Address by Mr. K Raghavendra Rao – CEO conclave

Mr. K Raghavendra Rao is Founder, Chairman and Managing Director, Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd. He demonstrated Orchid’s commitment to nurture entrepreneurship by providing a sum of 5 Crore rupees for the establishment of 'Orchid - Great Lakes centre for excellence in Technopreneurship' at the Great Lakes campus. The plaque for the launch was unveiled by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam in the presence of Uncle Bala, Professor Sriram and Mr. Rao.

Highlights of his address (non verbatim) –

3BL – People

The order in which elements of 3BL have been sequenced is so true. It is not possible to have a sustainable business without a people orientation because the first challenge any organization faces is the challenge of people. At Orchid, the vision is to enrich people through innovation in health care. The value system encompasses corporate social responsibility (CSR), respect for individual, excellence in whatever one does and innovation.

As soon as the company went public, we issued shares to all our employees. We have scholarship programmes for higher education of our employees and free education schemes for their wards based on merit. We practise dignity of labour as a concept and to us, all jobs are equally important.

3BL – Planet

We should not be net beneficiaries, rather net contributors to our society. Our manufacturing processes involve the usage of a lot of solvents and effluents but we make sure that they are not released into the environment. We are in fact, the first company to achieve the tag ‘zero discharge of effluents’ in our very first year of operations. I was told in the beginning that “60% recovery of solvents is enough”. But, we radically set a target of 70-100%. Orchid is also the only company to have met all the environment norms stipulated by the World Bank in this part of the world. We adopt schools in the localities around our operations. At Thiruporur, near the Great Lakes campus, because of the assistance of our employees, the pass % improved from 45% to nearly 90% in the high school.

3BL – Profit

Orchid’s net profit was 24 crores during Q2 FY’11. Because we have people who are well cared for and because we provide a lot of intangible benefits to our people, attrition rates are very low. The fact that we are not hierarchy driven also makes our people more committed.

I would like the takeaway of my address to be “Have an agenda and live for something. You can learn something from everyone. I learnt scale from the Ambanis, corporate governance from Narayana Murthy and innovation from Dr. Reddy’s.”

He ended his address with the hope that Orchid invented molecules will soon become drugs that will be consumed by everyone.

Address by Mr. Satish Pradhan – CEO Conclave

Mr. Satish Pradhan, Chief, Group HR, Tata Sons, was the first speaker of the CEO Conclave. He spoke on 3BL – People, Planet, Profit, the theme of L’Attitude 13 05, 2011.

Highlights of his address (not verbatim) –

3BL as imperatives

People, planet and profit are not options but imperatives of enterprises. This might be sounding overzealous to some and an understatement to others but nevertheless, it is a fundamental reality. The bottom line in 3BL has an accounting and Wall Street connotation; it is not a measure of inclusiveness because everything cannot be reduced to top line and bottom line.

Questions to ponder

What is the difference between wanting to look good and looking good? We should introspect on the difference. Are we diminishers or multipliers of inclusiveness? Are we diminishers or multipliers of environment? Are we diminishers or multipliers of profitability? These three are not options or tradeoffs. It is simply not about economic development at the cost of the environment anymore. We need leadership that can think beyond the ‘tomorrow’ and the ‘day after’.

Integration with a firm’s strategy

Jamsetji Tata, founder of the Tata group of companies, way back in the 1860s believed that “The community is not merely one of the stakeholders. It is the very purpose of our existence”.

While everyone can’t run a charitable institution dedicated to the cause of philanthropy, very few firms factor in considerations about people and planet when devising their strategy. The Tata group has developed a ‘human development index’ that measures the impact of a firm on human development in the environment. This will determine the degree to which intent is getting converted to impact.

The frameworks that CK Prahalad has offered us can be used for good 3BL practices. Examples of Tata group's products and services in this aspect abound – a one lakh car, an affordable water purifier and hotel infrastructure…

Mr. Pradhan thus left the audience with the thought that all the three imperatives can be achieved successfully and without conflict if 3BL is built into a firm’s strategy.