Vellayan Subbiah, the Executive Vice Chairman of Tube Investments India (TII) and Chairman of Cholamandalam Investments, transformed TII, a 70-year-old manufacturing company, into one of India’s leading engineering comp.es that has seen its stock climb 13x. He is also credited with growing Chola Group’s market capitalisation 60x over the course of his 15 year tenure. A highly accomplished fourth generation family business leader from the 135 year old Murugappa Group, Vellayan was recently named the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year, one of the very few Indians to be so honored.
On Day 2 of the 13th edition of INSIGHT: The DNA of Success, Vellayan shared his unique perspective on how he grew his comp.es: “So here’s the basic math: if you compound your business at 26% a year, over 10 years, you’re 10x. Over 20 years, you’re 100x. What are you doing to compound yourself? Are you compounding at 26% a year? Three decades of compounding means you need to be 1000x better person than you are.”
Vellayan said unless the leader grows in his capabilities, in his energies and as a human being, it is not possible to grow an org.zation successfully. “The two feed off each other and build on each other: where the org.zation goes, where you go.” He chose Isha Foundation more than a decade ago as his platform for personal growth. “The kind of path I have found here makes me recognize how much the human being can evolve. I started with Isha the same time I started with Cholamandalam. If it wasn’t for Isha, I don’t think that company would have compounded and continued to compound at that rate- nor the second and the third (comp.es).”
Earlier in the day Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Co-Founder of Urban Company, shared his own journey in establishing Urban Company as the home services industry leader in India. Bhal believes that creating value through one’s business is a much more sustainable way of doing business– rather than focusing solely on enhancing business profitability. “To provide a livelihood platform that will unlock people’s potential became a calling for me. I articulated this vision firstly for myself & then for the company,” he said. Urban Company has a major presence in Singapore, the UAE and Australia and has till date served over 5 million customers.
Bhal emphasized the importance of painting “a vision much larger than yourself” to inspire employees and stakeholders to buy into the org.zation’s vision. “People will not work for you, they will work for the vision. Our vision is to have a million service professionals with a high-quality dignity of life,” he said. And he has found the right balance between pragmatism and idealism. “We have given ESOPs/stock options to more than 1500 (full-time) employees till date and 500 service partners. Over the course of the next decade, I want to give stock options to 5000 employees and more than 10,000 service partners. At the heart of it is a philosophy that if the employee feels that they have ownership in the company, they will operate like owners and owner operators are very, very different from task doers.”
C.K. Venkataraman, MD of Titan (a Tata Company), spoke about Innovation and Culture, two watchwords that have defined the Tata Group for more than a century. A Tata veteran, Venkataraman told his audience that in every sense of the word, the management, employees, franchisees and all stakeholders associated with Titan consider themselves “a family”. “In Titan, very easily we use the word family. The franchisee would say Titan family. The security guard would say, we are all one family. The employees would use it. So it is like second nature for us to think like that.” He said it is a legacy that has been painstakingly built and internalized in the org.zation so much so that every employee’s family feels they are part of a large extended family. He believes that this sense of belonging has been one of the major contributors to Titan’s growth and success.
Sadhguru Academy is currently hosting the 13th edition of INSIGHT: The DNA of Success at Isha Yoga Center, Coimbatore, from 21–24 November 2024. Day 2 of INSIGHT also included a Kalaripayattu performance from students of Isha Samskriti. Kalaripayattu is considered the mother of martial arts. Samskriti students invest 12 years of their lives learning the art.
INSIGHT: The DNA of Success is a four-day residential program hosted annually by Sadhguru Academy at Isha Yoga Center Coimbatore. It is designed for entrepreneurs and business leaders and led by Sadhguru and some of India’s most iconic business.
