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24_A Sence of Owenershipedit10july.qxd 7/19/08 4:38 PM Page 298 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP S B Dangayach (PGP '72 ), Sintex He is not the owner of the company but in every other sense works like an entrepreneur. The man behind the iconic Sintex water tanks believes in constant evolution and creation of new products. And after 34 years with one company he is still passionate about it! 298 24_A Sence of Owenershipedit10july.qxd 7/19/08 4:38 PM Page 299 A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP It is a bit of a shock when you are interviewing someone for a book on entrepreneurship and the very first sentence he utters is: “I'm sure you know… I don't own this company, but in every other sense I am an entrepreneur.” Honestly, I did not know, and that's why you were shorlisted, sir. But I am intrigued and we get on with the interview. And I am glad, because Mr S B Dangayach of Sintex is a truly fascinating subject. Management books often talk about being ‘entrepreneurial’ within a large company. Some refer to this as being ‘intrapreneurial’. Both terms sound like terms from a Dilbert comic strip, to keep cubicle workers happy. The idea of an ‘entrepreneur’ who is not an owner but completely synonymous with the success of the company seems equally farfetched. Sure, anyone from a trainee to the CEO can feel a sense of ‘ownership’. But for how long? 3 years, 5 years, 8 years? S B Dangayach has been with Sintex for 34 years. As he tells me the story of how he built this company he has all the fire, the feeling and all the fondness of a Founder. Like a parent who deeply loves an adopted child and believes this is his own flesh and blood. In the cutthroat world of business, a rare and beautiful thing. 299 24_A Sence of Owenershipedit10july.qxd 7/19/08 4:38 PM Page 300 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP S B Dangayach (PGP '72 ), Sintex S B Dangayach grew up in Rajasthan. After completing his graduation from Bombay he joined IIM Ahmedabad, and then Asian Paints. The year was 1972. “Asian Paints was a very famous company back then… It was structured and very well managed. The company had fantastic systems, it had fantastic controls - they were ahead of even Hindustan Lever in some of those areas.” Asian Paints was a very prestigious job to join at that time. And Dangayach is surprised that they actually took him. The job profile mentioned that only engineers with an MBA will be considered. Dangayach was a science graduate. Nevertheless, he applied. He was asked: “You are not an engineer. How do you justify being here?” And he had a simple answer: “Many of the engineers who are from IIT take lessons from me in subjects like OR, and quantitative methods.” It was an audacious but true statement and should have got him the job. But there were further doubts, regarding his age. Dangayach was not even eighteen when he joined IIM. He was in fact under 20 when he sat for placement. The interviewer, one Mr Chari, asked: “You are such a young boy, how can you justify being here?” Dangayach replied, “Youth is on my side and the fact that I have competed with so many older people and succeeded should tell you that I must have something in me.” A third question was asked: “You are a Marwari. Marwaris never work for too long with anybody. They go off to set up their own business.” Dangayach's answer to that was: “I don't value money as much as Marwaris do. If you give me an independent workplace, I will be alright.” 300 24_A Sence of Owenershipedit10july.qxd 7/19/08 4:38 PM Page 301 A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP 301 He secured the job. A trait you see in so many entrepreneurs: when they really want something, they fight against the odds and get it! Dangayach worked at Asian Paints for two years but he was not very happy. The company had been in business for 30 years and was a leader in the paint industry by that point of time. There was little freedom or latitude to think independently, or innovatively. The young MBA - like most young MBAs - felt constrained. Dangayach realised that working at such a place was not conducive to his temperament. Through an ad on the notice board of IIM Ahmedabad he first learnt of an opening at a company called The Bharat Vijay Mills Pvt Ltd. They were a textile company starting a small division in plastics. “I applied and I obviously got a chance because there was no other person who was willing to join The Bharat Vijay Mills,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. Bharat Vijay Mills was located around 30 kilometres away from Ahmedabad in a moffusil town called Kalol. It was a small place but that's precisely why it attracted Dangayach. He had seen life in the ‘big’ lane and knew his future lay elsewhere. Bharat Vijay Mills was focused on textiles. With an eye on the future, the company thought of venturing into chemicals and plastics. The idea was to put up small ventures which somebody could manage as an SBU. For the plastics division that person was to be Dangayach. “The Patel family promised me latitude, freedom of action. Once I proved myself, there would be no interference from the owners”. The business was started with a seed capital of Rs 30 lakhs. And within a few months, Dangayach had built an excellent equation with the Patels. “I was comfortable, they were comfortable. And since then I have been continuing and it has been almost thirty three years that I have been here. And obviously I have been managing the business like any entrepreneur will manage, barring the fact that the entrepreneur sometimes puts in his own money”. Dangayach put in no money and owns an insignificant amount of shares. His kick was to manage the business independently and autonomously. And he got that. Joining as marketing officer in September 1974, Dangayach was promised 'complete charge' - if he proved himself. And that's what happened. By December, he was made General Manager. Of course there was no great structure in the company. So it was more 24_A Sence of Owenershipedit10july.qxd 7/19/08 4:38 PM Page 302 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH “People know my integrity, people who are into headhunting do not approach me ever. Possibly they have some report about me, some reference about me, so they are aware of what reaction they may get.” an endorsement of the fact that a 22 year old can manage all the functions - manufacturing, marketing, finance, accounts. The entire gamut of business decisions from which products to make, the strategy to follow, securing the finance from institutions like GSFC, putting the production team together - everything was in Dangayach's hands. And there was no interference? “Once I convinced them that I can manage, they played only a notional role.” The irony is that the small plastics division Dangayach took charge of became so big that the Bharat Vijay Mills became synonymous with it. The name of the company was one day to change to ‘Sintex’. The name ‘Sintex’ comes from ‘sintering’, which is a process. It was also apt because it combined the two products of Bharat Vijay Mills - sintering and textiles. What's more, it seemed easy to pronounce, easy to recall. Today the brand ‘Sintex’ is synonymous with plastic water tanks. Almost like Xerox with xeroxing. But Sinter Plast containers actually came into existence to make industrial articles for the textile industry. Things like ‘card cans’ which are meant to handle cotton slivers. But as luck would have it, the company did not succeed in marketing card cans. So it had to think of some other use for the plant. Sintex diversified into industrial containers - for storage, transportation, processing and material handling. It became a decent sized business. In 1975, Sintex did a turnover of Rs 3 lakhs. The next year the company did twenty lakhs, then sixty lakhs. In 1977 they had achieved break even. “So we thought why not use this process for making something which has a bigger application?” And thus both a water tank and an enduring philosophy was born. 302 24_A Sence of Owenershipedit10july.qxd 7/19/08 4:38 PM Page 303 A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP The moment one product stabilises, think of something new! But how does one come up with ideas? “We had a rotational moulding plant, which is very good for making hollow articles, especially large ones. The shape reminded me of a water tank. So I thought, why not try that product.” Of course, a lot of thinking went into the design and market analysis. They talked to government officials, water bodies, building research institutes, building organisations - all kinds of people. Everyone expressed the need to look beyond cement and steel water tanks. However, when the company conducted a market survey it found that there was no market for plastic tanks. At least not at the price proposed by Sintex. But Dangayach believed in the product. Sintex defied conventional thinking and went ahead. Willing to lose money in the initial period, if necessary. There were no other competitors, which was both good and bad. Sintex created a new product category altogether and spent the next 4-5 years doing aggressive marketing. Side stepping the obvious target group and focusing on actual end users. “Architects are the people who design buildings. So we talked to a few of them to get a reaction. We soon realised that architects are very individualistic and artistic kind of people. They did not like the idea of an oddly shaped black tank on top of their buildings!” So Dangayach decided to address a different kind of user: the government. There was a mandate from the government of India to look at substitutes for cement and steel, so sarkaari departments were willing to look at Sintex. Structural engineers and project engineers were also more open to change, because of the bad experiences that they’d had with the other tanks. Meanwhile through advertising and publicity Sintex kept building up public awareness about the plastic tank being leakage free and corrosion free. There were issues of hygiene, contamination and also the effect of cement tanks on the building structure. It’s hard to believe for those of us who grew up in a later era and saw Sintex tanks on the top of every building. We never stopped to think whether they were ugly! We simply accepted that water has to be stored and this is the way to do it. It pays to push an idea ahead of its time if you genuinely believe it addresses a pain-point with your customer. Getting the initial momentum may be an effort but then it simply takes off! It was a difficult five-year period. Even as Sintex water tanks were 303 24_A Sence of Owenershipedit10july.qxd 7/19/08 4:38 PM Page 304 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH in the ‘educate the customer’ phase, the industrial products business continued. But that's the interesting thing about Dangayach. There's a bee in his bonnet that keeps buzzing. “If you ask me, I have been a serial entrepreneur. We have come up with new things every 2-3 years and there are quite a few things that we are doing that we couldn't have imagined 10 or 15 years ago. So it is the question of coming up with something different, something that is challenging, that is creatively satisfying.” Dangayach believes an entrepreneur must constantly play the role of ‘trinity’. On the one hand you have to realise which products are not working or declining and eventually get rid of those lines. Simultaneously you need something which can sustain the current revenues and something which can be big in the future. So from industrial products to plastic water tanks - what next? Sintex decided to get into another building related product. Something which could be a substitute for timber and wood. In 1984-85, the company created a whole new category of products based around plastic extrusions and then forayed into plastic doors, partitions and windows. “We succeeded in doors, we succeeded in the profiles that can go for paneling and partition. But we did not succeed in PVC windows. It has been almost 20 years and we are still struggling with plastic windows”. PVC windows are the number one windows worldwide - in the US, UK, Germany, China. Dangayach hasn't lost hope yet. The market just wasn't ready. “First we positioned it as a higher end product, then we positioned it as an energy saving window, then we positioned it as something which can substitute aluminium. We said it is going to be colourful, it is going to be better, etc etc. So far we have not succeeded. It has been a dormant line, just doing marginal business.” Twenty years of struggle with this product, and yet he isn't quite ready to give up. And maybe he will be proven right. With energy conservation becoming a central issue in building design, the plastic window is poised to take off once again. The ability to take risks, the courage to admit your mistakes and the gumption to 'think big' are the hallmark of any entrepreneur. And Dangayach has all those qualities. He's not stuck to the idea of plastic, for example. The next big thing, he thinks, is prefabricated buildings. These could be PVC, concrete, metal or cement sandwich panels. 304 24_A Sence of Owenershipedit10july.qxd 7/19/08 4:38 PM Page 305 A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP 305 “We are realising that we need not be stuck to one set of materials. We are now material agnostic and technology agnostic. The key thing is to work in areas which are appropriate for the overall environment and which will have a very good future”. Already. Sintex is a leader in small to medium sized prefabricated structures in the country. Prefabricated schools, prefabricated houses, prefabricated medical centres - that is what Dangayach believes is the future. And as the original business of water tanks becomes hypercompetitive and commoditised, one man can sleep without any worries… Clearly Dangayach is the prime thinker and mover at Sintex. What kind of technology should be selected, what product lines, what marketing strategies, what finance should be brought in - he is integral to everything. So what is the role played by the owners? “We don't have a structured understanding but there is a tacit understanding that I am a person with an entrepreneurial bent of mind. The promoters - Mr Dinesh Patel and Mr Arun Patel - share a very good chemistry with me. That chemistry gives them the confidence that here is a guy who is not going to give a wrong suggestion.” “And obviously I have got the necessary reasoning for it. It may not be a very long report. We sit for half an hour, an hour, relevant questions are shared and we take a decision. Often it is a very informal decision taken over a cup of tea or lunch. Within fifteen minutes, we decide that this is what we want to do, fund calculations are made and naturally, periodic meetings are held as well.” That's the kind of rapport few partners in business share these days - not even brothers! Another milestone for the company was a private equity investment “I have a very simple mantra which is to combine four I’s. The first I is Initiative. Second I is Intelligence, correct choices. Third is Industry, which is obviously hard work. Fourth I is Integrity. I work with total integrity. If I take up something, either I will give my whole of it, or I will not take it up.” 24_A Sence of Owenershipedit10july.qxd 7/19/08 4:38 PM Page 306 STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH by Indocean in 1998-99. The fund, headed by Pradip Shah, zeroed in on Sintex as they believed it would grow in value. And that further value would be unlocked over a period of time. At that time, the turnover of Sintex was around Rs 170 crores. Indocean wanted Dangayach to be with the company as a ‘promoter’. “The agreement mentioned ‘us’, meaning the owning family (the Patels) and I.” “So at that point you became more of an official owner,” I ask. “No, I am not an owner,” he reiterates “But you have an ownership stake.” “No, it is very nominal. But, I behave like an owner. The point is that even without the ownership, you try to bring in the best to your job. That is what I have been doing… Money is not very important to me in my personal life, barring a certain level. Money has never driven me, or what I will be doing next.” It's the ‘open format’ of work which excites Dangayach. And the format has worked for all concerned. Some years ago the company changed its name from Bharat Vijay Mills to ‘Sintex’, taking advantage of the brand name recall enjoyed by its most famous product. This year the Sintex plastics division will cross Rs 1000* crores in turnover. 70% of the company’s revenues come from this division. The remaining comes from the textiles division, which is managed by the Patel family. “We have divided our responsibilities. That is why all of us have space and all of us have independence and autonomy. I have autonomy in my domain. We must have made many wrong moves. And we have made some correct moves. Overall we are doing alright.” A typically understated statement! Apart from the fantastic symbiotic relationship Dangayach has sustained with his promoters (or ‘venture capitalists’ so to speak) it's fascinating to observe how his mind works. Every product idea he thinks of is linked to macro trends. With prefab, the vision is linked to the idea of affordable housing. And to make prefab more viable Sintex has pioneered a method of rapid construction. Utilising a plastic former, they created the idea of ‘monolithic concrete construction’. All the walls, the roof, the partition, the loft - everything is cast in one shot. It is literally casting the house on the construction site, in one single shot, out of concrete. * Sintex Industries’ net profit was Rs 216.33 crores on total income of Rs 1700.26 crores in the year ended March 2008 306 24_A Sence of Owenershipedit10july.qxd 7/19/08 4:38 PM Page 307 A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP An entire floor can be completed in 4-5 days. The method has been implemented in Ahmedabad, and other areas of Gujarat. There is a mandate from the government to construct 10,000 such houses in Delhi. Given the focus on slum redevelopment in all major metros, this could be a huge opportunity. It is, Dangayach believes, the most cost effective method of creating mass housing. As with the water tanks, it is the government which is adopting the innovation before the private sector. An insight which could benefit other entrepreneurs. Dangayach adds: “See, the government today is the biggest buyer. Within government, I would say some of the engineers, some of the key decision makers, are as efficient and open to accepting new ideas as in the private sector. From my experience I can say that on many occasions it is easier to convince them.” As for ideas, Dangayach admits he's had a lot of pet projects which have not worked. “Solar water heating is very dear to my heart. I have been thinking that we should be giving cost-effective, affordable, solar water heating solutions in the country. Copper was very expensive so we thought why not make it out of plastic. I designed such a product with the help of my team. We made the panel out of black plastic as it absorbs better.” The water tank for the heating system was made out of plastic as well. It resulted in a sizeable business 3-4 years ago. The company sold 10-12,000 units a year. But servicing and issues like installation and leakage became problems. So the product was withdrawn. But it is now being relaunched. “My idea was that if Israel can have solar water system in every house, Turkey can have, Greece can have, Cyprus can have, why not at least in some parts of India which have abundant sunshine and similar temperature profile?” You would think, to achieve all this, Sintex must have a crack R & D set up. The reality is, a small team makes it happen. “Many a times, I am functioning as an ideation man and as a designing person. I am a ‘fraud engineer’ (grins), so I also help with how an idea has to be taken through the process of engineering, and converted into a product. I also look at the after sales service aspect.” “If a solar water heater does not work for two days, the housewife is generally going to make a noise about it. So there are going to be quality issues, there are going to be service issues. We need to go through all that, but I don't have a big team.” 307