Zen and the corporate art

Yet, for all his religiosity,Parvinder has been anything but conventional. From being a distinctly inward-focused company, relying more on reverse-engineering of pharmaceutical products a euphemism for the theft of processes developed and patented overseas, Parvinder transformed Ranbaxy into an outward-looking firm concentrating on original research.

Today, with 75 m invested overseas and a fourth of Ranbaxy8217;s Rs 1,400 crore turnover emanating from foreign ventures, Ranbaxy is truly a multinational. Singh is now banking on a four-fold hike in turnover over the next five years to come primarily from new drug molecules discovered by his Ramp;D team. Today, with Ranbaxy8217;s profits increasing, close to 4 per cent of its sales turnover is dedicated to Ramp;D.

Parvinder8217;s interest in science goes back a long time. After all, he had done a doctorate in industrial pharmacy in the US. It was this background that made him so different from his father, Bhai Mohan Singh, who had wrested Ranbaxy from two Delhi chemists, Ranjit Singh and GurbakshSingh, when they couldn8217;t repay a loan he had given them.

Father and son had a very serious spat in the early 90s, which culminated in Parvinder bundling up Bhai Mohan Singh8217;s papers from his Ranbaxy office and sending them in a truck to his father8217;s home on Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi. Bhai Mohan Singh has made no secret of the fact that he resented his son8217;s close relationship with his business associate, Davinder Singh Brar, and his move to induct Brar to the company8217;s board in 1991. The patriarch felt that Parvinder should have groomed one of his own sons to eventually take over from him, instead of preparing the grounds for Brar8217;s eventual succession.In a series of interviews given soon after he announced that he was stepping down as the CEO of Ranbaxy, Parvinder maintained that his sons would have the opportunity to work in the company and rise through the ranks, but they couldn8217;t head the business just because they were his sons. Brar, he said, had proved his mettle many times over and was actually theman who steered Ranbaxy in its foray into global markets.

The move has clearly agitated Bhai Mohan Singh. 8220;Pammi was brilliant in his science,8221; he told The Indian Express,8220;but his management skills were polished in the boardroom of Ranbaxy. This is an opportunity he is not giving his son, Malvinder, who8217;s 27, has an MBA from the US, and has already spent two-and-a-half years in the company.8221; Bhai Mohan Singh maintains that in a company with 6,000 employees, 8220;two persons of a family on the board does not make it any less professional8221;.

In his personal life too Parvinder is something of a recluse, with very few friends. DCM8217;s Vivek and Arun Bharat Ram, with whom he shared an apartment while studying in the US, figure in that small circle. Parvinder is also a man of very spartan tastes, and in his early days at Ranbaxy would often travel to office in an Ambassador car even when the family had several foreign cars parked at home. In fact, even today he has a Mercedes which has seen a few winters butrefuses to have it exchanged for a spanking new one as 8220;this one serves the purpose8221;.

He employs a similar manner when it comes to public speaking. Thanks to a series of public awards that has come his way in recent years, Parvinder has had, albeit reluctantly, to climb the podium every now and then. While he has on occasion depended on one-time journalists like Jairam Ramesh and Murad Ali Baig to write an effective speech for him, Parvinder is still more comfortable talking about Ramp;D, a subject upon which he can dwell for hours on end.

The same spartan approach has marked his financial dealings. While some of his fellow industrialists have been known to siphon off company funds, Parvinder has followed a strict financial regimen. His only human weakness, company insiders say, is a fondness for paintings and a penchant for wildlife photography. As a manager, Parvinder is believed to be a bit of a visionary, but not someone who could, on his own, translate this into corporate success. The driving factorbehind Ranbaxy8217;s exponential growth is believed to be Brar Singh8217;s friend, confidante, tennis partner and long-time colleague. In fact, key decisions at Ranbaxy have generally been made only after Brar has okayed them. Over the years, Brar8217;s influence within the company has actually increased and today it is his writ that runs.

With the responsibility of taking Ranbaxy into the new millennium now on Brar8217;s shoulders, Parvinder is slowing vacating the centrestage. After mending fences with his father, Parvinder, who is diagnosed to be suffering from cancer of the oesophagus, has already moved out of his Aurangzeb Road home to a three-acre farm in Rajokri on the outskirts of Delhi. While his family worries about whether it will be able to gain control of Ranbaxy once again, Parvinder appears to have become truly detached. He remains true to his new spiritual mantra: professional managers in place of progeny.