In the early 1990s, when Rajan Nanda took over from his father, Har Prasad Nanda, as chairman of Escorts he faced a daunting challenge. The group had a number of businesses and was in search of its core competence. Over the years, the group has identified three focus areas: cellular telephony, agriculture and healthcare. They might have little in common, yet, for the Escorts group, all three are core. The group has over half-a-million cellphone subscribers, one of the most profitable healthcare operations in the country and a sizeable presence in the farm sector. Escorts is now looking at opportunities to grow in all three areas. Sitting in his spacious office at Faridabad, the 50-something Nanda spoke to Bhupesh Bhandari and Partha Ghosh on his plans and his recent strategic initiatives.
Q: What is this fiscal looking like?
It has been a very abnormal year. The negative sentiment in industry and the markets has continued, and the third year of recession has been established. This has not been a year of any surprises. We are working towards preparing our company to combat the recession. Any company can only add value to business by adding markets. That is the only way we can bring more business to our company.
So, in market terms, we have performed reasonably in relation to the downturn in the market. We should be improving our market share in tractors. We should also have a 45 to 50 per cent growth in the cellular business. Our healthcare business has grown very well, and continues to do so. But our profits have taken a dip because of higher capital engagement under competitive pressures. And our interest cost has had an impact on our bottomline for the short term. But that
