Mukesh Ambani (Indian): Founder and Chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and JIO is the richest person in Asia with a net worth of $80 billion and has a conglomerate that saw $61 billion in sales over the last year with branches that extend across the Indian economy. Businesses include petrochemicals, retail, plastics as well as JIO. As articulated in the AGM, JIO is now India’s largest mobile telecom provider with 430 million subscribers.
Rakesh Rathi is based in Europe, winner of multiple awards including the Presidential award and has rock-solid background – Engineering (Mumbai, India) and MBA (IMD, Switzerland), global professional experience (Europe, US, APAC) of 30 years across multiple industries and verticals in senior executive roles engaging with global C-suite clients.
Excerpts from Mr Ambani and Mr Rathi on scaling businesses through automation and aligning business KPIs with digitization & technology.
Indian Economy – Optimism!
Mukesh Ambani: The India that we will see going forward will be very different from the India few years back. In 1992, India was $300 billion economy, today India is $3 trillion and fundamentally this whole progress has happened in the back of technology. And that is the reason for my optimism. For this, all our people and all our enterprises have to be enabled and empowered with the necessary technology infrastructure and capabilities. This is JIO’s purpose, this is JIO’s ambition!
Rakesh Rathi: Look, the numbers are promising. The World Bank & IMF have estimated India’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth to be in range of 7.5 to 12.5 % during FY 2022. India is the leading sourcing destination across the world, accounting 55% market share of the $ 200 billion global services sourcing business in 2019-20 with every large global organisation having a CoE (Centre of Excellence) and/or Shared Service centre in India. Exports from the Indian IT industry are expected to increase to reach US$ 190 billion. The Indian smartphone market recorded an 18 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth in Q1 2021, with shipments totalling 38 million units. Indian born intellectuals have risen the ranks of corporate and are CEO’s of global firms like Sundar Pichai (Alphabet, Google), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Arvind Krishna (IBM), Vas Narasimhan (Novartis), Raghu Raghuram (VMware), Indra Nooyi (ex-Pepsico), Srikant Datar (Dean, Harvard Business School). For sure, there are challenges since India is a big country with 1.3 billion people, however we have seen often that resilience is one of their best qualities and that is the reason for the exponential rise of the middle-class.
Industry Disruption
Mukesh Ambani: Well, I think in terms of disruption the advantage that India has is that the world itself is $80trillion (India is $3trillion) and is being disrupted. We undermine the power of technology, what it will do. I have grown up in the era of scarcity. The technology is moving us towards the path of abundance. I have no doubt that age of oil will be over by next decade and renewable energies will take their place.
Rakesh Rathi: Nowadays, 24/7/365 is expected from customers i.e quick turnaround of products and services – where and when they want at a low cost for individuals, B2B and B2C. This rapidly changing customer behaviour is the catalyst and technology is the driver in ALL of them. Every industry/vertical has been disrupted in the last 10 years due to the “E-“ wave (e-banking, e-commerce, e-mobility, e-booking, e-learning, e-teleworking et al). The strongest digital disruptors – Amazon, Google, Uber and others – do not focus on just one type of value. They employ combinatorial disruption, which is so potent because the above values are mutually reinforcing.
Digital World v/s Real world
Mukesh Ambani: The way I see the world, they both combine. All the 3 big issues Agriculture, Education, HealthCare will get complete transform when you have a platform which combines the digital and the physical world. Let me start with our first Hypergrowth Engine – JIO which is our digital service initiative. JIO is now the undisputed leader in India with the largest customer base, the largest share of data and voice traffic and a world-class next-generation broadband network that covers the length and breadth of our country. Jio’s vision stands on two solid pillars. One is Digital Connectivity. The other is Digital Platforms.
Rakesh Rathi: Digital driven by technology is the backbone of all business functions and we are looking at a seismic shift in the scaling of digitization, at a pace never seen before. Technology spend is expected to increase to over $2.9 trillion by 2021. We have had 10 years of digitalization and business transformation accelerated in the last one year alone due to the pandemic primarily combining People, Process and Technology. In the same way that 4G made it possible to digitalize the consumer market, 5G will digitalize the enterprise sector. We survived the current global pandemic since it was digitalization which led to Work from home (WFH), tele-medicine and allowing us to being in constant touch with family and friends. We are just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to scaling business with customer-centric digitalization and technology!
Entrepreneurship
Mukesh Ambani: Reliance was founded as a start-up (even before start-ups became known). My father founded Reliance with a table and chair and Rs 1’000 (five decades ago). Then it became a micro industry, a small industry and today it is a large industry. Fundamentally, every small business and entrepreneur has the potential in India to become a Dhirubhai Ambani or a Bill Gates. Power of entrepreneur is in their power of ideas and innovation. It is not capital. Capital will be abundant for the right entrepreneur. Give them the opportunity. JIO connectivity platform was implemented in India by our 25,000 Indian engineers. Our young Indians, have the potential to win the world.
Rakesh Rathi: There’s never been a more exciting time to start a new business: consumers aren’t just open to new innovation, they’re craving them. Expectations have been raised across the board. However, it’s also never been more competitive. The barriers to entry for starting a new business keeps getting lower, as technology becomes more accessible and user friendly. Starting a competitive business is not easy, and scaling it is even harder. For budding entrepreneurs…surround yourself with smart people, dream and think big and be customer-centric.
“Indian born intellectuals have risen the ranks of corporate and are CEO’s of global firms like Sundar Pichai (Alphabet, Google), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Arvind Krishna (IBM), Vas Narasimhan (Novartis), Raghu Raghuram (VMware), Srikant Datar (Dean, Harvard Business School), Indra Nooyi (ex-Pepsico)” – Rakesh Rathi
Fourth Industrial Revolution:
Mukesh Ambani: India missed the first and second industrial revolution. We participated in the third and we can lead the fourth. What 4th Industrial revolution does is it multiplies your intelligence and does that very rapidly. I think the simplest way of thinking about this is that the first, second and third revolutions multiplied our muscle power. Whatever we could do earlier, now we can do with 1000 more impact. The difference in the fourth revolution is this should be defined by principles of humanism and equality.
Rakesh Rathi: The 4th Industrial Revolution will be heavily influenced by technology and involves a systemic change across many sectors and aspects of human life. It will foster a more empowering, collaborative, and sustainable foundation for social and economic development.
India v/s China?
Mukesh Ambani: The difference between India and China is we are democratic and we believe equality for all our 1.3billion Indians. For me “India First” really means at a personal level. I would like to use all my resources, my good fortune to make sure that India is amongst the top in the world.
Rakesh Rathi: I think instead of comparing India v/s China, we should look at them jointly (i.e India + China). Both the countries are major source of outsourcing in services and manufacturing respectively. Wealth creation is moving to Asia. Asia accounts for 51% of the world’s billionaires and has for the first time more billionaires than the rest of the world combined. Diplomacy is the need of the hour in these challenging times to foster growth in the Asian subcontinent given they collectively have 2.5+billion people i.e a huge growing middle-class customer market with disposable income.
Data Colonisation
Mukesh Ambani: I think the world will have to move from an aggregator to a distributor model. The age of oil will be over in next few decades and we will have renewables, solar in the next-generation era. In the 90’s the biggest companies were GM, Exxon, Bank of Americas whereas now the new kids on the block are Apple, Facebook and so forth. And these are only 10 years old. No-one actually predicted their growth.
Rakesh Rathi: Data protection and privacy compliance is paramount, particularly given “data is the new oil”, as can be seen from the tremendous growth of FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google).
Millennials – Gen Y
Mukesh Ambani: My daughter Isha went to Yale and returned to India in 2010. On her return, Isha said “Dad, the internet in our house sucks, At Yale, we do everything on the internet and I cannot do this at home in India”. JIO which is a brain-child of our 30 year olds at Reliance. For me the next-generation is not only my children but also the 30 year old’s at Reliance.
Rakesh Rathi: About 600 million people i.e more than half of India’s population, are under 30 years old; no country has so many young digital savvy people. They make up the world’s largest ever cohort of like-minded young people, and they see absolutely no reason why the world shouldn’t run by their rules. We need to make sure, we can channel their immense energy into positive development models.
Success v/s Failures
Mukesh Ambani: For every 10 things I have done, I have failed 6-7 times. But the 3 times I have succeeded has motivated me to continue. It is better to fail early and learn fast. Perseverance and a never give up attitude, always helps. Rely on partnership, have empathy, built trust and relationship. Think of every mistake as a learning opportunity. If you believe it is not about products and profits, but really people and their continuous reinvention of their capabilities, that is the strength of the organisation.
Rakesh Rathi: You never fail, you either succeed or learn. Learning propels you to even bigger wins. Take calculated risks. Shoot for the moon, even if you miss it you will land among the stars…and that’s absolutely fine!
Globalisation
Mukesh Ambani: I am big believer in First Principles. It is very important for me to do things step by step. We have taken 3 decades to build our business in India. We invested over 250’000 crores in India. We still think we are an Indian company. To go global, we should have something unique to take it to the world. Once we have that, we won’t hesitate to do this.
“JIO connectivity platform was implemented in India by our 25,000 Indian engineers. Our young Indians, have the potential to win the world” – Mukesh Ambani
Rakesh Rathi: Technology has connected our lives in incredible ways and is bringing us closer. Cosmopolitanism is no longer the monopoly of the intellectual, leisure classes or developed world! It is becoming the established property and defining characteristic of all sectors. An open economy with an economically healthy middle class and strong and stable institutions can benefit everyone.
India and FDIs (Foreign Direct Investments)
Mukesh Ambani: Our new and esteemed foreign partners in JIO includes Google, Facebook and investments from some of the most admired technology and financial investors – Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, TPG and L Catterton. We will work with them to develop new products for India and Indians.
Rakesh Rathi: Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has been a major non-debt financial resource for the economic development in India. FDI inflows in India during April – Dec were $65 billion. Recently, US tech giant Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai announced that it has setup a ‘Google for India Digitisation Fund’, through which it will invest $10 billion in the country. Similarly, JIO has raised $20.5 billion from multiple investors in 12 weeks. We should do better and for this the government should take additional concrete steps to improve our World Bank ranking on “ease of doing business”.
“Earlier, we announced our Google for India Digitization Fund, an effort to invest $10 billion. Our investment of $4.5 billion in JIO is the first — and the biggest — investment we will make through this fund“ – Sundar Pichai
Technology, Digital Scaling and Mobile Connectivity
Mukesh Ambani: In the next three years, I can see a strong path for JIO to connect over a half a billion mobile customers, over a billion smart sensor and over 50 million homes and business establishments. I have great pride in announcing that JIO has designed and developed a complete 5G solution from scratch. And because of JIO’s converged, all-IP network architecture, we can easily upgrade our 4G network to 5G. Once JIO’s 5G solution is proven at India-scale, JIO Platforms would be well positioned to be an exporter of 5G solutions to other telecom operators globally, as a complete managed service.
Rakesh Rathi: Great…JIO’s journey is amazing and inspiring! Telco’s move to ‘4G’ (fourth generation Wi-Fi) was the digital game-changer since it led to faster, global connectivity. This impacted everyone ….. individuals & enterprises and paved the way forward (Wifi6, 5G et al). SMAC (Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud) powered by IoT/AI/ML would accelerate next-gen automation. Cloud automation is by itself expected to reach $200+ billion in 2021, similarly other technologies as well, so the scale is huge. Enhanced Customer Experience (CX) would drive this.
“SMAC (Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud) powered by IoT/AI/ML would accelerate next-gen automation. Cloud automation is by itself expected to reach $200+ billion in 2021“ – Rakesh Rathi
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Mukesh Ambani: Both Nita and I have been passionate about Education. We really want to setup an institute of higher education, at-least lay the foundation of the world-class university. With JIO, we have connected 1-9 million schools, we have revolutionised the connectivity. We are working on it.
Rakesh Rathi: CSR can benefit key social sectors such as Health and Education particularly in the rural areas. It is also very personal; everyone has their own way to contribute to society. In a very small way, I have been fortunate to support couple of schools for underprivileged (extremely bright) kids in rural India. Along with few friends, we have setup a computer centre in the schools which provides virtual digital tutorials. It has been a humbling experience. The kids in these schools are so hard working, it was only a matter of providing and training them with digital educational tools.
Family Values …..how does one stay humble and grounded?
Mukesh Ambani: I have said this many times before, I have gone beyond labels. I have learnt from my father; it seems like yesterday when I came back from Stanford. We were ordinary. It is important to go through experience. At heart, I was born middle-class and we have stayed in our Gujarati middle-class values. Those really have never gone out of us and fundamentally that is a good thing. The small pleasures of life never go away. All of us are human beings and I very proud of the middle-class values which you inherit and the values you live and enjoy the simple pleasures of life.
Rakesh Rathi: I grew up in humble beginnings….no silver spoon and extremely limited financial resources. One of the lessons learnt from my parents was “Do the right thing, not the easy thing”. Family and friends keep me grounded. For me, at times, even a trek in the mountains has a way to keep me humble since it makes you question yourself, your strength, your physical ability and mental capacity for such an endeavour. Also, I play sports often with my kids and believe sports help us understand and appreciate our limits, how to handle wins with humility and losses with dignity. However, humility should not be viewed as weakness or sign of insecurity, on the contrary humble people are quite the opposite—confident and competent in themselves. Hope my kids realize that it is not how much we have, but how much we share with others, that makes happiness.
Inspiration:
Mukesh Ambani: For all of us at Reliance, the source of inspiration is Swami Vivekananda, who said: “Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.” My father used to say “Agar soch badloge toh kismat badlegi” (If you change your mindset, you will change your fortune).
Rakesh Rathi: My parents have played a very important role in shaping my personality and in helping me become who I am. I have been inspired and influenced by different people at different times, but if I were to choose one, it would definitely be my dad…. always calm, composed, focused and an epitome of simple living, high thinking!