P.R Venkat Ramarajan, MD, Ramco Systems

Mr. Ramarajan, a student of C K Prahlad and an MBA from University of Michigan was in the campus to talk about Entrepreneurship and Family Business.

Ramco Enterprise was founded by his Grandfather in the 40’s and started with a mill factory and later moved to Cement and IT products. Mr. Ramarajan joined in 1983 and founded Ramco Systems. He talked about the way Ramco invested in the Research and developed the product over a period a time.

He said, CEO’s should have intuitive capacity. CEO’s should be able to make decisions with unknown variables. They should have emotional, spiritual and technical maturity. It’s all about Risk Management. He said, all their assets are in the company. He believes in keeping the Organizational growth above the personal growth. He talked about how they captured market and competed with the likes of Oracle and ERP. He also talked about how to make a market for a product? How to go international? How to be the best in business?

One of the Questions asked to him was, In a Family Business, how to deal with Generation gap and Attitude differences?
He answered, older generation are partially right. They had leisure and the time which current generation doesn’t have. Today the clock speed has increased. Knowledge has become a commodity. Older generation should transfer the knowledge and value to the current generation. Both Generations should agree on the best. Ways might be different. He also added, Management is about moving from known to unknown. As an Engineer, we know what output is expected and the variables involved.

Uncle Bala had a different view on this; he said Family disputes are when Spouses come in the picture. He quoted Nita/Tina Ambani are the same, only the spelling changes :).

And the punch line, “Your Ego should not be bigger than Your Logo”.

Cheers’