Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group, with MCCI President Ramkumar Shankar (left) and A Viswanathan in Chennai on Tuesday
| Photo Credit:
Bijoy Ghosh
Long-term bets, and not quarterly performance reviews, build enduring businesses, industry titan Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group, said here on Tuesday.“The best businesses are built by looking beyond the next quarter to the next decade. That often means making transformational bets that may be unpopular in the short term, but create sustained value over a period of time,” Birla said, delivering the chief guest address at the 190th Annual General Meeting of the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in Chennai.Birla recounted the 2007 acquisition of Novelis by Hindalco, describing it as an unpopular decision that ultimately transformed the company into a global value-added aluminium leader. “Long-term thinking demands conviction,” he said.Extra CostsOn questions on how the behemoth group tackles macroeconomic fluctuations, Birla noted that they have remained fairly protected despite their global presence. “In most cases , we have been able to pass on the extra costs, largely the fuel price increase, to customers, he said, adding that long-term relationships with suppliers have also been leveraged and have helped them.With regard to India’s manufacturing prowess failing to fire up to its full potential, Birla noted that India has the potential, the credentials and track record to become a global manufacturing powerhouse, and he was as unclear as others on why the manufacturing has fallen short. “It is important that we as industry invest in manufacturing, and I believe the stars are now aligned,” the industrialist said.Lasting LegacyBeing at the helm of a conglomerate that is today multi-generational, Birla also noted a need to engage with ‘GenZ’ workforce cohort differently from their preceding generations. Earlier we used to think of culture as one single binding force, then we said let’s articulate a set of value statement to new comers, but now we highlight the common purpose to the current generation, he said.On building enduring institutions of scale, Birla said that constant reinvention is important. “The greatest strength of a legacy institution such as ours is its ability to remain young forever, to draw confidence from its roots but never be constrained by them,” he said, congratulating MCCI for a legacy as long as two centuries.He argued that scale is not just about achieving better cost structures, but changes industry economics by attracting suppliers, technology partners and capital. He cited UltraTech Cement’s journey as evidence of the power of scale. “Today, we have over 200 million tonnes of capacity, and Ultratech is the largest cement company in the world, other than in China,” he said.Interestingly, Birla opened his address with a personal note, noting longstanding family ties to Tamil Nadu. My name was chosen by my great-grandfather while he was in the State, and my mother spent much of her childhood in Madurai and speaks fluent Tamil, he said.MCCI also appointed A Viswanathan, President, Delphi TVS Technologies Ltd, and Murali Vaidyanathan, President, Wheels India Ltd, as the new President and Vice-President of the Chamber respectively in Tuesday’s AGM.<EP>Published on July 28, 2026
