Steering the Toyota vehicle

Venkatachari Jagannathan
04 October 2002

Chennai: When the Kirloskar group was in talks with Toyota Industries Corporation for an automobile venture, a key person on the negotiating team was K K Swamy, then CEO of Mysore Kirloskar. Swamy was also asked to head the team, doing the feasibility study of the project.

Logically, after the project was found viable and the two companies joined hands, Swamy became the deputy managing director of the new joint venture, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM). This was another challenging role for the man who had rescued the Rs 16-crore Mysore Kirloskar from the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction's arms.

The power of empowering others
Mysore Kirloskar, a Rs 16-crore loss-making company, had been focussing on making high technology machines without proper technical expertise. Instead of managing customer complaints and warranty claims, Swamy decided to go in for simple lathes where the company had the expertise. This kept the workshop buzzing, while the services section phone stopped ringing.

With an accountant's precision he revamped the systems and procedures in the company, but at the same time he decided to empower officials down the line, opening up internal communication channels. "I believe in the power of empowering others," says Swami.

The change in business focus and the internal revamp coupled with a Rs 160-crore order to churn out simple lathes turned Mysore Kirloskar's fortunes around. The first year of Swamy's stewardship saw the company booking a Rs 1-crore profit. This went up to Rs 5 crore and Rs 9 crore in the second and the third year, respectively.

"With systems and procedures in place by 1996, the company ran by itself and my workload got reduced to just one hour a day," recalls Swamy. At Mysore Kirloskar, Swamy learnt to take the macro perspective of a company, and not look at it from the finance angle alone. This experience stood him in good stead in TKM.