The real estate industry will find itself at the centre of rapid economic and social change, which is transforming the built environment. While most of the trends are already evident, there’s a natural tendency to underestimate their implications over the next six years and beyond.
In an interview with Insights Success, Ashish R. Puravankara, Managing Director, Puravankara Limited gave some insightful answers highlighting the influences made by his company to take Real Estste assets to a new level.
- How did your company’s journey as a pre-eminent brand begin? What was the underlying bedrock idea behind incorporating the company?
Puravankara Limited started its operations in the year 1975, in Mumbai. During these initial years, the real estate industry was at a very rudimentary stage. With things picking up at a slow pace, the market was yet to evolve and was identified primarily as a seller’s market. Back in the day, the sector was dominated by the tenant-landlord equation. In the year 1986, we took a conscious decision to shift our business base beyond the geography of Mumbai. There were several factors which encouraged us to look out of other real estate markets. At that point it appeared that our ambitious future growth strategy may not come true due to the environment; and the industry was largely disorganized and the corporate governance was not as robust and transparent as we would have preferred. Thus we chose to venture into the Bangalore real estate market as the market showed great promise, had fewer developers and was comparatively better organized. During that time the city being popularly known as a “Pensioner’s Paradise”. The Bangalore market was characterized by independent homes like bungalows and villas. In fact, the concept of apartments did not exist here in those days.
The clear vision and mission of the group is to meet the aspirations of teeming milliions by offering quality homes for all. Our endeavour has always been to pursue and maintain the highest levels of integrity and transperancy coupled with the best quality in construction. Puravankara Limited has since revolutionized Community Living under the Puravankara arm of luxury homes by conceptualizing plethora of theme based projects, world-class landscaping and top notch amenities, creating unique landmarks of the highest standards of quality and customer delight. Similarliy, realizing the burgeoning need of high-quality affordable homes in the country, we launched Provident Housing Ltd. in 2008, to meet the aspirations of mid-income and first-time home-owners.
- What are the key aspects that demonstrate uniqueness of the company?
Right from its inception, Puravankara believes in an inclusive growth. Ethical practices and transperancy are the foundation of our brand. All practices are aligned with utmost legal and regulatory compliances in letter and spirit. The entire ecosystem is based on shared responsibility and accountability.
Customers have been and will continue being at the heart of our business. Customer centricity is the most important facet of brand ethos. Customer needs, dreams and aspirations are pivotal to our decisions. We constantly focus on investments in resources and infrastructure to enhance customer trust and walk beyond positive customer experience, into transformational experience and complete customer centricity.
The company has a visionary perspective to the business. We have adopted state-of-the art technology and upgraded construction techniques right from the commencement of our business. This has enabled our company to overcome several hurdles and perform with great efficiency.
- Tell us about yourself as a person, your educational background and as an entrepreneur. How do you use your skills to run your company above and beyond your competitors?
I am quite passionate about traveling and a big fan of F1 motor sports. Before completing my MBA, from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, have done graduation in science from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Post my Masters degree in the USA, I started my professional journey at Puravankara Limited in the year 2000. My voyage began with the Purva Heights project. The time I spent on site was when I got an understanding of the technical aspects of the business. I then moved to Chennai where I was given the responsibility of setting up operations end-to-end as we ventured into a new geography. This 360° view of running a business unit provided me with tremendous insights, steep learnings and provided the best platform for career progression. This followed with the successful positioning of Puravankara as a potential player in the given market. I like to be hands-on with the daily running of the business. But, I believe that people thrive when there is a right mix of direction and autonomy. My leadership style would be of an enabler, a counsellor, sounding board but I will not hesitate in jumping in and lead by action.
- How do you see your entrepreneurial journey till date? Could you name a person/mentor/book/ who has had a tremendous impact on your entrepreneurial journey?
I believe leadership is a process and not a flash in the pan. One has to be at the top of his game to be the leader of his/her pack. One incident or moment can put you in limelight but that doesn’t guarantee you will be there forever. As a professional athlete you have to hone your skill every day to be in the game. In my personal capacity one decision which made a significant difference to my professional journey-is-to take a plunge into premium affordable housing segment. It’s for the first time in the history of Indian real estate that any listed player decided to venture into unchartered territories. Of course this was in line with the commitment our Founder had for us – to be able to be an integral part in fulfilling the nation’s vision of “Housing for All”. With the support and conviction of a great team and with sound market research we launched Provident Housing Limited in 2007 and the rest, as they say is history. In 2018 (and for some time now), affordable housing will be the front and centre of real estate and possibly an employment generation enabler too. Overall it has been a great journey for me with a lot of ups and downs, but I firmly believe I have weathered the storm and have been fairly successful in reaching all my endeavours.
Undoubtedly my father Mr Ravi Puravankara has a lasting impression on me. His vision of a future where Puravankara was to be a household name and today we have significantly progressed towards that vision. To me he is the real disruptor of innovation, I have always maintained that he is years ahead from the rest of us and we are all trying to catch up!
- What is the biggest risk you have ever taken? What have been some of your failures, and what have you learned from them?
Driving construction efficiencies with the objective of reducing project delivery time have always been our ongoing priority. We have a track record of adapting forward-looking strategies such as the precast technology. It is now a part of our DNA, as we believe in constant innovation in technology and mechanisation. I have ensured that we start implementing the use of the latest precast technology on a huge scale in the country. At the Provident Sunworth project in Bangalore, precast technology is being adopted for construction of around 6000 homes. A massive precast yard has been set up on site, which is India’s largest precast facility.
When we work in a diverse organisation such as ours, there are times when we meet our goals, and sometimes things do not happen as desired. But as an individual in both my personal and professional life I view such situations as an opportunity to learn, try a different approach and eventually achieve. To me achieving goals isn’t the only yardstick to tell whether one is successful or not. Importantly, the intent and capacity to bounce back is far more vital Afterall these learnings are what are essential for one’s future growth.
- To what do you attribute your success? What motivates you at difficult/down times?
Puravankara Limited, the dream of Mr. Ravi Puravankara, our founder and Chairman, was established with a clear vision and objective to meet the aspirations of teeming millions by offering quality homes. Our success is a result of sheer dedication and hardwork. Our constant endeavour to offer the best to our customers has enabled us to create milestones at every step.
Doing a good job and achieving the desired end result is my primary motivation. I am particularly motivated by the buzz of working in a team environment. It’s very rewarding working closely with others who share the same common goal. Even during tough spots or in challenging situations, I try to at my glass as half full and work towards achieveing the goal. I am a fairly optimistic person and more often than not I use tough situations as learning opportunities.
- What would you advice your fellow peers to successfully carry their work functionalities? How do you encourage creative thinking in your organization?
I strongly believe that the real assets of an organisation are its employee. So we adopt various methods to tap the available talents and nurture it further. Apart from this, we have external, and internal training for the selected employees to enhance their domain expertise.
Through the compnay’s interal L&D programs we also encourage employees to enrol themselves in specialised professional courses to further hone their understanding of our business in their respective fields.
Creative expertise is a result of independent thinking. As a leader, I ensure we give the right platform to all our employees to enhance their technical as well creative skills. We constantly recognise high potential employees and work with them to ensure they have the required training or mentoring to ensure their continued practice and realise their potential in the organisation.
- Is there any book or movie you would like to recommend to the budding entrepreneurs? What advice would you like to give them?
More than anything else it’s self-belief that will help one to keep on going even in challenging time. Learning is a continuous process, so learn whenever, wherever, and whatever (as per your requirement) you can. One line from the classic “The old man and the sea.” always inspires me – “But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
I am not one for giving advice but can share my life experiences, the self-learning is a good thing, but learning from the mistakes others have made is also a valuable lesson. So just one suggestion – success is an elusive mirage if you want to chase it alone, but it is an oasis when a group people share the same passion and zeal to achieve sweet success.
- What measures do you take to ensure to grow and develop as an entrepreneur every day? How do you see yourself growing in the next five years?
Patience and perseverance are the key characteristics I feel every leader should possess. It tests the real character of the leader – who can lead in the difficult times without losing composure and still be the anchor of the ship. Leading from the front, taking charge and being a friend, philosopher guide!
As an organisation, we are heading towards a phase of exponential growth, with the continuing commitment that we have made to our stakeholders. The strength of our balance sheet now enables us to have faster turnarounds in locking in deals and launches. This allows the company to stay on its growth trajectory and sustain successfully, especially in the current economic scenario where we expect several lucrative prospects are coming our way. Over the next few quarters, we envision anywhere between 8-10 mil sq. ft. of launches between both our brands, but of course Provident will have a bigger share of the pie in our total volume. Here we could leverage our existing land bank or sign up new deals especially JDs & JVs. Our past few launches have seen immense traction on the strength of which many viable deals have come to us, some being assessed currently and some in final stages of closure.
Traditionally our commercial portfolio has been a small share of the total development, but over the next few years, we plan to increase that, especially in cities like Pune where the office-space absorption trends are healthy and on an upward trend. As an organisation, we have set aggressive growth targets for ourselves which we are very confident of achieving in the current environment.
