Fighter pilot in search of the Big Idea

LUNCH WITH BS/RAJ JAIN

Raj Jain is looking for ideas that take less than Rs 100 to implement. His wish list is pretty simple: the idea should add value to his company's refrigerators and washing machines; it should appeal to the homemaker: the woman of the house; and the cost should never exceed Rs 100 a product as anything more than that just isn't worth it.

The I-word is a passion for the 45-year old managing director of Whirlpool India. "Our products are for the masses, so the ideas should ideally come from the masses. Typically, innovative ideas start at the top. We have been successful to turn that around on its head," Jain says with boyish enthusiasm.

We are at The Imperial's Coffee Shop for a rather-early lunch at 12.30 PM because Jain has an important meeting two hours later. The Imperial is his favourite; its old-world architecture gives him a feel of Lutyen's Delhi and, more importantly, it's just a mile away from Pataudi House where he spent his childhood. "I get a whiff of those wonderful days when I come to this hotel," Jain says.

He feels sad that the face of Pataudi House "" which had a row of government quarters (his father was a bureaucrat) in the heart of Delhi "" has changed forever.

Jain orders Blood Orange "" a rather awkward name for an innocuous drink like iced tea "" and Greek salad. The young chief of the country's largest refrigerator and second-largest washing machine maker compares his job to that of a fighter pilot in a war zone. The competition is intense and, therefore, margins are thin. So cost control, new technology and working on short and nimble cycles is the mantra.

"One has to work as if there is no tomorrow," he says, and proceeds to give an example. A couple of months ago, when one of its competitors suddenly reduced the prices of its low-end refrigerators by Rs 500, Whirlpool had to respond instantly. The easiest option was to not do anything and the toughest option was to go for a similar price cut. The company could afford neither.

Jain remembers how his think-tank went into a brainstorming session that lasted till late into the night until somebody came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea, which didn't cost the company much, and was possible to implement with immediate effect.

Whirlpool, which used to give a seven-year warranty for its refrigerators, simply increased it to 10 years. "That's the kind of idea I would die for," says Jain.

Working in an industry where there are "no tomorrows" means a 12- to 13-hour work routine everyday, which he feels has led to "shortchanging" his family at times. He tries to compensate by occasionally playing golf with his son and tennis with his daughter in the backyard of his house in Delhi. He is a keen golfer and, by his own admission, a fitness freak.

The constant fire-fighting at work also means he has no time for books and doesn't remember when he last saw a film.

Summer vacations are, however, sacrosanct. Last year, he had a whale of a time on a cruise to Barcelona and, this year, is planning a tour to Australia. "Like all middle-class parents these days, we also want our children to get a taste of some of the most beautiful places in the world," Jain says.

His days at Pataudi House, he says, have taught him middle-class values "" something that he diligently tries to inculcate in his children. "I think I have succeeded to a great extent. My school-going children feel embarrassed to carry a cell phone and go to school in a car," he says.

The Greek salad looks quite heavy and comes after a pretty long wait and two reminders, and Jain smilingly wonders whether the restaurant mistook the salad for the main course.

He joined Whirlpool seven years ago as executive director (marketing) after a 16-year stint in the ultimate factory of Indian managers "" Hindustan Lever "" and gratefully acknowledges its contribution to his development as a professional manager. He was the first candidate to be recruited by Hindustan Lever from the Delhi College of Engineering as a management trainee.

The initial days were tough since Lever, as part of its time-honoured training routine, sent him to a village in Etawah on his first assignment. "It was a remote village and I had to live for months on end on arvi."

The next assignment was in Kandla where he had to set up factories manufacturing products as varied as lipstick, face powder and soap. He obviously did a good job because his seniors told him he was a "lister", which in Lever parlance was somebody who had a great career ahead of him.

So the next posting came as a disappointment "" a distant village called Khamgaon in Maharashtra where he had to spend three years. The company was setting up a factory there and he was put in charge. The job was challenging; so were the living conditions. The nearest telephone booth was 35 km away and in those days one had to wait for more than two hours to get a phone call through to Delhi. So, his Sundays were reserved for making a phone call to his parents and his fiancee in Delhi.

The assignment had other fallouts too: he had got engaged just before his posting at Khamgaon, and was crestfallen when his fiancee almost threatened not to marry him if he continued to live in that god-forsaken place. Fortunately for him, she chose not to carry out the threat.

"The tough assignments, however, made me what I am today. Thanks to Lever, I understand hard-selling in the dusty streets of small-town, real India," Jain says with great satisfaction. He would rather do the sweaty, sticky stuff of going to consumers' homes in the "real" India rather than strategising in the rarefied atmosphere of a boardroom.

For the main course, Jain wants a kathi roll, but settles for a grilled sandwich. For some strange reason, the restaurant calls it a "built-up" sandwich. The rather innovative name, I thought, has been selected with great care because of the large helping.

Jain also remembers fondly his three-year assignment at the Port Sunlight village near Liverpool in the UK. The village, which houses Lever Brothers' oldest factory (built in 1881), is responsible for the name Sunlight "" one of the company's most enduring soap & detergent brands. The entire village still retains the flavour of 19th-century England, and the external façade has been preserved with great care. Quite unlike Pataudi House.

Jain left Lever (he was heading the company's south Indian operations from Chennai) for two reasons: he was bored with the bureaucracy of a well-established organisation and wanted to experience the challenge of a start-up. Besides, he was itching to come back to his roots "" Delhi.

The journey from an executive director to the CEO's post at Whirlpool has been a great learning experience. In the mid-1990s, Whirlpool got off to a rocky start in India. It set up huge production capacities and then bought out Kelvinator, getting custody of the brand for two years.

The challenges were many: high-cost structures, huge debt burdens and a bloated workforce (the manpower count has been whittled down to 2,500 from the original count of 8,600). The foremost need was to build the Whirlpool brand, which involved a huge brand-transition exercise.

Whirlpool is not out of the woods yet (it posted a net loss of Rs 6.71 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2003), but Jain is upbeat.

Consumer durables marketers, he says, have not operated in a more favourable environment for a long time now, with inflation below 5 per cent; an outstanding monsoon; falling interest rates; and rising rural incomes. He expects the B- and C-class towns to be the drivers of sales growth.

Jain can't finish the "built-up" sandwiches and has no time for a dessert because he is already late for his 2.30 meeting.

The fighter pilot's search for ideas will probably continue till late in the evening.