brand on a product if you're not sure of what positioning it's going to take in the consumer's mind. Once you're sure that the positioning is in tune with what the brand stands for, only then you attach the cycle logo onto that brand. And so we still follow that principle so we don't easily put our logo on every corner of the product so you can see it. So that's something that we're following and that's one of the biggest easiest ways of how we've ensured that the positioning stays intact because the brand doesn't get diluted. Brilliant. Thank you so much for your time. It was fabulous having you here. I'm sure a lot of us got to learn a lot. I'm not supposed to ask you any more questions but I'm just going to slide in one quickly. Did your grandfather write down something for the family value and that continued down like a book? Because what is said and what is seen, it is lost in a Chinese Whisper game. Oh yeah, my grandfather definitely had his memoirs. He's written from 1935 onwards and he's mentioned everywhere that I am writing this for my grandchildren so that they can read this one day. And there's almost a 300 page book that he's written for us to follow as guidelines of how to sell, what to do, how to behave, what's important in life, what's not. The importance of humility and everything is just amazing. It's inspiring actually. It's not public. Snippets of it has been made public but there's a lot of personal information about himself that he shares as well in that for us to learn from. So whatever we could make public, we made public. It's a Kannada book called Sugandhavarthi Rangarayaru. So we will get it translated into English and publish it as well soon. Thank you so much. I'm really looking forward to reading that book and having more conversations with you if we meet offline. Considering we stay very close to each other, Bangalore and Mysore's mother. Absolutely. Thank you and Jai Hind. Thank you. Thank you so much.