• SUBHOMOY BHATTACHARJEE: There is a new type of management structure gaining currency, that is, professionally-run companies. Or non-family firms. You have successfully run a family business where a different structure has evolved over the years. There is renewed interest at institutions such as Harvard in this type of family governance. Would you comment?
In terms of percentages, over 90 per cent of businesses in the US and Europe are still owner-managed. Where is corporate governance in the US? Where is corporate governance in Japan and Korea or Europe?
• COOMI KAPOOR: It is said the Bajaj group has been a beneficiary of the license raj, and when liberalisation came, it was unable to hold its own.
That is a false, inaccurate, misinformed comment. And why pick on Bajaj? Before 1991 under the license-permit raj, we had a shortage economy. But even in a shortage economy you had to survive. In the two-wheeler segment what happened to Lambretta, to Java or Enfield? None of them survived, while there was a 10-year delivery period for Bajaj Chetak. So whether we were efficient or not, did not matter; nor did it matter who was the top manager. You didn’t need to be that efficient. Also, there were limited multinational companies in the market at the time. Post-liberalisation we faced the reality of competition. We had to ask ourselves: how do you learn to be efficient? Which guru do you go to? There is just one guru who not only teaches you to be efficient but also forces you to be efficient, and the name of that guru is competition. So when competition came, you had to be efficient, otherwise you would not survive: you required to lower costs, give the best possible quality, use cutting-edge technology. And you had to see who was the CEO, or the MD. It had to be the most competitive guy available. It could be a relative, a son, a brother or somebody else but it had to be the most efficient person. In the Bajaj family, 98 per cent of wealth is in the equities of the Bajaj Group of companies. So it’s in our selfish interest to get the best guy to manage the company. Today, you can’t have family management if they are not the right people to manage. This is among the reasons why families have split.
