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Higher Gear
Interview by Thomas A. Stewart and Anand P. Raman
The CEO of India’s Mahindra & Mahindra is
transforming the group from national champion
to global corporation in an unconventional way.
Shriya Patil Shinde
IN 1981, ANAND MAHINDRA – a third-generation scion of one of
India’s oldest business families – graduated from Harvard Business
School in Boston and returned to Mumbai to join the Mahindra &
Mahindra Group’s steel company, Mahindra Ugine (MUSCO), as an
executive assistant. When the government of India decided to allow
a large number of companies to import state-of-the-art technology
and set up small but efficient steel plants in the country, MUSCO
found itself in the throes of a terrible price war. Six months later,
senior executives asked the young Mahindra to attend a crisis committee meeting. Managers around the table claimed they had done
everything possible to cope, but the newly minted MBA asked
if they had thought about maximizing contribution by lowering
prices. From the looks on people’s faces and their responses, it
was clear that few fully understood cost curves or what Mahindra
meant by “contribution.”
