Stay Hungry Stay Foolish_6 pdf

192 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH THE BANKER WHO A career Citibanker, Jaitirth (Jerry) Rao was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug in his late 40s. He built up a large and profitable company (Mphasis) but recently sold out to EDS because business is about passion as well as knowing when to let go. Jerry Rao (PGP '73), Mphasis BLINKED 16_The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 192 193 THE BANKER WHO BLINKED He built a corporate career. Then he built a company. Now he's sold it and moved on. Jaitirth Rao, or Jerry as he is better known, does not mix emotions with entrepreneurship. Being attached to the company you create, is “ moha ,” he says. You have to do what's best for the business and if that means selling out, so be it. There are absolutely no regrets. We meet at his Alexandra Road residence on a weekday afternoon. It's a fancy address but not one of those new- fangled skyscrapers. The house is modern, comfortable but rather spartan for someone who's done really well ifor himself. No moha in that area of life either. Jerry is lingering over his lunch. Perhaps that is what you call true luxury - to have time on your hands. Books occupy the entire room, from floor to ceiling. But not for effect alone, Jerry has read most of them. He is now writing a book and there are other “plans” but he will share them when the time is right. Right now, it's time to look back and reflect on the journey so far 16_The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 193 194 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH “I was doing my BSc Chemistry and of course my dad worked with the government so he was keen that I should go into the IAS. But one had heard vaguely about IIMs. This is in the early ‘70s. And so one applied.” Evidently, the MBA was a pretty unknown commodity in 1971. In fact, Jaitirth Rao landed up at IIM Ahmedabad because of a technical problem. At age 19 he was too young to sit for the IAS exam. “When I am 21 I will definitely write the entrance,” he assured his dad and packed his bags for IIM. Two years later, Jerry joined First National Citibank (later known as Citibank) through campus placement. He went to Beirut for training and even sent for the forms for the IAS but eventually decided to stay on in a corporate career. Because Citibank was a good company. It was a heady place in those days, it had great ambitions. Citibank was then the second largest bank in the world and it was internationalising its management staff. From a purely ‘American’ bank it was becoming more multi-cultural. So it was a good time to be there. “I came back from Beirut, worked for 2-3 years in India, then went to the Middle East. Then I wanted to quit corporate life altogether and decided to go into academics.” In 1979 Jerry enrolled in the University of Chicago to do a PhD Two years later he realised he wasn't cut out for that kind of life and abandoned the PhD halfway. He rejoined Citibank, but this time in New York, and then South America. In 1984, good friend Rana Talwar persuaded Jerry to come back to India and set up Citibank's retail and consumer business. “It was within the umbrella of a large corporation but it was very THE BANKER WHO Jerry Rao (PGP '73), Mphasis BLINKED 16_The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 194 195 THE BANKER WHO BLINKED entrepreneurial. Very unusual. We were writing on a blank canvas so it was quite an interesting time. There was no consumerism, no retail at the time. We introduced ATMs, for example. Even though the technology was 20 years old, it was revolutionary for India back then.” Nine years later Jerry moved to Europe, and then he was asked to to head the technology development division of Citibank, kind of like an R & D unit. He was reluctant - after all wasn't this the job of a techie? “But there was a kind of feeling that in Citibank, technology was getting separated from business. It was felt that someone with a business background would be better to run that division.” It was a very exciting time because the internet was taking off - this was 1995. Jerry redirected a lot of R & D expenditure into the internet. In those days everybody in California was starting a new company and everyday Citibank was giving business to different vendors - many of them in India. That's when it struck Jerry, “Why shouldn't I be on the other side of the table?” “Financially I was relatively secure so it wasn't a high risk kind of thing for me. And if it hadn't worked I could have always got back into a corporate career. Also my career in Citibank was plateauing. I was in the top 50, but it was clear to me that they were not going to promote me to the top 10 or 15. And I was not excited about pushing my way through corporate politics in New York.” Everything came together. Along with a colleague, Jeroen Tas, Jaithirth quit Citibank and started Mphasis. The year was 1998. “I went to my boss and said, ‘Look, I don't want people to say that you fired me so I want you to be the chairman on my advisory board. I am not going to give you any money, just lend me your name for exactly one year’.” He agreed, and Citibank gave Mphasis its first small business. Very soon there were other, bigger clients. People often ask whether MBAs have any advantage in doing business? Jerry's experience clearly shows the how the IIMA network can help. “Early on we acquired a small division of an Indian company called Byzan Systems. Byzan Systems was run by IIMA alumnus Mohan Krishnan. So he became a third founder of Mphasis along with me and Jeroen. Then, when we were looking for money, Citibank Venture Capital was very interested in investing with us and I was negotiating with Latika Monga, an IIMA alumnus also.” The Citicorp venture capital investment didn't come through. But the next investor who came to invest was from Barings Private 16_The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 195 196 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH Equity headed by Rahul Bhasin and Subbu Subramaniam, both IIMA alumni. When it came to recruitment, again there were IIMA connections. “Among our early employees were Radhika Rajan, Vikram Jaipuria and Preeti Shenoy.” The Citibank and University of Chicago networks also helped. The first investor in Mphasis was Rick Braddock. “Braddock used to be the President of Citicorp and he liked me very much,” muses Jerry. 1999 was a very heady year. Mphasis was growing 100% quarter to quarter. Of course, it was the dotcom boom and everything was growing crazily at that time. And Mphasis positioned itself as a company which did internet based technology solutions for legacy companies - an area where Jerry had been on the other side and knew exactly what a client would want. Besides, he'd been an early believer in the technology itself. “I had started internet banking, internet brokerage and I was chairman of the internet steering committee in Citigroup. So I was very much a part of the internet movement and was one of the founders of something called Online Banking Association. I had gone to Washington DC and testified before the US Congress about internet financial services.” Meanwhile, Barings had invested in a company called BFL whose CEO had quit the year before. Barings had a 25% stake in Mphasis and a 52% stake in BFL. Mphasis and BFL were merged and Jerry became the CEO of the joint company. Actually, it was a reverse merger. BFL was already listed in India. Mphasis changed its name to Mphasis-BFL Ltd and got listed. The valuation was excellent, in fact, the combined stock price went “through the roof.” Mphasis and BFL combined, the fiscal year ended March 2000, had done $34 million top line and had broken even on the bottom line. For the fiscal year ended March 2001, the company did $64 million in revenues. Almost a 100% growth and a 10% bottomline ($6 million). So basically the merger seemed to have worked. I should have started it 3-4 years earlier. If you think about it, it could have been much bigger if we had started in '95. But that's life. You start when you get your break. 16_The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 196 197 THE BANKER WHO BLINKED But there was a problem. Starting January 2001, as dotcoms crashed, the business also ran into trouble. Luckily in 1999, almost by accident, Mphasis had started a small call centre operation. In 2001, when the IT business slowed down, that took off. And today, of course, Mphasis is a major player in the BPO segment. 33% of its revenues come from BPO operations. So you can plan and plot but who can actually see the future? Putting your eggs in multiple baskets makes a lot of sense. “In 2001, among the Indian public companies in the IT space, we would have been number 25 or 26. By 2006, we were in the top 10, basically because we continued to grow as others faltered. But also, it was becoming clear that this call centre business is capital intensive.” Mphasis raised capital from ChrysCapital. “They were very bold investors. Because they invested with us at a premium over the prevailing prices. But you know, nevertheless they did quite well with their investment. I am quite grateful to them.” Actually the company never used their money - the 10 million dollars was simply put away. “It helped us to sleep better.” However by 2004-05 it became clear that something peculiar was happening. The top six players in IT and the top two in the BPO industry were growing faster than the industry average. Usually smaller companies grow faster than the bigger companies. Jerry and his team realised that the consolidation phase had set in. Also IBM, Accenture, all the global players were becoming big in India. It was time to look at a different strategy. “We could have continued as an independent business - it was nicely profitable. But we said ‘No, then we will be marginalised.’ So we initiated discussions with EDS and finally we became an EDS subsidiary.” Many companies over invest. Especially these days they get plenty of private equity money so they get fantastic offices, this and that and that's a big mistake. You have to invest in pace with your revenues. But you must be aware of your inflection points. 16_The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 197 198 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH This made sense because now Mphasis had a great marketing engine. And the EDS brand to get business. Post merger the company once again started growing faster* than the industry average, proving Jerry's point. But of course it meant selling out. “I think one reason why we were able to sell out is, we were not that emotionally attached. Many entrepreneurs who start off in their 20s and have never worked in a corporation for them it can be gut wrenching.” “In America, if you look at it, people are much more cold blooded about their companies. At the right time, the CEOs resign, retire, sell out. India I think, the first generation entrepreneurs get very, very attached to their companies. Not in rational market related terms but in very irrational emotional terms. We didn't have that. That is what made the EDS transaction possible.” It's a cold blooded, clinical assessment. Actually the entire story has been related with a kind of detachment. “This happened.Yes, it happened to me but I can see it completely objectively. Very different from the other, younger entrepreneurs.” I don't see any personal anecdotes coming. So I decide to ask for some gyaan . “What do I take away from all this? I think timing is very critical. In 1973, even if I had wanted to start a company, there was no private equity, nobody would have invested. Whereas in the 1990s, and today of course, there is capital available for people with ideas, people with intelligence and risk taking ability.” “Second thing is, networks are very important. Because networks give you credibility, they give you access. It still means you have to do your job, but at least it opens the doors.” “The third thing that I could say I take away from all this is you need some luck. In fact the call centre decision was luck. Originally our board was against it. They said: ‘Oh my God! You are such a high end IT, internet systems architecture company. Why do you want to do this low cost call centre work?’” You must not lose focus on cash If you don't have cash, you are up against a wall. You end up raising money at the wrong time or walking away from the business. 16_The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 198 199 THE BANKER WHO BLINKED “In fact they forced me to put it in a separate subsidiary with a different brand name so that it wouldn't confuse with the high end brand name. But it was a lucky and a good decision.” “A couple of other lessons that I have is that particularly in the initial days, you have to be focused on two things.You, the founder, have to spend a lot of time with customers. It cannot be delegated to junior salespeople. You have the passion, you have the conviction, nobody else can replicate that.” “And if you are a small company, you have to be extremely transparent and honest. Big companies can afford to cover their tracks, but in small companies, you have to say, ‘We did a bad job, sorry, here is a refund’. So you establish a reputation of being reliable, of high integrity.” “Reputation is very important for attracting talent. Because when you are a small company, nobody has heard of your brand, you are not important. Why should anybody join you! One reason why many people joined me was that I had a very good track record at Citibank as a manager. People knew I always took good care of the folks who worked for me. I was fair to them.” Now research has shown that transparent companies have a lower cost of capital. But purely from experience Jerry believes that the more transparent you are, the more people are willing to invest in you. So from day one, Mphasis hired KPMG for audit. The company kept very strong, very high standards. The other thing you have to do in business is take some very tough decisions. There were two senior co-founders. “We had to part ways. It's tough when you have to sit down in the same room with a co-founder and say goodbye to him. But you need to look ahead, not look back as you grow.” Another lesson was that a company which is growing had to keep improving systems and processes. “We had absolute pain when we grew from $100 to $200 million. We suffered everyday because our systems were all cottage industry systems.” Plans are all okay, but if you don't have the courage to make mid-course corrections and changes, particularly in highly changing environments like the technology space, you will get into trouble. 16_The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 199 Take a recruitment system, for example.The company would make an offer to somebody it had rejected six months ago! There was no recruitment database that kept track of that. Customer systems were weak. If an individual in a client firm shifted to another division he or she was lost and along with the person went the business. And of course one has to plan to set up these systems some time before they are actually required. The trick is when. Not too much in advance because no small company can afford to over invest. Focus on cash is very important. “We had even taken a small loan which we didn't use. But that didn't matter. We were always sure that we would have cash. In some of the early months, I had to write personal cheques to meet our payrolls. Because cash is what can get you into trouble.” Mphasis, in the initial days, was very cost focused. The founders used their frequent flier miles for traveling. They lived in a friend's home in New York, never in a hotel. The idea was - don't create overheads you can't sustain. The use of PR is also crucial for small companies which cannot afford to advertise. For instance, Mphasis had a small PR agency in New York who managed to get Jerry a front page article with his photograph in the ‘American Banker’. “By God! That did so much for us. We were able to go to so many banks with that article. And it gave you immediate credibility. ‘Ex-banker has started an IT company’. It was a great piece. I think investment in PR is very very important. It pays off disproportionately compared to advertising or general marketing.” Recruiting senior people is a major problem. It is as much a headache as buying a company. “Integrating a senior person who doesn't know your culture and who is not part of your original founder group, is very very difficult. We made at least two-three mistakes with that and it’s very expensive.” 200 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH I always feel very sorry for people who worked in Indian corporate sector from 1956 to 1991. They could have been such bright fellows but they were stifled. What could they do? We are lucky and we have to ride that crest of the wave. 16_The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 200 201 THE BANKER WHO BLINKED Not only do you have to pay salary, which is expensive, but headhunters fees also. The person will bring in his/ her own people, bring his/ her own systems. “When in doubt frankly, if the person on the inside is only 80% suitable, I would say promote that person. Because when you are in a growth phase, it is better to take that gamble than try and recruit senior people.Try and recruit people at middle level, and grow them. Do not try and get the senior sales person who is going to solve all your problems. Usually that doesn't work. It didn't work for us.” There are no shortcuts! Lastly, you have to offer a clear and definite advantage. If you are coming into a business where there are already existing players and you are 10% cheaper, don't even bother. You have to come into a business where you are 50-60% cheaper, by doing something different. Mphasis also recruited some unusual talent. The company was very flexible with location, working from home and so on. And of course, like all new economy companies Mphasis-BFL shared a large chunk of equity with employees -15-20%. There is also a sense of pride in the fact that Mphasis contributed to the larger scheme of things. “We are doing to the service industry what Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor did to manufacturing and we are doing it globally We also created 12,000 jobs in seven years. And each of them probably created four or five indirect jobs.” We are nearing the end and he hasn't yet mentioned the ‘P’ word. Passion. Is that part of the whole 'let's not get emotional' approach to running a company? “I talk about passion, not emotion. The two are different words. Emotion is what you feel for your children. Even when they do something wrong, you are willing to overlook it. But passion is different. I did believe and I still believe in the liberating and productivity-giving power of internet technologies. I do believe and You are a vendor sitting somewhere. You call a secretary, she says, Who are you, which company, why should my boss see you?! As a big corporate guy you got so much red carpet treatment. 16_The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 201 [...]... services Clients would say, ‘Oh, you do only analytics? Fine, when we need that service we'll give you our business’.” 18_For Love not Moneyeditjuly10.qxd 7/19/08 4:21 PM Page 226 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH “Do you want to stay happy but small or do you want to grow? These are two different paths and you have to choose one We made the choice to scale up.” But surely backward or forward integration was... references But there is nothing like a customer reference for a small company Nobody trusts what you say in your PowerPoint 203 17_Itch bin ein entrepreneureditjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:13 PM Page 204 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH ITCH BIN EIN ENTREPRENEUR Shivraman Dugal (PGP '76), Institute for Clinical Research in India (ICRI) Shivraman is someone who is always looking for the Next Big Thing After a string... forward And I can't help thinking, “It's all about the journey, not the destination.” And about feeling alive, every minute of it 205 17_Itch bin ein entrepreneureditjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:13 PM Page 206 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH ITCH BIN EIN ENTREPRENEUR Shivraman Dugal (PGP '76), Institute for Clinical Research in India (ICRI) Shivraman Dugal was an army child After a degree in economics from Delhi University,... Uttar Pradesh, then Assam, then Orissa, then Gujarat Each territory was bigger than the last And they used pay to me phenomenally 17_Itch bin ein entrepreneureditjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:13 PM Page 208 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH “Professionals are better than entrepreneurs for running the running business Because an entrepreneur is too much in love with his creation When you love something, you are blind to... Carrying samples at that time was very dangerous Any samples you carried had to be sold, you could not bring them back But ever 17_Itch bin ein entrepreneureditjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:13 PM Page 210 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH “Working at other companies in my early career helped me to understand how an employee thinks It also taught me the value of systems and how important it is to employ people who are... all-India rights to set up ‘Wigan and Leigh' in India “We brought foreign education into India for the first time.” The year was 1996 17_Itch bin ein entrepreneureditjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:13 PM Page 212 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH It all started when Shivraman met the Wigan and Leigh representatives at an exhibition They were looking for a partner and things fell into place, despite the fact that he had no previous... He took a separate office and spent one year ‘doing nothing’ Only thinking of what next to do He zeroed in on clinical research 17_Itch bin ein entrepreneureditjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:13 PM Page 214 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH Clinical research was an area which had all the characteristics of software All the pluses - it uses intelligence, is high on labour, low on cost and it's virgin territory As a first... be stuck at a low size The control freak will remain a dukaandaar You open a shop and say, I must know where every penny is going 215 18_For Love not Moneyeditjuly10.qxd 7/19/08 4:21 PM Page 216 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH FOR LOVE, NOT MONEY Shankar Maruwada (PGP '96), Marketics He entered entrepreneurship by accident and his first venture folded up But Shankar and his team used that failure to get it... your expectations, make the improbable seem easy You always leave the room thinking, “If this guy could do it, why not me and you?” 217 18_For Love not Moneyeditjuly10.qxd 7/19/08 4:21 PM Page 218 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH FOR LOVE, NOT MONEY Shankar Maruwada (PGP '96), Marketics Shankar Maruwada is the youngest of three brothers Life was more about being a follower than a leader “Since I was good in my... maintenance mode, but primarily it was the building block for the new CRM software Reusing components brought down the cost significantly 18_For Love not Moneyeditjuly10.qxd 7/19/08 4:21 PM Page 220 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH “Culture is a set of daily behaviours exhibited by an organisation The senior guys walk the talk, others will follow Because an organisation, especially in the beginning, is nothing . investor who came to invest was from Barings Private 16_ The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 195 1 96 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH Equity headed by Rahul Bhasin and Subbu Subramaniam,. time to look back and reflect on the journey so far 16_ The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 193 194 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH “I was doing my BSc Chemistry and of course my. revenues. But you must be aware of your inflection points. 16_ The Banker who Blinkededitjuly9.qxd 7/19/08 3:11 PM Page 197 198 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH This made sense because now Mphasis had a great