The acoustics and lighting are just perfect at the Rostrum,not surprisingly given the Bose speakers in the artificial ceiling which is made of sound dampening fabric and the two on the side of a giant greyboard,the 12 studio lights and 2 spotlights. Im just checking to see if there are more,when,fresh as ever,Bharti Enterprises vice-chairman and MD Rajan Mittal walks into the conference room of his spacious Vasant Kunj office120 people sit in an office he insists is a lakh square feet,though it looks many times over that. Were here to talk retail over a cup of tea,and biscuits which both of us refuse,but talk expectedly spills over to families getting into business since nephew Shravin joining the family business is plastered over the newspapers. Were a business family,not a family business,Mittal emphasises,the conviction just slightly reduced by the folded hands over his chest,the classic defensive posture,going by body language texts. Whats the difference? Family businesses are mom-n-pop shops; even if bigger,they dont have any professionals or transparencyBharti,he says,is run by professionals; it has audited balance sheets and the usual transparency associated with a firm its size. But why not,I ask while refusing delicious-looking cookies,let professionals run the company,divorce ownership from management. I cite the usual examples like the Dabur family councils. After all,since families grow in geometric progressiontwo brothers with two kids each will,if they have two each as well,be 8 in Gen 3 and 16 in Gen 4while a business grows only in arithmetic progression. The hands unfoldMittals more confident nowand says firms run only by professionals tend to stick to the plot given to them. They rarely take bold decisions to venture into new areas. Telecom comes naturally to mindwith the licensing regime so uncertain,how many non-family firms could take a decision to venture into it? Bhartis model,of entrepreneurial decision-making but professional management,he insists,is the best for a market that is still maturing. A bit like Sehwag and Dravid,he says. Its the first time Ive heard of the duo being talked of in the context of management,but if people can use the Mahabharata to do this,why not cricket? He adds the Shravin episode has been overblown since hes just an employee and chooses not to dwell on his two sons,17 and 15,except to say he went to see the soccer world cups in 2006 and 2010 and supported Arsenal since his son does. Not so fast,I try to pin him down again,hasnt the whole diversification drive failed? Bhartis still essentially a telecom firm,the retail is hardly to be seen,the airport-led infrastructure drive hasnt taken off,nor has insurance. Mittals tea remains unsipped as,with the practiced ease of a table tennis playerhe played for the north zonehe gets the ball back to my side. Telecom,he says,looks larger than life after Zain but,by 2020,it will be 50-60% of the business. Infrastructure,he concedes,hasnt taken off but the farm venture has got a new avatar of its own (brother Rakesh looks after it) and retail looks slow but is on target. By the end of the year,there will be 150 stores in 3 formats adding up to around a million square feetwell on course to meet the 10-year target of 10 million square feet and $2.5 billion of investment. So retail is ready for takeoff? Yes and no. Yes,his plans are working well,but theres no way,he underlines no way,retail can take off unless FDI is allowed and big players allowed to come in. This is important since,he explains,its not just about his partner Wal-Mart putting in more equity. Over 60% of the logistics for big retail in Brazilwarehouses,trucks,cold chainsare run by third parties. Mittal can set up a cold chain in Punjab or north India,but he cant do it across the country. And that applies to all retailers. No ecosystem,no Big Retail. The eventual diversification plan,he says,depends on lots of moving partsthe Prime Ministers push for FDI in retail a few days ago,one presumes,could be called a moving part. Telecom comes into the picture again,naturally,and Mittal talks of how the group did well even when telecom infrastructure couldnt be shared but how it is more economical to grow with independent tower firms since it lowers capex and therefore allows firms to tap low-paying customers in rural India. Does Mittal have a view on the fact that consultant after consultant projected organised retail would have 12% of the market by now while the actual figures only 4% or less? In the early 1990s,the consultants said,he cites the other side,Delhi would have just 7,000 mobile users! The plans are mans,the odds are Gods,I presume. Is Ficci worth it,I start concluding,considering hes travelling a week in a monthto the US,the Middle East,the UK and China later this month. Mittal talks of how hes giving back to industry what industry has done for BhartiI just about stop choking on my second,by now cold,cup of tea and talk of how,while he talks of the governments skilling mission (as does CIIs Hari Bhartia),senior people within Ficci (ex-colleagues and friends of mine) tell you the initiative is going nowhere. Mittal keeps a straight face while he says struggling is part of life. How has Bharti managed so many partners,and most of them happy? Changi,Mittal says,was the only partner that ever left the group,and at the mandap at thatit was too late to even find anyone else while bidding for the airport. On that note,Mittal gets up to walk into another airport. I hop across the corridor to see the Piazza where Bharti declares its results and holds video conferences with suppliers,staffers and agents across the country. There are even more Bose speakers here.
