Venu Srinivasan: Quality counts
For the TVS Motor Company CMD, being a leader means going all out with something that you truly believe in
The first things leaders do is learn the ropes themselves and throw themselves into a job until they have perfected it themselves. Venu Srinivasan, chairman and managing director, Sundaram Clayton and TVS Motor Company, falls into that category. When young, Srinivasan chose to understand a vehicle inside out by working as a mechanic in his own garage during vacations.
An engineer from Madras University and a management graduate from Purdue University in the US, Srinivasan took over as managing director, Sundaram Clayton Ltd in 1979; the company is a leading supplier of aluminium die castings to automotive and non-automotive sector today. TVS Motor Company came into being the same year and under Srinivasan’s able leadership, the company is the third-largest two-wheeler manufacturer in India.
In fact, in the 1980s, when the company was experiencing slow growth and was bleeding, Srinivasan took measures that are taught in leadership lessons. Not only did he steer the ship through choppy waters, he turned the company around with sure-shot measures – settling labour unrest, better machinery, new technology and so on. And like a true leader, he went ahead and adopted Total Quality Management (TQM) for the company at a time when people were only just about hearing of it.
Then in 2001, when the company split with Suzuki, Srinivasan didn’t let that come in the way and TVS Motors launched Victor, the first four-stroke motorcycle that was designed and built in India.
The man’s passion and belief in TQM is so strong that he has brought in several renowned experts in the field to strengthen the processes in Sundaram Clayton as well as TVS Motor Company. And it has borne fruit, not only by way of better and more efficient processes but also because the efforts are recognised. In 1998, Sundaram Clayton’s brakes divisions won the Deming Prize for “distinctive performance improvements through application of company-wide quality control”.
When TVS Motor Company won the same prize in 2004, it became the first two-wheeler company to get the award. Srinivasan’s work on quality was further acknowledged this year with the Ishiwaka-Kano award in Hong Kong. With his commitment to quality awareness, Srinivasan has not only made it a part of the DNA in his own companies, he has also led the way in creating awareness about the concept and its importance among corporate India. Several other companies in many other verticals have followed suit. Just goes on to show how leaders can show the way to several others and still survive competition.