Not only has Harshvardhan Neotia impacted the way West Bengal shops, eats and lives, the industrialist has learnt his own lessons along the way
As this copy goes to print, Harshvardhan Neotia will be away in London with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and a number of other industrialists such as ITC Chairman Y C Deveshwar and RPSanjiv Goenka Group Chairman Sanjiv Goenka. Neotia is a part of the chief minister’s delegation visiting the UK on a six-day tour to attract investment to the state. The delegation was put together in response to British Prime Minister David Cameron extending an invitation to the state chief minister, assuring his country’s investment in the state. There are plans for the UK to invest in the state’s tourism and transport sectors, along with a look at inland water transport and river-front beautification.
For Neotia, this will be yet another time when he invests his time, money and efforts into making people believe in the West Bengal growth story. Born and brought up in Kolkata, Neotia’s heart clearly lies with the City of Joy. “It is quire natural that the city of your birth and education will have a special place in your heart. Kolkata certainly has a very special place in mine. The people, the friends, the milieu – all have shaped me to be what I am,” he says, humbly.
That’s another thing about Neotia – the soft-spoken industrialist who has made a significant difference to the state capital’s skyline and adda (the ubiquitous Bengali word for a place to hang out) venues is quick to pass on the credit for his group’s success to the city he was born in, the people who are a part of his team and, of course, his family.
One can’t, however, underestimate his canny sense of business and keen understanding of what the customer wants. It isn’t easy to have an accurate understanding of market, however, he admits. While you have the conventional sources of inputs from the media, your team, various studies and reports, finally it is the gut instinct that one has to rely upon.
Take, for instance, Kolkata’s first integrated and unconventional hangout (adda, remember?) and shopping option, which was designed by the famous Charles Correa himself, who died this June. Few people know, however, that Correa changed the layout at the last moment, and Neotia let him have his way, simply because not only did he trust Correa’s decision, he agreed with him, too. The result? The 40,000 sq ft space was celebrated by the architect himself when he said, “The City Centre in Kolkata is a very special place… a microcosm of the whole metropolis, catering to multiple land-used and diverse income profiles… a kaleidoscope of contract, colour and energy.”
In fact, most realty projects under the Ambuja Neotia Group have not only caught the customers’ fancy, they have also inspired other players in the business to take heed of aesthetics and comfort over just trying to be different. Today, the group has developed housing solutions, townships, country homes, malls and business parks.
“We have tried to gift Kolkata some special projects. Be it Kolkata’s first getaway at Raichak, or the first condoville complex Udayan, the first horizontal openstyle mall City Centre, or the heritage plaza, Swabhumi. We are grateful to the people of the city who have accepted our projects and patronised them,” he says.
With a slow economy, however, Neotia is playing safe. He discusses how, for the past three years, the economy has been moving slowly and the real estate sector, in particular, has been adversely impacted. “Our main focus in the next two years would be to consolidate our operations and to lease/ sell the unsold stock and cautiously move towards announcing new projects,” he says.
Neotia’s business sense was honed while working with his father, late Vinod Kumar Neotia. Also, having grown up in a joint family, he saw his father and two uncles work really hard as they excitedly pursued projects. “This naturally excited me, too, and I wanted to join the family business right from the beginning.”
Having finished his schooling in La Martinere for Boys, Neotia joined St Xavier’s College in Kolkata. He would hang around in the Park Street office after his morning classes, sit for meetings, and get a general understanding of company structure and business insights. “I joined business in 1982 while I was still apprenticing under my father. It was the preliberalisation days and the business environment was fairly stifling. In that sense, the initial experiences were all very mixed,” admits Neotia, candidly.
So when his father sent him to take charge of the company’s flagship cement plant in Gujarat, Neotia obeyed, but came back since his heart was not in it. At 22, he pushed his father to assign him a real estate project, which was a huge success. The realty growth continues.
And what lessons has he learnt? “On the business front, our family has had many ups and downs in the past 120 years of doing business in Kolkata. Not everything worked and we obviously had to pick up our threads and reinvent,” Neotia states, “But it has been an exciting journey so far.”
The volatility of business also seems to have instilled a stoic strain in the entrepreneur. For him, the understanding that sometimes your efforts pay and sometimes they don’t, is a realised one. “God has his own designs and sometimes they don’t match with yours,” he says, telling how some projects where they labored hard didn’t achieve much financial success. On the other hand, others that the group took in the stride have brought very good financial results. “However, the learning is to simply carry on doing your work to the best of your ability and not get too perturbed by the irregular pattern of the rewards,” he says.
That doesn’t mean you don’t give it your 100 per cent. Known for his self-discipline and eye for detail, Neotia leaves no stone unturned when it comes to the deliverables. He also feels if work is something you enjoy and pursue with a passion, you will blur the distinction between work and life.
His big learning? “There is no short cut to success. Perseverance, hard work and integrity are the cornerstones of building something worthwhile,” he says, adding how without these, even if some small successes come your way, they are unlikely to be sustainable unless you have planned meticulously.
Talking about planning, how does the industrialist manage to keep so many balls in the air? He serves as the Honorary Consul of Israel in Kolkata, and holds other positions such as the member of the board of governors of IIM-Kolkata; member of board of trade, Government of India; Member of Rajasthan Foundation and Nathdwara Temple Board; and Member of Heritage Commission, Government of West Bengal. He is also slated to be President, FICCI next.
“It’s a lesson I’m still learning,” sighs Neotia, explaining how there are always conflicting demands and time management isn’t easy. His wife Madhu Neotia is a great support as well. Although she has family responsibilities and various social obligations, she helps her husband in marketing some of the group’s hospitality and healthcare initiatives.
He does, however, try to find time for his tennis, which not only helps him unwind, but also gives him the required workout time. Living in Kolkata, how could Neotia not have love for football seep into his blood stream? The opportunity to get that much closer to the sport came in 2014, when he became a co-owner of Atletico de Kolkata, an Indian Super League football team, along with Sourav Ganguly, Atletico Madrid, Sanjeev Goenka, Santosh Shaw and Utsav Parekh. The team lifted the first Indian Super League Cup in 2014.
Neotia’s other passion includes reading Indian wisdom literature and biographies. He rues the fact that he can’t find enough time for this hobby, however.
What is non-negotiable for Neotia is the group’s commitment to its CSR initiatives. The goal is to incorporate CSR in all the group’s activities. Thus, in housing, for instance, the Ambuja Neotia group provides some units for the low-income group. There are free beds for the needy in healthcare. In education, there are scholarships for students from economically-weak backgrounds, which includes free education under the Udayan Shalini Scholarships programme. There are also several company-sponsored activities in the form of health camps in remote areas of Raichak and the Sunderbans.