IIPM BEST MBA INSTITUTE: July 2008

He may not be the richest man on earth himself, but feels that he has the money-making formula down to a pat. Meet Anil Chopra, Group CEO and Director, Bajaj Capital, as he talks about his life and these inflationary times...

He walks with a confident swagger, has a relaxed ‘I-know-it-all’ air around him and believes in making himself redundant by honing and developing capable leaders within the organisation. But, when you’ve been around at one place for as long as Anil Chopra has warmed his seat in Bajaj Capital (over two dozen years to be precise), the comfort factor does set in. But the trick, he says, is to not let complacency take the place of comfort.

“Your career is like your married life. You don’t change your wife, every now and then, do you?” he asks with an easy smile. But the smile is quickly discarded, the moment we get talking business and growth strategy for the group. After all, as Group CEO & Director of a flourishing and fast-expanding wealth advisory firm, Chopra’s job is anything but easy. “It’s tough. When we speak to any client, it is like advising our retired father about where he should be putting his money. We can’t afford to go wrong in our advice,” points out Chopra.

However, to advise clients on lucrative investment options in these tumultuous ‘inflationary’ times is a job that requires careful balancing and under Chopra’s leadership, the company has been doubling up as a wealth advisor, as also a distributor of financial products. However, he insists on being referred to as a wealth management firm as opposed to an Asset Management Company (AMC). “We could have been an AMC a long time ago, but it would have diluted our positioning,” he says, adding that unlike an AMC, understanding the need, taxation impact, and risk appetite of investors, are the key factors that Bajaj Capital focuses on before advising any of its one million clients in the country. And his advice for investing in these inflationary times? “Ad hoc investing is a complete no-no, instead focusing on long term investments with a clear roadmap: defined goals, time required for achieving them, take inflation into account, and then work backwards.”

An avid traveller and an ardent fan of music (from Sufi to Rock), for now, relaxation is not an option for Chopra, as Bajaj Capital is totally focused on ‘expanding and expanding fast’. From six branches and 60 employees (when Chopra joined in 1984) to more than 3,000 strong work force today, the company has already taken giant strides from its earlier laidback avatar. In fact, just over the last one year, the workforce has more than doubled. And as head of a closely held group, geographical expansion is now his topmost priority. “We’ve already moved to tier II and tier III cities and have 185 financial planning centres across 80 cities, including far-flung places like Bardwan and Asansol,” he says, adding that the priority now is to move to the next 100 cities on their wish list. “There is huge wealth in small town India, but a dearth of financial advice.” On the immediate radar are Jalandhar & Haridwar.

Nevertheless, the bulk of Bajaj Capital’s revenues continue to pour in from markets in the north and south of the country, even as Chopra admits that the group’s presence in other regions requires strengthening. With this SWOT analysis in place, Chopra is gung ho on reaching a capacity from the present 300 branches to 500 over the next five years. Besides, to rope in more consumers, Bajaj Capital launched its online investment & stock broking platform ‘Just Trade’ earlier this year. Designed as a global investment platform, the platform offers some unique functionalities like online financial planning and investing in multiple mutual funds. Although till date, the platform has only managed to rope in 6,000 clients and Chopra says that “we can’t say we are happy” with the target achieved, but going forward, he believes it to be a “great revenue source.”

As of now, ask Chopra about his biggest achievement at Bajaj Capital till date, and he says that it’s been his “modest” effort at inculcating global HR practices that have created a “professional environment” within the group. The culture, he says, has helped the group “retain its best brains”, so that attrition has never been a big problem for the group; some employees have been working with the company for the last four decades and have climbed the ladder of success early in their professional career. Chopra says that he has a keen observation and his hobby for years has been to ‘spot talent’. “I travel a lot, across branches in the country and wherever I spot potential leaders, I mark them and observe their progress in the company closely,” he says.

His leadership style reflects his belief in creating leaders for the fast-expanding company. “Performance management is the key expectation and responsibility of a leader. The important task is to create more leaders,” he says, as he signs out on an optimistic note.