In conversation with Xerxes Desai — raw transcript

well my my name is Xerxes day sigh I spent the better part of my life working for the data group initially in basically apprenticeship positions and senior other directors then I i went to the Taj Group where I played a very prominent role along with ajith character in transforming the taj from one and a quarter hotels into a chain after he built the new Tosh building I did yes the the taj intercontinental and we completely rebuild the old Dodge which was a more demanding exercise and we also started expanding outside of Bombay with a poor jaipur go of Chennai and so on hyderabad yet and after that I I did a stint with citko I was on deputation from the tata group with the blessings of eid tata and worked on the New Bombay project and when I was summoned back into the tarifold I went into Tata press which was our printing publishing company and well played transformational role there as well and it’s in Tata press that that the idea of Titan was conceived and took some shape and that was the next thing I did was then she could talk

well tighten was incubated at tata press that’s what what happened and and I I reckon that my claim to fame really lies in what i did in in Titan Titan watches and cold and later became titan industries so you were sort of those days it didn’t call them start to go and set up a joint venture with a government company that’s right well we would have preferred I think to do it on our own and not with with with a garment company but the only way that we could in those days get into that business was through the joint sector we tried to do it on our own however we were told by by the government then this is before the liberalization trousers started that the watch industry had been reserved for the public sector and a small scale and there was no room for us large business houses in the watch segment so we probably have to be did it finally through joint venture with Tamil Nadu so what kind of challenge do you have in setting up tight well hi I reckon the biggest challenge wasn’t getting Garbutt approval and that took us in fact several years the next big challenge was and finding a suitable technical partner because in those days one couldn’t enter a particular segment unless one hundreds of manufacturing and garment said that we’d have to manufacture the movement and it took us quite a while in fact to find a suitable technical partner in fact there was no one else left when we found when we finally found français Bosch ok so you have to find any flash for partner to get this we had to find an international partner because no one in in India was manufacturing movement sparring HMT who had got that know-how from citizen and so already proceed from there so you set up this joint venture operation you go into thick as a partner and then it was question of building a team a team of like-minded people and and creating a certain type of culture and i wanted to be very a very different culture from what I had experienced in whole host of data companies with which I didn’t associated in my previous assignments and some of the people that you go down as one on how to become leaders both inside the door open outside oh my god oh absolutely i mean they have done wonderfully well for themselves and they have I think ninety-nine percent of them have a very affectionate remembrance their days with Titan and where perhaps one of the few companies in the world maybe that has a basically an Alumni Association where former tie things come together once a year twice a year and share memories and experiences things that’s all so

it was like and sort of an educational and you know institution that you build which would usually have built a different set of people who actually went on to become entrepreneurs and changemakers there always that’s right i think it was it was a it was a learning organization no doubt about that and while we expected our people to pursue things with with the fashion without passion nothing great i think can be achieved it had to be informed fashion it has to have have a strong intellectual cerebral rational basis in our scheme of things you couldn’t come in with preferences or paid elections or do things because I like to do it that way there had to be solid rational arguments for doing everything whichever way travel we wanted it to be done they had to be solid national migrants and pursued with passion but in spite of a different at that point we actually do much younger people who were not very well educated in and train and I walked out of that you have very different that was the the the workforce in the in the factory yeah that was quite an experience we wanted the very best we did not want people whose minds had been maybe walked by working in another organization and so we went to the schools in an around hosur in fact in the whole of dharmapuri district and beyond the fact and spoke to the teachers and spoke to the students about what what we were looking for and what kind of a future awaited them and out of maybe a hundred who were interviewed three was selected and then they were put through a very rigorous training program in fact a selection program itself involved a whole lot of aptitude tests and attitude tests and you know terms of attitude for instance and assembly worker didn’t have to have a questioning mind whereas somebody who was working maybe in a lab or in a corner on a machine had to have a questioning mine I him then put them to a very rigorous training program they were very young where they joined there were 15 16 17 years old we had to teach them not only how to make watches we won’t have to teach them how to live how to get along with the other sex how to meet their obligations to their families because they were being paid well and I was quite determined that we would that we wanted to be the best paymasters and host so I do not believe pay in the capitalist theory of exploitation and the interesting thing is you know are that we about ninety-five percent of our employees were taken after the tenth standard have gone on to get university degrees and diplomas to the distance education person so we were a learning organization Italy in yeah absolutely and they have done wonderfully well for themselves of course many of them have moved on to managerial positions within the company

cruisin environment you had a large number of people differently abled a lot higher than you’re absolutely right we had close to 200 people who were either had a had a vision problem major vision problem Oh who had a speech and hearing problem and they were I think extremely well assimilated into the organization we had a very good leader for the whole process and you know we started we started our own Township and we we have we started our own school school for the children of our employees last year we offered the first batch of students with the 10th standard examination and our most outstanding student had a father has a father I should say who was hearing and speech impaired and that’s a wonderful feeling to get so what is it that sort of enable this to happen I mean is it just good leadership for process or finding the right people to create learning organization of such scheme which not only exactly its own people but produced a brand if priests to india’s first through each metal brand and writing became one of it is this global products well I I think the two aspects to it one was that we were what we were doing was very much in the in the data tradition they much what jRD wanted to to to jRD Tata I wanted to achieve and we had a band of people who were determined to do things differently not just two things well but to do things differently but give you example I mean you know I where I verify cash inflow do I reason I wear tight dingus you know first claim to fame in terms of engineering product designs was yes it’s what we encourage not only individual brilliance but group brilliance and also ability to work together well in a team and like many of our things the this moment was the result of a of a highly motivated a team and we created a an atmosphere it was very friendly atmosphere that we had and was enormous freedom of thought and action and some of the people who came to us from the public sector were at the beginning very of making mistakes but our attitude was look if you don’t make mistakes will never learn and we just keep on doing the same old ruin things so fine mistakes will be made hopefully not too many and not the same again and again mistakes will be made but we’re going to move on and and shrub from there and-and-and parana our very best and that’s what they did and and you know the the thing is that you you can’t build a great organization without a jRD Tata into the two essential ingredients one was pride in the organization to organization had to succeed for the individual to be successful and the other was excitement you know excitement about doing things not only well as I said doing things differently what is it back in most Indian institutions whether it is in the public sector private sector that doesn’t lead to this kind of environment that doesn’t make you smile evaluation you know it’s only recently that you’ve seen more and more institutions coming that way but even that’s not hardly not well I think if there was a fear factor and there was also this belief that there were leaders who had all the answers and one thing we made clear to any employee who joined was what we don’t have all the answers you gotta find the answers and we got only problems and we want you to solve the problems

it was sort of independent your work on in sub-sector I think it did have it was a revelation working on on on New Bombay what what the scope and the complexity of things working on a project of that of that nature were so different from the highly specialized businesses that we were in it was it was I think it was that really which which opened my eyes to the possibility if I hadn’t done that maybe I wouldn’t have you know chosen the course that I that I did but my my involvement in the social sector is not confined to to urban issues where increasingly it is thanks to you better bad bad that that was that was not by digital here intention is to have a better spread out by a bad time but having said that let let me let me say this that Urban Affairs has been a passion with me and had one of him away or anything no not before not before his new Bombay then okay all right they just before the mr. Tucker a decided to change all that all that when sometimes a change i do not do not welcome but New Bombay see you took you chose to come to New Bombay product no no I was lured into it by our Chairman shoosh Patel and by Charles Korea is and no none at all it it was just it is just an opportunity to to paint on on a larger canvas and really a roi when tonight I knew nothing about urbanization I knew something about project management and that’s really where I came in as managing a project and it was on while managing the project that I learned a great deal about urbanization missus of cities and the complexity you absolutely could do something about it it was I mean it was it was a it was a tremendous experience I no doubt that I benefit benefited much more than that New Bombay did but it was it was a tremendous experience because the you know at one time you’re dealing with transporting all the time you do eating with education at third time in dealing with with health issues and all kinds of and last night he was it there oh we had we had we had we had a smallish team but we had a very gifted ER team and how long did that King Bach one and how did that go so far well I I was there for just about two and a half years and were two essential firstly on the Boshy development plan and getting it started and then on the on the whole on the whole development plan for the city as a as a whole and what was your experience like working with government at that point of time were you completely sort of autonomous you know we had we had a fair amount of autonomy in the way we worked but getting acceptance was another thing III mean I used to find you quite strange and some of the people there were from from government and soaked in its methods of working and they would write on notes things like it is not known why you know whether that the chief engineer has looked at this and looked at that which was their way of saying that he hasn’t looked at it but my reaction was but if you don’t know that white Rajah go ask him so it was a bit of a clash of cultures baby and another thing I learned working with jb de Souza was the managing director and outstanding servants and i was presenting to him some arguments that he would advance when he met the met one of the minister’s I’d hidden the Chief Minister and I I was going through my list two points and every time I finished the point he would he would say so so I went to the ninth point 10 point and then jvd stopped me and said you know I’m looking for that only one point which will convince the chief the chief minister the other things are no relevance to him not looking for the OL argument she’s looking for what will appeal to him

well project was taken over by the bureaucracy and it didn’t achieve some with Roger Eames mystery well city should be 0 children yes I I reckon that well I actually lost touch after after a while got involved in other things moved my base in Bombay tujhe bangalore but yes I think it was it was a combination of many things lack of awareness the importance of what we were doing significance of what we’re doing lack of money also in those days and there was also the problem of other we was supposed to be a counter magnet to Bombay but the chief minister was developing his old magnet in his own magnet in South Bombay nariman point and and also at bandra van der cooler which we handle for a while but there wasn’t this realization at that time how important the this new Bombay project was do you know I mean Bombay had a terribly lopsided development the concentration of jobs they hinder south streams of and population north of it and long commuting times and people hanging out of railway compartments occasionally dropping off and being killed if Jeremy lopsided development had deteriorating infrastructure hugely deteriorating infrastructure and also break out of the limitations of an island city and also start a greenfield project which was outside the scope of the Bombay Municipal Corporation and both these things led us to choose the location across the harbor you know breaking the constraints of an island getting away from the immunes of corporation bombay and this is and this was an eastward move you know into into the heart of Maharashtra rather than expanding northwards into Gujarat and it just made a lot of sense many points of view I think it’s begun to work out well the importance of New Bombay can perhaps be caged from the fact some of the cricket matches are held there instead of at that at the bravern stadium or the vodka disraeli with God Bombay they fighting like the devil now about anywhere port like you be the bigger picture yes yes I mean we are one of the few cities in the world where there’s an airport in the middle of the city and at one time it was on the periphery of the city as a kid my we were taken for our annual holiday to Bandra you can imagine how different Bombay was that other time

if you look back now you won’t being you know what would you what would you have done that’s that’s different where the political engagement trying to get more people into the project get better management get more resources or if one wanted to make a 60 minutes obviously the city is going to be where it is that’s where the mega region is going to sort of forever how would one have done that differently if you were to do it again well oh well you know times have changed I think there is this rare this realization you have to have workable cities and in fact there is a there is a competition now between the states of India to make their cities workable and to attract investment either the industrial sector or the services sector to attract investment to two cities and and to do that you need do to you need cities at work and I think that that realization has has finally dawned and I I reckon that we will not be able to do away with the venality of her politicians for some time but hopefully they will make their money doing the right thing and so doing the wrong thing which is step forward so but the thing in the indie 80s right you can be apparently picked up on this idea and that’s how I need three to the NC you and all of you got involved and looking at that processing how know how did that happen it and what happened to food afterwards because it sort of Sun pretty much like a stone well you know yeah things began to change after Rajiv Gandhi became decline minister and that began to show itself in many aspects of India’s life in fact Titan would not have been it would not have come into existence under the old regime darn change the regime it’s only after rajiv gandhi came to power that we were permitted to go ahead with this with this project and so a lot of thinking changed and so one of the things he did was to constitute the National Commission urbanization under the chairmanship of Charles courier and with Mahesh butch is the vice chairman I was one of the members of that Commission and we prepared a report of religious sighs I don’t know whether any single individual ever read the report Rob from one end of the shelf to the heir to the other the but it was it was it was the first I think major attempt to define a future for India’s urbanization but why did that sort of drop off why did we cooperate oh we almost had well decades to the gym erm where it’s right of all the work that was done oh no I think it was our word that is the problem perhaps you know the other things other developments came in the way unfortunately rajiv gandhi was assassinated we had an interregnum of governments which were probably groping in the dark it ended with a huge foreign currency crisis and with a little basic economic crisis the focus shifted to managing first financially the foreign currency crisis and the financial crisis that the economic crisis and then the there was a global economic slowdown at the end of the 90s and the you know the early part of this century and and then came liberalisation globalization that became the focus so in a way this kind of lost its importance the the whole urbanization plan that we had and and then it got picked up later on after some of those problems got sorted out or began to be sorted out the way you know people don’t mean that the organization is it was conceived that time was situated in a in the corner in arenas somewhat more closed account and that frame then have to be sort of rebuilt in a much more open world and what in which India is actually going in as much much faster rate so you have to rethink how one would sort of conceptualize the policy and the processes that’s right i mean I a globalization meant that we were now in competition with with other countries for attracting investment I mean notably China and well the political system in China is more conducive to mandating change met men they’re doing a different way of doing things and I believe that they’ve been handling their urbanization process better than we have maybe not in a you know in a sustainable manner as we would now wish it to be but people have realized that that if India’s should grow we have to have cities again cities that were

so if we talk about trying to build cities it work what what does it mean for us um how do you make that happen where does the innovation need to happen what are the things that we need to sort out well the day largest does a prop I would say almost every aspect of urbanization from understanding the de forces of urbanization the the urban-rural linkages the location of urban settlements from an economic point of view from a geographical point of view and of course from a political point of view location of urban settlements to the design to the engineering of the cities to how to manage them and how to fund them and how to look after all the all these social aspects of large you know agglomerations of of people many of them speaking different languages from different parts of the country different cultures in 15 different parts of the world its massive and you know when you when you when you when you consider that look at the figures the fact that if India is to grow at eight to ten percent in terms of GDP then urbanization is any obvious corollary Compton to that and the expectation is that over as you well know that over the next 50 years the urban population of India which is currently somewhere near 350 million will increase by 500 million to 850 minutes over 50 appeared it this process has to be managed well if it’s not managed well it’s going to be catastrophic because cities are after all they’re the cradles of civilization and culture I mean this is where knowledge and poor and action and everything is city-based even I advances in agriculture are city-based strangely enough and what I hear you describing your census is the attempt at the IHS curricula are needful outlined the kind of things that we need to deal with in the curriculum absolutely absolutely and it’s not only I think there has to be first of all in the curriculum in understanding of our problems and then an understanding of where solutions could possibly lie both it looking at the realm of theory and also looking at what actually happened transpired in there is the parts of the of the world the question of course is assuming the very equal to to the crane and you get people around all the English well half a loaf is better than none and so I I I don’t know the numbers that would be required but I would imagine that they would be massive but we want we need to have people who are not only knowledgeable understood abundance to the problem or understood where salut what kind of solutions are likely to work i will have the passion the missionary zeal you know the desire to be agents of change to transform in there I mean that’s what we what we need in this country and hopefully it will disband of people that we will create however even they are small to begin with I think they will have an enormous leavening catalytic effect on people and I and well may the numbers of this tribe increase and I’m sure the day well I’m sure they will look this is the most important thing that’s happening in India today and that’s urbanization unfortunately we don’t track urbanization like with Jack motor cars or or steel or things of that sort you know but perhaps the most important economic activity that’s occurring in India today is its organisation and it’s not just an economic activity it’s a totally it’s transforming barolo society you to transform society transform its political institutions as well political behavior

so given all of these sort of aspirations using Bangalore’s right Lisa started oh absolutely even though I very partial to buy your having chosen this is by do you hope that’s about 20 years ago 25 years ago but I think that well banglow has has many advantages it has it has a tremendous climatic advantage yeah thus plenty of scope for expansion land is available I think we have you know hi once met former chairman of President to the World Bank and and told him that while Delhi is the political capital of India and Bombay is the commercial capital of India Bangalore is the intellectual capital of India and I I think that i think is a wonderful place for an institution of the sort and I think we have a very welcoming government’s over here people whose eyes have been opened thanks to the IT industry to what can be achieved I mean Nick I’m being here could make a difference to mangos I mean back was all these great things it also has some severe challenges it has in bangalore’s been totally transformed over the last 20 years 15 years even the last five years the the landscape keeps changing at at at an unrecognizable pace sorry but we’ll see the question the question was sitting we have all these challenges I was right yes option yeah well it has you see the the problems stemmed from again lopsided grouped they and i think the fault lies both with the private sector and with the garment sector we created jobs and we created job places I nowhere for them to live or send the children to school or hospitals and so on and so forth you know in if I may refer to the tata group when giant Otto jRD Tata planned new industries they planned cities to go with them and to gave as much importance to the planning of the city and to people’s homes and the entire the physical infrastructure and the social infrastructure as for creating the job opportunities and that’s where we went terribly wrong terribly wrong unforgivably wrong but we are I think now on the job and trying to rectify the state of affairs

do you think the I just would play an important role didn’t have to go back yes I think it would be able to it would certainly even play I think a crucial role not only in terms of ideas but in providing trained professionals who can actually implement those ideas and you know one of the problems in this country has been for many years and I in too many conferences where people say the same thing over and over again that India is not short of ideas we’re sure of is in people who implement them and I think III IHS has a as a fantastic future role to play the way baby I hear of the iatest should go from new bomb being from something’s out how this would come about how do you come where they are the IHS idea with whether its origins lie well I know I think it that’s a habit of a no-brainer hey it lies in the enormity of the problems that that the people of our cities face and the very challenging tasks ahead not not just in terms of setting right the wrongs of the past but in preparing for the future and preparing as I was saying for the 500 million people who will live in the urban agglomerations we will move into urban I night Liberation’s over the next 50 years therefore there is a crying need you know I’ve experienced City governance at a kind of a grassroot level as having been the the the president of a residence Welfare Association and I mean I want I well as you can see I’ve told my hair out in despair it’s not just natural causes maybe it’s it’s we just don’t have people with the with the knowledge base or the interests of the passion that is required to to manage and transform our cities you just don’t have those people

so if you were talking to prospective sort of learners and students accounting Institute what would you tell them why should they actually be coming here what do they do here what changes so they actually make and their own life relatively well they would be playing a huge role in the transformation of India and that that should be sufficiently rewarding in itself but I am I am sure that it will be it will not be limited to job satisfaction but it will it will bring them all the material benefits also that that everybody wants in the course of a couple working career there’s a huge challenge and and they’re being I don’t know one other thing is that while you you need not only a a professional class of people to bring about change but you need enough people among the citizenry who understand what it is that needs to be done and I and I hope that over time is you produce hopefully hundreds of thousands of our alumni will have people’s on both sides as professionals who are managing change transformation and as citizens who understand that these things need to be done and we’re talking about change that is equitable and changed it is sustainable and not change for everybody not just for a few