ET-500 curtain raiser: India Inc's quiet heroes

If proof is needed that actions speak louder than words, then one need not look beyond the clutch of companies featured in ET 500. Silently but surely, these firms, ranging from financial services to commodities, have made a mark for themselves through their sterling performance.

When Madhukar Parekh took over the reins at Pidilite Industries from his father some 35 years ago, it was just another small firm manufacturing industrial adhesives and pigments.

At that time, hardly anyone would have imagined that Mr Parekh would go on to not only dominate his segment but also create popular brands such as Fevicol and Feviquick that have a pan-India appeal.

Narendra Murkumbi’s is a similar story. At a time when his peers saw opportunity in the dotcom boom, Mr Murukumbi decided to cut his teeth in the sugar industry, a sector perceived as highly politicised and fraught with risks associated with a cyclical business. A decade later, Mr Murkumbi has managed to script a new story, having created a multi-billion dollar sugar empire spread over two continents.

A closer look at these two disparate success stories shows a common thread - both Mr Parekh and Mr Murkumbi played their cards quietly and patiently. Even when they made it to the pole position in their chosen industries, the two continued to maintain a relatively low profile; no tom toming of their feats and no seeming hurry to hog media space. And, they are not alone. India Inc is replete with business leaders who have continued to march on nary a fuss.

This year’s ET 500 issue profiles some of these 'quiet performers' who over the years have delivered value to their stakeholders, be it shareholders, creditors, business associates or employees, without any fanfare. These are companies that showed enough aggression and rigour to grow their businesses rapidly during the boom while not being found wanting when it came to being nimble and flexibile during the slowdown.

The virtue of quietness

A glance at the latest ET-500 rankings reveals that there are many well-known and high-profile companies in the list. Their executives and board members are often seen, read and heard. These interactions are helpful to various interest groups such as shareholders, investors and academicians to understand and track the strategies of successful leaders.

However, there are others who tend to maintain a low profile. Our interactions with top executives of several of these companies helped throw up interesting reasons as to why they chose to shun the spotlight. One obvious reason is that many of these leaders believe that action speaks louder than words. As Asian Paints' MD and CEO PM Murty puts it, “We do not have to worry about how often we are heard as long as we deliver worth to our stakeholders. Our focus is on how well we take advantage of opportunities around us.”

Some executives believe that adopting a quiet and low profile helps them communicate better with their staff. It leaves them enough time to be accessible to their employees. And improved accessibility means fewer communication gaps, higher employee involvement and lower attrition.

A quiet demeanour also helps leaders promise less and deliver more, since the pressure to walk the talk is lower if the talk itself is secondary in the first place. In fact, minimum media interaction is part of a broader organisational policy for some companies such as oral healthcare leader - Colgate-Palmolive .

Each of the quiet performers who feature in the latest edition of ET 500 operates in a highly-competitive environment. The aim of our interaction was to understand better as to what helped them sustain their growth and expand in the face of stiff competition from both the organised as well as the unorganised sectors in some cases; and to gain some insight into their thinking that would propel them to the next level of corporate excellence, their strategies and their succession planning.

source: ET