Being sustainable more important than being number one, but try to be in top 3: Vallabh Bhanshali

"But being number three and lasting a long time is a great strategy. We have a company which has consistently done that which is Nestle and enough has been written about it. Instead of wanting to become Unilever or someone else, they have said alright let them be number one, but we are very happy number two or number three and they have got sustainability concept. We need it in the capital markets. My interim mantra was always let us be amongst the top two or three," says Vallabh Bhanshali, Chairman, Enam Group

Boardrooms are dominated by terms like market share gain, profit maximisation, scalability and market capitalisations. We have the G20 presidency. Do you think G20 is the biggest platform for us to showcase the importance of Indian culture, purpose, tradition and how they can be connected?
I do not have a good understanding of G20 as to what its priorities are and therefore the opportunities within those priorities. However, I think the whole position that India has taken is that the world is one family. I read in a recent interview in the New York Times that Mr Jaishankar has talked a lot about this. So it would be wonderful if Mr Modi could position our Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (whole world is a family) concept as that one expression covers sustainability better than any other expression.

Sustainability by expression is Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam or Atithi Devo Bhava (Guest is God). When the unknown comes, you welcome it and you respect it like a deity. India’s time has come and I have spoken on previous occasions on your channel about it and one way is to look at it in a very existential manner . Everyone has a chance. It is India’s chance after many hundreds of years is one way to look at it.

Second, all ancient cultures get tested from time to time. We got tested for hundreds of years and we have passed the test and therefore again it is our chance as the nature of things is to be cyclical. G20 leadership is here only for one or two years at most, but it is India’s responsibility rather than opportunity. I would say that having been the beneficiary of this amazing cultural contribution of so many sages and on that we develop a modern language, we develop compassion. We have to get the message across in a very compassionate manner.

I would think that is the real responsibility much more than opportunity. Opportunities are not always to be taken; we need discretion much more than opportunity. It has Warren Buffett and Munger stamp and on the other end, there is Buddha.

You have incubated a lot of businesses, you have been part of lot of advisory boards but if you really have to connect the dots here and overarch it with the philosophy of tradition, culture and purpose, what do you think is the missing link with Indian entrepreneurs?
I would not want to generalise all of them as such but while more is always better, growth when it loses its direction, becomes cancerous. That is the laxman rekha that we need to understand better.

Primarily I would say that there are many businesses which have taken the path of sustainable long-term growth. Munger said something very nice; he said if there is going to be a test once every few decades, what matters is passing the test, longevity being the greater test of success and excellence. Oce that is adopted, then you have growth as a tool to last that long rather than growth for the sake of it.

The mantra is to make it lasting and then words like meritocracy, justice, inclusiveness become more important. That is how the west has come to the word sustainable. I think it is a lot more complex. Mmaybe we need a simpler explanation for the underlying theme but if there is a lingua franca, we work with it and therefore substituting longevity for size is more popular.

If I may request you to share your thoughts on purpose and how to draw a line because the compulsion of today’s entrepreneur, if you are in the listed space, is quarterly numbers. If you are backed by a private investor, it is compulsion to meet targets. So again it has to be defined with the aim of profitability and sustainability?
This question of more being good is the real riddle. Most people either have a dream or an idea which they want to try out and then they get resources and the resources have terms and therefore your dream gets perverted to some extent by the additional terms that come. Then you become larger, more and more in terms of public markets and regulations.

The primary driver for individuals to create something is already overtaken or is amended by various constituencies that come on. Different forces are necessary in a society for the society to remain balanced but whenever one force becomes too powerful, it reduces the ability of all the other forces to function.

For example, we all talk about expression or the freedom of every individual and I believe that is the most important thing but who looks after this freedom? Is it a teacher or someone like a teacher or is it a finance person, is it a political person, is it a scientific person? Over the last 200-300 years, it has been the money man.

So, in America you talk about this deep state. which is the defence and the pharma industry who are hidden behind. So for many of the political and diplomatic stances of the country, their bottom line is money. Now this is not visible. There is Covid and we have so many stories coming out that vaccines needed to be pushed and we do not know what is right really.

There are so many controversies about it that why the temperate world economies which happen to be more prosperous today do not have enough answers for decisions that are in the tropics and therefore millions of people continue to die, but greater billions will go into research or something which affects only a hundreds thousand people in a big society.

The whole purpose gets directly indirectly affected by the collective force of money. The money itself has become purposeless because more has become better and therefore in a way, in today’s world, I see more hope that children at the younger age are asserting their dreams. Even if it is a small minority, this can become a counter force to this lack of purpose.

The number one power hates anyone coming too close and we are seeing it all the time because they know better. They do not think that you know better. But being number three and lasting a long time is a great strategy. We have a company which has consistently done that which is Nestle and enough has been written about it.

Instead of wanting to become Unilever or someone else, they have said alright let them be number one, but we are very happy number two or number three and they have got sustainability concept. They have absorbed it much better. We need it in the capital markets. But my interim mantra was always let us be amongst the top two or three.

Why is that necessary? It is necessary so that you are conscious of what are the new developments, what consumers expect, what regulators may be expecting. That makes you a better organism, better entity and you do not have to be number one and therefore you can avoid a lot of the transgressions that come from anyhow becoming number one.

I think I have seen at least a few companies in my career who understand this purpose. Warren Buffett gave an interview to Charlie Rose sometime back and he was asked what gives him happiness. He said if I could make the same money by himself it could not give me that much happiness as it does when I am able to do it with so many more people whose trust I enjoy, who enjoy my trust; my life is lot more purposeful because instead of just making that money by myself, I am doing it in a more purposeful manner. He is one of the few people who has gone the farthest in the west in understanding this purpose.