“Collaboration key to Social Innovation”

Hitachi is moving beyond being just a solutions provider to becoming a customer-centric organisation, where customer empowerment and customer centricity will drive the growth of the nation, placing it at par with some of the vigorously growing economies in the world, says Bharat Kaushal, MD, Hitachi India. In a conversation with Corporate Citizen, he explains why it is critical to pool resources, collaborate and innovate together, for the sake of humanity

“Digitisation is radical, as it can bring in the much-needed inclusiveness and a true social transformation for a nation as vast and complex as India”

You are the first Indian to spearhead Hitachi India’s operations. How has the experience been for the Managing Director of the 110-year-old Japanese tech company?

Joining Hitachi is like wearing many hats, encompassing different roles, challenges and opportunities where every hat you wear gives you a different perspective and experience altogether. By taking this decision, I have set a tough task for myself to adapt a steep learning curve. After working for 25 years in the investment banking sector, I took this challenging opportunity on June 1st, 2017 to be the first Indian head of Hitachi India and feel truly honoured to be appointed at this position.

India is a stratagic and emerging market for Hitachi. I believe that my experience in promoting cross-border business relationships between the Japanese and Indian governments and companies is a unique advantage for Hitachi to achieve un price dented growth. With strenuous efforts, I am working towards aggressively expanding Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business, developing novel solutions and drawing upon Hitachi’s wealth of technologies and expertise to provide a diversified range of information technology solutions in various industrial sectors, empowering the citizens of India, transforming the landscape of Indian economy and aligning with India’s growth.

Tell us about your educational background and career.

Prior to Hitachi India, I was chairman of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), a Japanese multinational banking and financial services entity, in India. At SMBC, I was the first non-Japanese to hold the position of chief executive officer when I was elevated to the post in 2012. A specialist in investment banking, corporate finance, government advisory, debt restructuring and mergers & acquisitions, I was with SMBC for 20 years. After graduating from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, my professional career began in the early 1990s as Relationship Manager at ANZ Grindlays Bank Ltd. I completed a Master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University during 1996-98 and an MBA from Northeastern University, Boston.

Two leading Japanese conglomerates with global footprints hired you as the first Indian to spearhead their India operations. What are your thoughts?

I am an inherent believer in creating an environment of trust in all relationships. Once you trust people working with you, you can delegate work and responsibility but taking that first step is crucial. Trust begets trust. I experienced this first hand in my career. Two major Japanese conglomerates-first SMBC and now Hitachi-trust-ed me as the first Indian to head their country operations in India.

How was your experience in your first job at ANZ Grindlays?

I joined ANZ Grindlays as a relationship manager-a designation that had then just been introduced by the bank and I was one of the first few people to get a job in this profile. In this role, instead of offering individual services, a portfolio of services was offered to clients. I was instrumental in building the concept of ‘Investment Portfolio Management’ for large institutions who were our clients. Depending on the risk appetite of clients, we would advocate the right mix of investments between banks, markets and other financial instruments.

My joining coincided with an enquiry being conducted for a major scam in the Indian capital market in 1991 and I was part of the core team carrying out this scrutiny. At that time, data was stored through primitive style automation, so we had to manually find the suspicious trail by scanning hordes of documents. The scrutiny team would spend endless hours, working from morning to night, studying a lot of boring data and applying our minds to identify links and connections to scam trans-actions. By conducting this exhaustive exercise, I was quickly able to comprehend the complex architecture of the banking industry within the first year of work.

Do you rely on innovation and creativity to keep the company on the cutting edge of competition?

Hitachi is a pioneer in providing innovative products and solutions to help busi-nesses meet critical requirements and Social Innovation Business is one of the means. Social Innovation Business is all about creating new value through collaborative creation.

We harbour ambitious goals of taking our partnership with India by becoming a trusted and strategic partner in India’s growth story and help to build a solid foundation through our Social Innovation Business in India for its people and for the future generations. Through Social Innovation Business, Hitachi is collaborating with the policy makers to enhance a citizen’s lifecycle comprehensively by repurposing the critical sectors of education, healthcare, agriculture, and governance.

What would you consider as the sunshine segments of Hitachi India going forward?

Hitachi’s partnership with India dates back to 1930s with importing of table fans and later went on to supply steam engines followed by turbines for the Bhakra Nangal Dam. Since then Hitachi India has grown multifarious with the presence of 27 group companies and approximately 10,000 strong workforce fuelling the transformation of India.

Our in depth experience and expertise revolve around diverse industrial sectors covering infrastructure, railways, energy, construction machinery, healthcare, IT, automotive systems and payment services amongst many others. Each of these verticals touches millions of lives in India, together contributing towards strengthening our foundations in India. GIS solutions dedicated towards the benefit of Indian agriculture and farmers; enterprise data solutions for Aadhar and Employee Provident Fund; IT solutions; payment solutions that provide secure, innovative and cost-effective services across digital and banking channel products.

Is Hitachi India a significant revenue base for you globally?

For any business to measure its growth, they delve into the profits they are making. How ever, we at Hitachi India, evaluate our growth rate in terms of contribution made to our customers and thereby to society

When we look at India as a revenue base, the country has a great geographic advantage, allowing us to offer state-of-the-art technology not just to the Indian market but also to South-East Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Africa, etc., enabling us to indulge in value creation across different parts of the world. We are re-inventing ourselves by localising infrastructure capabilities and setting up greater capacity in India.

In addition, our robust manufacturing facilities spread across different parts of India is ac-tively and aggressively contributing to the PM’s vision of Make in India and supply to the world that constitutes products like construction machinery equipment, metals, cash recycling ma-chines, industrial UPS invertors etc

“Hitachi’s partnership with India dates back to 1930s with importing of table fans and later went on to supply steam engines followed by turbines for the Bhakra Nangal Dam”

Can technology improve gover-nance and maximise social impact?

Digitisation has touched every aspect of human life. It is also altering how organisations look at business sectors, markets, service their customers and ideate new businesses. Traditionally, governments have been slow to modernise, but today they view digitisation as a panacea that can save time and expenses while enhancing their extent and effectiveness. Digitisation is radical, as it can bring in the much-needed inclusiveness and a true social transformation for a nation as vast and complex as India. That’s where new technologies can intervene and enable large scale transformation and help in the implementation of ambitious government plans ensuring citizens are empowered like never before.

The technological evolution in India is trans-forming the lives of citizens and Hitachi is le-veraging its strengths in ITxOT and products to bring reforms in social and business infra-structure through the use of digital technologies, thereby empowering the citizens more than ever before. Hitachi has been partnering with the ambitious projects administered by the government. Its focus has been directed into a wide range of projects, built on three core pillars i.e. infrastructure development, to address urbanisation issues, governance and services on demand to offset the burden of inequitable access amongst society’s weaker sections, and digital empowerment of citizens whether they are buying a product or enjoying a service.

In addition to this, Hitachi has been a part of e-Governance initiatives with governments in the country. While some of them have used its IT solutions, others use their technology for various functions. These large data-heavy projects include digitisation of land records, single-win-dow handling of grievances and maintenance of essential services, easing tax payments and other dues to the government along with inter-net-based citizen delivery of services.

What has been Hitachi India’s contribution in the implementation of government initiatives like ‘Digital India’, ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’?

The government has been spearheading radical digitalisation to induce economic inclusiveness and social transformation, through initiatives like ‘Digital India’, ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’. Hitachi in India has envisioned this direction in collaboration with the stakeholders, bringing its rich global industrial heritage and juxtaposing it with its strength in Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT). Through our superior ITxOT based products and solutions, Hitachi India is helping the nation in a broad range of key sectors including digitalisation, e-Governance, data analytics, infrastructure, power electronics and power through recyclable resources like automotive sector and end-to-end solution in mass urban transport like railways.

What is Hitachi’s strategy for achieving a sustainable society through its Social Innovation Business programme? How do you resolve issues faced by society and customers?

Hitachi’s business partnership with India has been fostered through our Mission “contributing to society through the development of superior, original technology and products.” We harbour ambitious goals of taking this partner-ship further by becoming a trusted and strategic partner in India’s growth story and help build a solid foundation through our Social Innovation Business in India for its people and for the future generations. We create products and solutions that assist our customers on their digital trans-formation journey, from strategy to consulting to platforms, IoT / big data / analytics and solutions. We also provide IT Platforms, Solutions, Offshore Development and Payment Services.

Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business is about leveraging digital technologies to execute solutions that benefit society today and the generations to come. For example, as a true partner to India’s Solar vision Hitachi Solar Inverters manufactured at state of the art Hitachi Hi-Rel facility at Sanand are bringing Social Innovation in the Indian power sector by providing the critical technological link to help solar power distribution through the national grid. By leveraging its global expertise, Hitachi is proud to collaborate with NTPC in developing this superior conversion technology to generate green electricity and bring a clean energy revolution in the country.

Hitachi Payment Services enabled payment of parcel charges, stamp fee and insurance premium collection through POS device. Recently, Hitachi Payment Services and State Bank of India (SBI) have signed a definitive agreement to enter into a joint venture for the establishment of state-of-the-art card acceptance and future-ready digital payment platform for India. By establishing the joint venture, Hitachi aims to improve people’s lives by providing digital solutions in India and other countries and accelerate the movement of digitisation around the world.

Hitachi understands the power of data to build a robust e-Learning infrastructure in the country. By engaging its deep and highly regarded Data Analytics and AI prowess, Hitachi through Hi-tachi MGRM Net has been efficiently helping leading government and private institutions to devise data-based learning systems that would assist in creating highly customised, need-based educational material that appeals to the learner and could fill the critical gap of pedagogy.

The Indian economy has undoubtedly under-gone a paradigm shift defined by changing the global economic and political environment. As the needs of customers, such as government and companies in emerging nations, have become highly complex, we at Hitachi will continue to create novel solutions for building a sustainable India in which all people can live in safety, security and comfort by collaborative creation with our customers and business partners.

What are the next steps for Hitachi India?

With every passing year, Hitachi will continue to work together with like-minded people by aiding in the development of the country’s social infra-structure as well as giving a fillip to the economy. We wish to forge this partnership even stronger than before. We hope to offer our technological know-how and implement ideas that transform lives and contribute to shaping India’s future – thereby creating a better life for a billion people.

You have been running half marathons for almost a decade, is running a crucial part of the balance in your life?

The first time I ran a marathon was in my second year of college. I reckon I may have run close to 50 plus half marathons till date. I have also frequently participated in informal jogs and peace marathons in cities. My morning run gives me clarity and I can mentally prioritise that one big task I wish to achieve that day-be it a business meeting with partners, board room discussions or even networking lunches. The morning run helps me declutter my schedule and focus on how I wish to drive my day. Over the years, this has developed as my success mantra-setting one big challenge for me every day and overcoming it by the time the day ends

Would you say successfully running a large company is a bit like running a marathon as both require dis-cipline, dedication and strategy?

Running is a challenging exercise-one needs to exert oneself physically and mentally. On difficult days, you need to motivate and push your-self with grit and determination. The end result is that after completing an exhausting morning run, you achieve a sense of satisfaction-you have already crossed a hurdle by setting a target and achieving it first thing in the morning.

The same passion and determination translates into delivering my daily tasks and I promote the same approach and dynamism amongst my team members-set yourself a difficult target and persist towards conquering it. Achievers will of-ten express the sense of high they achieve after accomplishing a task-making a successful client pitch, closing a deal or delivering an impressive presentation in front of the board.

Does running impact your performance at work and as a leader?

A runner’s life needs self-motivation, consistency and of course discipline. Being a runner for 31 years and an active sportsman/swimmer since school, I have imbibed these qualities in my daily life. I believe I have reflected these in my leader-ship style over the years