When Vijay Rekhi took charge as the president and managing director of United Spirits Ltd, it was producing a modest 14 million cases. Fifteen years down the line, the company has produced 114 million cases, overtaking global alcoholic beverage makers such as Diageo and Pernod Ricard. A confident Rekhi tells Darlington Jose Hector and Shreya Roy why the company will always remain the leader
Vijay Rekhi is a man of many hues. When young, Rekhi wanted to become a movie star and though that did not happen, as president and managing director of the R6,000-crore United Spirits Ltd, heading one of the largest liquor companies in the world, he is definitely a star.
The conference room, where we meet him at UB Towers (a landmark in Bangalore), overlooks the majestic Vidhana Soudha housing the Karnataka Assembly. ?It?s nice to be on top,? he says, as we settle in for the chat.
?You will be surprised. I wanted to be a cine artist. I don?t know what was attracting me. If it was the glitz and glamour of Bollywood in those days, or just aspiration from within, I cannot recall. But I do remember that it was one of my very early childhood fantasies. I remember applying to a company that had put out an advertisement in Filmfare or Screen, and that was the beginning and the end of my aspirations. I never heard from them,? says the 65-year-old honcho.
Lahore-born Rekhi’s family members were mostly into business. ?I wanted to graduate, which I did from SRCC, the premier commerce college. I took up the economics stream, not accounting, and I did pretty well. I stood first in my school, which is good in a way, as small recognitions can be very encouraging. After that I moved to the Delhi School of Economics, and followed it up with a stint at the IIM,? he says.
However, Rekhi did not want to get into business. ?Landlordism was in any case fading out in India; there were laws passed, several reforms brought in. There was no aspirational value in that. My brother became an engineer, passing out from BITS. Few remained in business. And I chose, along with my cousin brother, to opt for structured education and look out for options. And that option was exercised when I came out of IIM.?
Rekhi joined a food company under the brand name of Polson, known for butter and coffee, in Mumbai. ?I worked there before going and joining Herbertsons. They were looking for a brand manager and I was on the brand management side in Polson?s. That was a step up from one company to another in terms of scale. Herbertsons was a trading house with diverse activities. They were in alcoholic beverages, food products?they brought their own brand in Dippy?s, which competed with Kissan’s. They had representation in spirits internationally. I was brought in for the mainstream business, for the brand management of Dippy?s in Herbertson, in 1972. At that time, it was a British company. We were aggressive, very productive and we did well against competition.?
Vittal Mallya had some stake in Herbertsons. When the English company decided to divest their stake due to FERA provisions, Vittal Mallya bought the majority stake. ?That is when my tryst with UB Group started (1973). I saw and heard of Vittal Mallya till 1983, when he passed away. He was a very serious businessman. He was looking into the financial structuring of the business and did not interfere too much into day-to-day functioning.?
Sometime around 1978-79 Rekhi was given full charge of the activities of the company, but was kept away from the alcoholic spirits space. ?The good thing that the management did was to bring in the outlook of a consumer products guy into alcoholic beverages, which was hitherto being done by traditional managers and traditional marketing techniques. I remember my first major marketing breakthrough was to sponsor in 1983, at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the first day and night ODI being played between India and Pakistan. IS Bindra, secretary to the then President of India, was incharge. I went to him and struck a deal for the entire stadium to be sponsored by Herbertsons for R7 lakh. The management agreed to it. We anchored Bagpiper as a brand and got exposure through television coverage of the match, besides the static medium of skirtings and hoardings. That was the day when advertising of consumer products never looked back. We had to use parallel communication and so we launched Bagpiper soda that day,? he says.
?You can say I was a trendsetter in so far as parallel communication goes in the alcoholic beverages industry. The soda was positioned as a cine star drink. We had Ashok Kumar, Pran and Sanjeev Kumar to model for us, holding a glass of chilled soda, on the edge of which a bagpiper was sitting. There was no mention of whiskey, no bottle, but just the mood the ads created in the stadium. It catapulted the brand to great heights. I must credit the marketing team for never compromising the positioning of the product.
It is still the leader and will remain the leader, notwithstanding the aspirations of competition.?
Prior to that, he was behind another pioneering move while at Dippy?s. ?On the recommendation of the agency, for the first time, double-decker buses were painted all over with our new campaign called ?Dippy the kid?. In those days, no one had heard of such a concept.?
While heading Carew-Phipson in Kolkata, overseeing the management of the Blue Riband brand of spirits, it was suggested that Rekhi take charge of the group?s investments in the Caribbean. Group chairman Vijay Mallya had acquired through a management buyout the worldwide rights for Berger Paints, except Australia and UK. ?I went around 1988. We had three plants there, in Jamaica, Barbados, etc, and we had aspirations of buying companies in the US. I learnt a lot in those four years. Managing a company in India, in an atmosphere you know, was a dynamic situation. Transferring your experiences to a foreign land to manage foreign workers and managers with different cultural values required a lot of unlearning and learning. It gave me confidence when people gave me feedback that I was a team player and team builder.?
In 1992, Mallya came on an official visit to the Caribbean. He said the company had restructured the alcoholic beverages business, combining two liquor divisions into one entity, under one president. He said they were looking for a successor to Mr Gandhi, (the then president) and of the four names given to him, Rekhi was his first choice and that he should come back.
From 1993 to 1996, Rekhi was an understudy to Gandhi, and says the period ranging from 1996 to 2011 was pure magic for him. ?In a 15-year straight run, I got the company from where it was at 14 million cases, to ending this year with close to 114 million cases,? he says.
?We are now leaders, nationally and internationally, by volume, not by dollar revenue. The company is now poised for greater international recognition. Last year we celebrated 100 million, this year we will celebrate global leadership. We have a ?vision 200?, which will catapult us from the 100 million cases of last year to 200 million cases in the next four-five years. The company is on auto-pilot at the front end.?
His management style at UB is something his peers are envious of. Rekhi?s man management style has always been received with positive vibrations, both inside and outside the company. ?One has to be very objective about what you are trying to achieve. I am very participative,? he says.
There is very little that Rekhi pursues outside the realms of his work. He experimented with golf, but gave it up. ?Golf is a mistress that requires too much attention. But I enjoy keeping fit. Hitting the gym everyday is something I really enjoy.?
Next up from Rekhi?s stable is a book on leadership skills in the corporate world. ?It will have the Rekhi touch to it. I want to leave my legacy after all,? signs off the man, regarded as one of the legends of the Indian spirits industry.