BUSINESS BATTLES
Family Feuds that Changed Indian Industry
Shyamal Majumdar
BS Books; 176 pages;Rs 350
Indian industrial history is full of exciting experiences of pioneering entrepreneurs who built their empires from humble beginnings. Their keen eye for spotting attractive opportunities and smartness in building business out of them led to the creation of many well-known brands. But several of them crumbled under the weight of ego, greed and poor communication, all created by themselves. Some of them linger, more like poor shadows of their rich past, while others have fallen in the dust, never to rise again. Unfortunately, they reinforce the relevance of the saying, "Shirt Sleeves to Shirt Sleeves in Three Generations".
Shyamal Majumdar has included in this book 10 case studies of such family businesses that were stars in the 1970s and beyond. His focus has been to put together the bits and pieces, the told and untold stories of well-known business families, primarily from northern and western India. Across the case studies, a combination of factors has contributed to their downfall.
While the Ambani brothers, who were rock solid as a unified group, cracked into two parts not long after their father died due to several areas of differences between them, the fight between the Chhabria brothers was based on mistrust that grew out of misplaced assumptions. The book also has cases on the tyre major Apollo group and pharma leader Ranbaxy, with similar storyline of differences erupting between two strong personalities. In both the cases, differences between father and son grew out of control, enmeshing siblings and the subsequent generation. The much- publicised battles in the extended Bajaj and Kirloskar families from Maharashtra are also full of powerful messages.
Some of the case studies show the failure of a family business leader as a true trustee of the wealth of the family. Either because of their love for their children or greed for money and power, they stooped below socially accepted norms of behaviour of leaders. The story of the fall of the once invincible Usha-Shri Ram group from the pinnacle of success to the bottom of the rung as a non-entity within a few decades is not only shocking but humiliating. The break-up in the Modi group is like a dynamite that uprooted the foundation of the group that lavishly flourished in the Modinagar.
Sadly, groups that should have been driving the changes of transformation of India struggle to find their feet in the crowded bottom rungs of corporate hierarchy. Mr Majumdar should be credited for compiling these case studies.
Most families studied here drifted towards destruction over a period of time, under the influence of greed, poor communication, individual ego, lack of shared family values and honesty. Across the families, two things were common when the fissures started appearing: affluence and poor family governance. This is a deadly combination for family members to pull apart at the drop of a hat. As Mr Majumdar conveys in case after case, these rich families lacked enlightenment and a larger goal, not for want of education but wisdom and long-term perspective. Interestingly, in several cases including BPL (T P G Nambiar) and the Modis, personal relationships seem to have become normal by now, but the price such families have paid while going through unending emotional trauma, lost business opportunities and resultant actual depletion in wealth is phenomenal.
The book should be read by everybody interested in family business. They should sit back and ask: why does it happen? How can it be prevented? While there have been similar books abroad (for instance, Family Wars by Nigel Nicholson), this seems to be the first such book in the Indian context. The narrative is generally very good, to be expected from a senior journalist such as Mr Majumdar.
The author seems to have intentionally stayed away from analysing the case studies. This is a gap that he should have avoided. A concluding chapter that synthesises the analysis across the case studies with discussions on the conclusions would have elevated the book to a scholarly level. It would have taken the reader beyond searching for answers to curious questions. In fact, in a couple of chapters, he has wandered into generalisations, but unfortunately, those did not turn out to be a great idea.
Most chapters look complete, given the author's limitations in publishing information without evidence, even if he knows a lot. The author starts a discussion on "what drives families apart", but does not develop the discussion to any level. Overall, this book of 176 pages can be read out of curiosity to know the dark side of the fallen industrial emperors and/or to understand and analyse the many "whys" involved.
The reviewer is executive director, Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise, Indian School of Business
