The Freedom Trust (Foundation for the Rehabilitation, Empowerment and Education of the Disabled of Madras), associated with the Madhuram Narayanan Centre (MNC), assessed the disability of the special children of the centre in July 2006.
A child assessed by the Freedom Trust at the Disability Camp held at Madhuram Narayanan Centre.
Dr S Sunder, Managing Trustee of the Freedom Trust, a specialist in Physiatry, chose to apply it for treatment of special children using physical methods, avoiding drugs or surgery. He said, “we also study how to prescribe a
calliper or artificial limb to suit the needs of each child.” At MNC, physiotherapy training is part of the curriculum. The Freedom Trust also works in the field of pain relief and provides orthopedic appliances after a two-stage process of assessment and prescription. The assessment camp enabled the children’s parents to know the importance of Physiatry and also understand the need for physical activities.
It was a meeting of minds when Philip Kotler, S C Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing and Bala V Balachandran,
J L Kellogg Distinguished Professor of Accounting and Information Systems and Decision Sciences, both from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA, met The Sanmar Group Chairman N Sankar on 16 July 2006 at Chennai.A distinguished gathering of business and other dignitaries attended and interacted with the Professors.
Marketing guru Philip Kotler in conversation with N Sankar.
N Murali, Managing Director, The Hindu, N Sankar, Bala V Balachandran and C K Ranganathan, Managing Director, CavinKare, seen with Philip Kotler.
Francois Vuillemin, Sanmar Speciality Chemicals, Europe
“Er… sorry, could you respell the name of your company for me please?”
Well, that’s fame for you. Not that this famous question is entirely new to me, but when I started working in fine chemicals nearly 15 years ago (sigh…), it usually came in a different context. (You wouldn’t imagine how many different spellings - the name “Hoechst” could have for a non-German speaker.) But there you have it. As exciting as the perspective of starting a regional office from scratch might be, the amount of spadework needed to have this question simply disappear from phone conversations is not to be underestimated. Then usually comes: “Oh, so you’re an Indian company…” which can mean virtually anything from very encouraging to quite the opposite (of course, tone of voice usually gives it away). To explain why, you have to go a little way back in time.
It was in the mid -90s that Indian chemical companies started to have a serious impact on the European fine chemicals market. As I experienced at that time from the European side, this impact usually took the form of your business being suddenly stripped from you by an undisclosed competitor usually referred to as “India”. Most of the time, traders aiming at quick commissions had approached customers and under-quoting by 50% was not rare. You could sometimes capture your business back by working hard on your costs. Still, numbers of processes that had not been continuously optimised for lack of competitive pressure, simply moved, very quickly, to Indian suppliers, at that time.
Nowadays, most European companies have learned how to use the best of both worlds, and most major players have sourcing offices in India. In the newest segment of the industry (biotech and discovery companies, for example), establishing relationships with Indian material or service suppliers was the norm from the start. I always found the European chemical industry less insistent on buying from home than its American (not to mention Japanese) counterpart.
On the other hand, for medium-sized players in the fine chemicals and pharmaceutical areas, there can still be a perception that an Indian supplier getting a bit too interested in one of your raw materials doesn’t abide well.
This is exactly where a local office fits in, and where we are back to spelling names! If any, reluctance comes from this black-box-syndrome - not really knowing who’s there, not being able to put a face to a business
partner, or differentiate between companies’ names, capabilities and business styles, not to mention cultural factors; none of which improves when dealing via a trader. Hurling, cricket or rugby? Not that I would consider myself an expert in decoding Indian-European cultural aspects just yet… but the team did its best to make me feel part of it whenever I came over, so let’s say at this stage I could probably understand business signals reasonably well.
(I have good hope of picking more local social lore as time passes, although I’m afraid cricket will be a tough nut to crack… I might have a look, at some stage, but I’m still not done with hurling, the national sport of my wife’s home country (Ireland). Also, in 2007, no other sport than rugby will capture my attention, as the long anticipated World Cup beckons and hopefully France reaches the final in my home city of Paris).
Back to our business phone calls, a good hint that things are proceeding well is when you get to: “Ah, so you are actually with Sanmar, not a trading company…” the recognition there should be no smokescreen in communication. Optionally, you might reply with “You see, we’ll just do business together like we always did, only, the plant is just a bit further away…”
For, that’s the way it is…
Making the Sanmar name better known on the European fine chemicals landscape isn’t everything though. There is also the small matter of generating business, and fast, to support SSCL’s energetic growth plans. In some areas of this industry, particularly pharma, being selected for an early project might usually mean you have a 30% chance to deliver large quantities 5 to 7 years later - something we don’t really have time for. So, efforts sort themselves quite naturally between pursuing short-term opportunities, earlier projects, and laying foundations for longer-term recognition. Soon enough, commercial support will add-up as well (actually we’re well underway with a couple of large scale businesses already).
Put everything together and you get a pretty busy diary. Then again, the beauty of it lies in its variety. Not many activities allow you to jump from research to sales to legal, HR and corporate communications (hmm... I’d have to include secretarial…) within a single working day. I have managed large teams in the past, and although the HR part of it is a reward itself, you invariably end up delegating the exciting part of the work (in my function: striking commercial deals) to develop and maintain your team’s motivation, so it feels nice to get the fun part once more.
Working on your own isn’t for everyone though. Fortunately, business development means a lot of your office time is spent either doing market or chemical research, (something that you definitely need concentration for), or on the phone to people (spelling the name of your company…). So at this early development phase, working solo suits fine. Of course, one occasionally misses the all - office buzz.
But hey… if everything works out, there might well be more of us soon...
Cheers from the Paris office!