Mr. Munjal is the Joint Managing Director of Hero Motocorp Ltd, the world's largest motorcycle manufacturing company. He is also Chairman of Hero Corporate Service, the Corporate and Business Expansion arm of the $ 4 billion Hero Group.
He was the past president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), India's premier business association, and heads the National Council for Economic Policy.
He spoke with The Asian Voice during a recent CII conference in London, and started out by talking about the ongoing transformation at Hero Motocorp. in Indiaarm of the $.
“Ours used to be a joint venture with Honda for 27 years. Three years ago, we bought them out of the company as part of our vision to become a global company” Mr Munjal told us.
He said his company was executing its global vision in various ways, including: setting new standards in cost and efficiency, future- proofing its technology, strengthening footprint and capacity, fostering innovation across the value chain, and bringing in good talent.
“We built one of the world’s largest green rooves on top of one of our factories. Our garden factory in the arid state of Rajasthan uses sustainable technologies to become resource-neutral,” he added.
Hero Motocorp is present in more than 20 countries, and hopes to penetrate more markets in the coming months. The company assembles its products in Africa and Bangladesh, and is setting up its own manufacturing facility in Latin America.
In addition to the motorcycle and scooter business, the Hero Group has other interests in the manufacturing and the services sector. There is a steel business, and an aluminium foundry, which does automotive components. There is also insurance, training, real estate, financial services and clean energy.
Mr Munjal told us that many of these businesses, which are privately-held—are being scaled up, and some have the potential of going global.
“We also support education and healthcare in a big way,’’ Mr Munjal said.
The Hero Group manages not-for-profit medical institutions, colleges and schools in North India.
“We have our own manufacturing school under the aegis of the Indian School of Business, and a deemed University that has been set up in partnership with the Imperial College of London,’’ he added.
Hero also promotes sporting events. It has been involved in superbike racing in the US, and is now supporting various golfing events around the world. It sponsors India’s soccer and hockey leagues too.
On India and the UK, Mr Munjal stressed that India has grown from being the seventh or eighth biggest investor in the UK 15 years ago, to being the second largest.
Under his leadership, his group grew a Scottish business, HeroTSC, to become amongst the largest Call Centre companies in the United Kingdom. The workforce went from 1400 to 6,500. “We have provided value and created jobs in a tough environment,’’ Mr Munjal said.
On the improved economic outlook in India, Mr Munjal said it was because of a combination of strong political leadership, the rise in aspirations, and the gradual uptick in the business cycle.
“After a few years of slow growth, expectations are high... this is a challenge, and a huge opportunity—perhaps the best we have had in 30 years—to make our economy a genuine powerhouse.’’
We asked Sunil Munjal about his expectations from the new government, and he welcomed the sense of urgency.
“I like the focus on project management; growth comes from execution and development, not announcements,’’ he said.
Mr Munjal praised attempts to spring-clean archaic rules and regulations. “Many of them came from British times when a minority was trying to run a country that was primarily against it. So the rules are based on mistrust. They automatically assume that the citizen will do the wrong thing. Their interest and that of the government was misaligned,’’ he pointed out.
The government needs to believe that people will do the right thing with the right environment. Industry will do the right thing too because Indian industry wants to stand up and be counted globally.
The physical interface is where friction, delays and corruption take place. If these are eliminated, there is enough energy to move the economy forward dramatically and also addresses our biggest challenge; the 250 million in poverty.
Minimise the interface between the government, industry and the citizen. Whatever interface is necessary, get it automated,” he said.
“Part of the Indian genetic code comes from doing business- we’ve been doing business for 8,000 years. But over the past 250 years, we stepped back. We need to own that space again, allow individual enterprise to flourish; we need to release the energy which already exists in the country and people of India.
Just like companies are about customers, governments are about people. Once we have a government that is people-centric, we will get leadership in all walks of life,” he said.
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“Release the energy that already exists in the country and people of India.”
