© 2013, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Limited All the stories printed in this book are true and have been compiled from verbatim accounts stated by our customers and translated from various regional languages. We have made all possible efforts to ensure that information mentioned in this book is true to the best of our knowledge. Errors, if any, are purely accidental and unintentional. All customer photographs are authentic, with the exception of the photographs used in section separators and on the cover. PUBLISHED BY: Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Limited www.mahindrafinance.com EDITORIAL TEAM: Charandeep Singh Chawla Vineet Garg Sheetal Choksey CREATIVE AGENCY: Sky Design www.skydesign.in PRINTED BY: Silverpoint Press Private Ltd. www.silverpointindia.com This book is dedicated to millions of farmers, small businessmen and traders whose aspirations and dreams are transforming India. contents Foreword 5 Management Speak Anand Mahindra 6 Customer Stories Bharat Doshi 7 Humble Beginnings 10 Ramesh Iyer 8 Beyond First Victory 44 V Ravi 9 Victorious through the Darkest Hours 82 Rajnish Agarwal 27 Fight Back 110 Vinay Deshpande 57 Celebration 136 Jaideep Devare 95 Anuj Mehra 123 Index 154 R Balaji 145 Acknowledgement 156 foreword The potential for growth is inherent in every single person. The the market towards this oft-ignored sector. And more important journey to maximise this hidden potential, to find success and than growth and profit, we have managed to touch the lives happiness, is what we call the journey of ‘life’. of many of our customers, and they have touched ours. Their dreams have become our hopes, and their success, our joy. Many years ago, we at Mahindra Finance, commenced our journey, working in semi-urban and rural India. This was a This book is a collection of those moments and journeys. On the different India, working by its own rules and constrained by surface, it is a compilation of success stories of our customers, its own challenges. Venturing into an untested sector, hitherto to whom we have provided loans of various kinds. At a deeper untouched by large finance companies, was a risky proposition. level, it talks about our ethos, about the lasting relationships we The diversity and intricacies of local culture and geography were have forged with our customers, and our efforts to uphold their like a puzzle which needed to be solved with patience and care. dignity. As we spent considerable time working in this geography, we realised that with a little bit of financial support, the potential Each story and experience shared by our customers, was unique. for growth was tremendous. With this belief, we spread To simplify the reading experience, these stories have been our people across the country, to identify opportunities for classified into five chapters: ‘Humble Beginnings’, ‘Beyond First intervention, and provide timely help to deserving people. Victory’, ‘Victorious through the Darkest Hours’, ‘Fight Back’ Each effort that we made with faith, was a drop in the ocean of and ‘Celebration’. change, that slowly started spreading across Bharat. Meet the auto rickshaw driver turned businessman, the 55 year Today, twenty years later, we took a moment to look back. The old turned entrepreneur who built a fleet of 72 cars, and the success of Mahindra Finance in the sector was unique. We housewife fulfilling her late husband’s dreams. And discover a believe that we have found a way to unlock the ‘chakravyuh’ that portrait of a rising India, in this book, ‘Bharat Awakens’. is rural India. Moreover, we have helped change the mindset of 5 MMFSL is one of our most successful businesses. It has financed assets worth over Rs 100,000 crores. Its customers are spread over 1,70,000 villages and more than 5000 towns. It has touched the lives of over 2.5 million people. It has, all in all, been a most successful business journey. And yet, it is not the figures that truly tell the story of its success. The true story of its success comes from the stories of the ordinary people whose lives MMFSL has touched and transformed. That is why it is fitting that this book should showcase not the story of MMFSL, but the success stories of its customers. In this book you will find true stories – stories of struggle, stories of strength in the face of challenging odds, and stories of a determination to craft one’s own destiny. The stories are inspirational because they are all true. They are stories of real people, facing real challenges and triumphing over considerable odds, with a little help from MMFSL. So MMFSL is profitable; but the profits are almost a by-product of their driving desire to change people’s lives, and enable them to rise. Over the years, Mahindra Finance has joined hands with so called ‘marginalised’ sections of society, helped them, worked with them, trusted them, and changed the course of their lives. Profound customer centricity is at the heart of the deep relationship that Mahindra Finance has formed with its customer, and the customer has repaid the compliment by identifying with the company to the extent that he almost seems to be saying, “I may be small but my dreams are not. And Mahindra Finance understands my aspirations and helps make dreams come true. They know me so well, they are a part of me. And I am Mahindra Finance”. So when a customer 200 km away from the nearest ‘Town Centre’ upgrades himself from a bullock drawn plough to a Tractor, from Tractor to a Car and from Car to an SUV, when he builds himself his first house, it is nothing but another manifestation of Mahindra Finance in action. It is a manifestation of the new India spreading its wings and achieving its dreams. The rise of Mahindra Finance has created 2.5 million entrepreneurs who have fought against their fate and inspired innumerable others to follow their heart. And I am delighted that MMFSL is on its way to spreading this spirit of entrepreneurship in many communities across the globe. Nothing, therefore, captures the journey of Mahindra Finance better than the journey of its customer, his fight against his fate and his aspirations for a better life. This book is an effort to take you to a world of indomitable spirit, unwavering beliefs and unflinching trust. Welcome to the world of Mahindra Finance! Anand Mahindra Chairman and Managing Director – Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. The seeds of an idea lie not in a right answer but in the right question. 1992. The year of Gulf war and oil crisis. The auto industry was in a shock as sales volumes declined dramatically. M&M sales took a bigger hit with the unfriendly tax regime for utility vehicles. In that challenging environment, our Automotive Marketing had called a dealers’ conference and I decided to sit in the last row as an observer. One of the dealers went to the dias and said that bank finance for retail lending was drying up, and Mahindra’s performance compared to the other auto players would suffer more as the Mahindra Group, unlike many auto companies, did not have its own finance company. This comment triggered a question in my mind: “Why do we not have our own finance company?” As the question churned in my mind, an idea was born: a dream was born. …And Mahindra Finance commenced its journey with a small group of employees from a small office in Worli, Mumbai. At that time, we only visualised Mahindra Finance as a captive finance company. But even at the start we created and followed a unique set of rules. We focused on rural India, much before it became fashionable. We created a governance structure for Mahindra Finance independent of the auto marketing. We derisked the business model by capping the proportion of Mahindra vehicles that we would finance, rather than measure the penetration for financing of the parent company’s products, which was a commonly applied success metric of captive finance companies. More importantly, we empowered our frontline to take decisions that would be in the interests of both, the customers and the company. As we embarked on our journey, we often found ourselves in situations where there was not only a large business potential but also an opportunity for us to make a difference by empowering people. We sought to answer the questions of “what else” to offer and “who else” to offer to. Over the last two decades we have grown to become one of the largest NBFCs in India, fuelling a million more dreams along the journey – the dreams of our customers. The same powerful question exhibits itself again, whenever a farmer asks, “why can’t I feed my own family, when I can feed the rest of the world”. Or whenever a truck driver questions, “why can’t I become my own master and drive my own vehicle, when I can drive somebody else’s.” Whenever a construction worker asks, “why can’t I build my own house when I can do it for others.” And whenever anyone of them questions himself thus, it sows the seed for yet another dream, yet another success. In the true sense, the success of its customers has translated into the Company’s success. And this success doesn’t lie in the business numbers it has achieved or the milestones that the Company has crossed. This success lies in the way we have been able to inculcate, nurture and promote the culture of asking the right questions not just amongst ourselves, but also amongst our customers. This book is an effort to capture this culture and how it has helped people to Rise.