‘A good leader should be a day dreamer’

Sumant Banerji, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, April 25, 2012


He is nearing 70, but Onkar S Kanwar, chairman ApolloTyres is like his company — fitter than ever before. Operating in an industry beset with old technology and archaic business ethos, he has successfully managed to steer the company to the position of India’s first global tyre manufacturer, with two overseas acquisitions — South Africa’s Dunlop in 2006 and the Dutch Vredestein in 2009.


 As he says, leaders should lead from the front. Excerpts:

How do you define a leader? A good leader has to be a visionary. He should be able to define the vision clearly, strategically and motivate people towards achieving it. He also has to lead from the front. The critical thing is that he should be able to get his people excited about his ideas so that they give more than 100%.

What are the three most important traits of a leader?
There are certain basic values that are a must. Top of the list is the ability to communicate directly, efficiently and unambiguously. He also should have basic integrity so that nobody can point fingers at him at any given point in time. Also, he should be transparent and not scheming.

As the head of the Rs. 10,000-crore Apollo group, how do you cultivate leaders?
I have always believed that my people are more important than anything else. They are my true assets. One of our greatest success is that we work as a team where goals are shared. We invest in people and make them part of the decision-making process. There is responsibility on them and that makes them leaders in their field.

What is the role of a professional in a promoter-driven company like Apollo?
I am not driving the company. Only overseeing it and conducting board meetings. It is driven by our 16,000 employees across 3 continents and rightly so. Almost 54% of this firm is owned by FIIs and banks and I am answerable to them. Apollo tyres is not run on the basis of my whims and fancies but thorough professionals who take smart decisions. I always used this chair as a trustee. Within the company, people have been promoted and treated on merit. That explains why the attrition rate among senior professionals at Apollo is zero.

What is the role of a leader at a time when  macro-economic indicators are uncertain and growth cannot be taken for granted?
I think it is only in these times that you can differentiate a good leader from an average one. When the going is good then it is relatively easy and everybody is growing. But when times are tough that is when one needs to show courage and innovate. Every crisis presents an opportunity and a good leader is excited by it. We at Apollo are very bullish and it gives us extra motivation to keep growing in a challenging market.

What is more desirable, a charismatic larger-than-life leader or a low profile one?
Both are necessary. There has to be a balance. What is more important is that one should be a day dreamer. Dreams in the night are of no use. One should have dreams during the day so that you can think out-of-the-box and act on it. Whether it is with charisma or by quietly working, is irrespective.

Deep Focus

Are women leaders tougher bosses?

Talwar: it’s all in the mind
Men are conditioned by the cultural and social traditions to be tough while women are conditioned by society to nurture and cooperate and accordingly human genes have evolved. Naturally, women are likely to be team builders and communicators than using the command-and-control style of leadership.

Despite likelihood of a male being the tougher boss, the popular perception remains that women are tougher.

Since the workforce at senior levels is dominated by men, the classic male leader — tough and authoritative — is the popularly acceptable persona. Women, who rise to leadership positions, sometimes are forced to assume ice-queen persona to be taken seriously.

However, a reasonable style of leadership could be viewed as “tough” by the segment, which is accustomed to be led in a certain way.

(Sangeeta Talwar, MD, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB))

Agarwal: integration
The presence of women leaders in the corporate hierarchy is getting increasingly prominent across the globe. While the trend had started long back in the West, in India it has taken its time to make a beginning but has covered a lot of ground since then.

There seems to be a divided opinion on whether women are the tougher bosses or not. The toughness of the boss is irrespective of his/her gender. It is attitude of the leader, which leads the team to success. Ultimately, I think every manager or leader stands or falls depending on his/her skills.

Since, it depends on person to person and scenario to scenario, it is difficult to predict an exact behavioural pattern. Therefore, an integrated approach with both qualitative and quantitative aspects would give a better grasp of the dynamics and complexities that prevail in this topic.

(Manoj Agarwal, CEO, Bigshoebazaar (brand owner of Yebhi.com)

RBI ask banks to allow customers intra-bank account portability

Earlier, banks used to insist that customers go through the account opening procedure all over again when they shifted to a different location.
TNN | Apr 28, 2012, 05.10AM IST

MUMBAI: Bank customers who change jobs or locations will find it easier to shift their bank account to the new location now. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made it mandatory for banks to allow transfer of accounts from one branch to another without insisting on opening a fresh account or making the customer undergo the full know your customer process again.

Earlier, since the account holder's information was maintained with local branches, banks used to insist that customers go through the account opening procedure all over again when they shifted to a different location.
 

"It has been brought to our notice that some banks are insisting on opening of fresh accounts by customers when customers approach them for transferring their accounts from one branch of the bank to another branch of the same bank. Such insistence on opening of fresh account or making the customer undergo full KYC process again causes inconvenience to them resulting in poor customer service," RBI said in a circular to all banks. The circular added that given that most bank branches are now on core banking solution, records of a particular customer can be accessed by any branch of the bank.

An official with a new generation private bank, however, said, "We provide 'at par' cheque books to our account holders, which means that the cheques will be treated as local cheques no matter which part of the country they are deposited in. So, it really does not matter if the home branch is in a different city."

With all banks having put in place a core banking solution ( CBS) through which all account holder information is maintained in a centralized database accessible across branches, ATMs and internet, the home branch concept has lost relevance. But some private banks charge high fees for services accessed outside the home branch. For instance, most new generation private banks charge a fee for cash withdrawal at branches other than the home branch. Also, some lenders insist that changes in account services or document submission has to be done at the home branch.

In its monetary policy on April 17, RBI had asked banks to have a central customer ID to facilitate portability of accounts and ensure that all customer information is centralized. Some banks are seeing this as a precursor to having a central identity which will help customers transfer accounts across banks without having to repeat the KYC procedure.

"Banks are advised that KYC once done by one branch of the bank should be valid for transfer of the account within the bank as long as full KYC has been done for the concerned account. In order to comply with KYC requirements of correct address of the person, fresh address proof may be obtained from him/her upon such transfer by the transferee branch," RBI said.

Banks report over 100 home loan frauds in three months

BL:27 April 2012

Call it a double whammy for public sector banks. Housing loan frauds have crossed the 100-mark in just three months this year. To top it, the amount under write-off (including compromise) for all categories of loans has increased alarmingly.

The Government tabled two sets of data in the Lok Sabha on Friday indicating that banks need to pull up their socks to improve their working. There is apprehension that non-performing assets (NPAs) may increase when banks start announcing their financial results for 2011-12.

In a written answer on home loans, the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Namo Narain Meena, said the Reserve Bank of India had no specific information about home loan scams at any public sector bank. To curb incidents of frauds, the RBI had advised banks to introduce a system of concurrent audit, he said.

The Central Bank had also asked banks to review the working of internal inspection and audit machinery by the audit committee of the Board of Directors. Banks were also advised to constitute a special committee of the board exclusively to monitor frauds of Rs 1 crore and above.

However, a senior bank official said that lack of facility of online inspection of property documents besides other issues help fraudsters. Another senior bank official did not rule out connivance of bank staff and builders.

HEAVY WRITE-OFF

A set of data shows write-offs (including compromise) up from nearly Rs 7,000 crore (March 2009) to over Rs 17,000 crore at the end of March 2011. Banks resort to write-offs only after exhausting all other possible avenues for recovery or when the asset coverage is not enough, Mr Meena said.

According to RBI guidelines, banks should either make full provision or write off such advances and claim tax benefits.

While bankers claim that extra caution in due diligence is taken in all kind of loans, things become difficult when there is too much political pressure to write off or compromise.

Fake notes made in Tamil Nadu with Pakistan’s help'

 Apr 29 2012 11 44 IST By HM Chaithanya Swamy | Place Bangalore | Agency DNA.

The police have learnt that those involved in circulating fake currency notes in the city have been infusing the fake ones through foreign nationals who come to the city to pursue education.

Interrogation of two persons arrested on the charges of circulating fake notes in the city in February led the police to this information. The police have identified the kingpin of the racket as one Ravi, of Tamil Nadu. There is little information regarding his whereabouts.

City police had on February 13 arrested Mohammed Hafeez Aneef, 37, of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Vijay Kumar, 25, of Tamil Nadu, when they were on a shopping spree on Brigade Road, paying with fake notes. Even as their three associates managed to flee, the police seized fake notes of Rs1.5 lakh.

During interrogation, Aneef told police that he is a broker, who arranges seats for Sri Lankan students in Bangalore colleges. He said he had ties with medical, engineering and other colleges.

It was in Tamil Nadu that he met Ravi, who even paid towards their accommodation in the city. Haneef said that then he did not know Ravi was using counterfeit notes.

Further, Aneef revealed that Sri Lankan students taking admission through him used to exchange their Sri Lankan currency with Ravi, who used to give them fake notes.

He said that the students chose to exchange their money with Ravi instead of the government’s exchange counter because Ravi used to give them more for their money than its corresponding value in Indian rupee; it is an altogether different matter though that the students were not aware that in lure of more, they were getting fake notes.

Based on the information given by Aneef and Kumar, a team of Ashoknagar police went to Tamil Nadu to arrest their gang members and Ravi.

Ravi is said to have contacts in Pakistan and is reportedly getting fake notes manufactured in Tamil Nadu. The police said they were yet to ascertain who was supplying the raw material to the culprits for fake notes.

Ashoknagar police stayed in Tamil Nadu for more than 15 days but could not get much information about Ravi as his gang members keep shifting their base. Many people told police that Ravi was hiding in Malaysia.

After returning to city, the police learnt that Ravi stays in India but keeps travelling abroad frequently. The police have not been able to trace his passport. An officer part of the investigation said they were finding it tough to crack the case as the local people were not spilling the beans about the culprits even though they have the information.