The Unusual Billionaires – Saurabh Mukherjea - Review

When I ask how many companies over a period of 10 years hit a consistent revenue growth of 10% and ROCE of 15% amongst 5000 listed Indian companies. What will be your answer?

I was awestruck to know the right answer to be only 7, here is the list:

*Asian Paints

*Berger Paints

*Marico Industries

*Page Industries

*Axis Bank

*HDFC Bank

*Astral Poly

Clearly, simple attributes are not easy to sustain over a really long period of time and this is a striking example.

Saurabh tries to identify the pillars behind the success of all these 7 companies with wide spread parameters like consistency of management / board, importance of high quality talent, reliance on IT as an enabler for faster growth along with efficiency, capital allocation, discipline to stick with their core business line, advertisements, relationship with dealers / suppliers, deepening competitive moats and innovation.  

Of all the case studies, Asian Paints was highly impressive. It’s a firm that began it’s journey from rural to urban India while the rest have all started largely from metropolitan cities. When the entire paint industry was focusing on industrial segment for their business, Asian Paints aspired to create a  new market segment in the residential space. Back in 1950’s or 1960’s, the practice of painting everyone’s home was not even in existence. However, AP got their first leg into the market by supplying paint in small tin cans that can be used to paint bull horns during festivals.

Back in 1954, AP was also amongst the first few companies to use mascot to pictorially identify their brand. A clear indication that their vision from the very beginning has been far ahead of it’s competition.

 AP always tries to hire the best talent from B-Schools which is pretty much standard across the other companies as well. What was not so prevalent was the empowerment of these professionals and letting them take ownership of their product lines. In an era wherein promotors dominated or had a final say in most of the business decisions, this was a clear leap in AP’s thought process.

Of all the attributes, the one that follows is stunning to say the least. AP’s approach of using mainframe computer back in 1970’s for demand forecasting was a massive leap in terms of how much ahead they aspired to go in terms of establishing themselves as a market leader.

Moving on to Berger paints, I was bowled over by the level of trust that BP has earned over it’s dealer. Over 50% of the dealers don’t even check their accounts with respect to BP but almost all of them scrutinize the transaction details of other paint companies. It takes decades of honesty to get here.

What about humility of the CEO’s despite their massive growth? Astral Poly’s revenue is close 20,000 crores but even at this stage Sandeep Engineer (Founder / CEO of Astral Poly) chooses to have roadside tea with his dealers whenever an opportunity presents itself. Do I have to say more?

I don’t like to disclose too many details as that may take away the fizz or the joy of discovering the details during a read. But it praiseworthy that Saurabh’s team has taken the effort to pull such massive amount of data, speak to the key decision makers of the all the seven companies and get the real life story of 7 great companies out through this book.

Judgement: Excellent read!