The year 2019 is significant for the Chennai-headquartered billion dollar plus Sanmar Group, as the calendar year marks the 100th birth anniversary of its founder KS Narayanan (KSN), who epitomised a culture of business that imbibed boldness, partnership, ethics and transparency.
KSN sowed the seeds for the success and rise of the Sanmar Group, now a diversified industrial conglomerate with presence across chemicals, engineering technologies and shipping with overseas operations in countries like Egypt.
Born in 1919 at Kallidaikurichi, a small town on the banks of river Tamiraparani in southern Tamil Nadu, to SNN Sankaralinga Iyer and Pichuammal, KSN rose to become one of the leading industrialists and a pioneer in industries such as cement and PVC in the country.
After his marriage at the age of 16 in 1935, KSN joined Indo-Commercial Bank, promoted by his father, and in the subsequent years, gained knowledge and hands-on experience across industries ranging from printing, rubber, and industrial chemicals to PVC resins.
“One problem that consistently plagues small-scale industries is that the coffers dry up at a critical stage in their growth. In my own career, I came across a dozen cases of excellent ventures running aground at the precise juncture at which an injection of precious capital would have made resounding success of them,” KSN wrote in his book Friendships and Flashbacks – My Life and Times.”
Overseas exposure
As a start-up entrepreneur, KSN faced similar challenges in his early ventures. But he pulled it off dramatically and made successful businesses out of them.
He was an entrepreneur by nature. KSN’s entrepreneurial journey began when he took over a struggling printing ink factory near Chennai in 1930s and turned it around.
The venture, which bagged orders from Tamil magazine Kalki and newspapers such as The Hindu and The Indian Express provided him numerous learnings.
As he moved from printing ink to the rubber business, KSN also turned the capital-starved South India Rubber Works in Coimbatore around after his family took over the business.
He also came up with innovative solutions in the tyre retreading business.
His exemplary skills were acknowledged when a tyre on a military plane burst beyond repair, leaving it stranded in Coimbatore. There was no spare tyre and KSN was asked to help though he didn’t have any technology to handle aviation tyre. The old tyre was brought to KSN’s factory and based on the old tyre, he made a solid rubber tyre instead of a hollow pressurised tyre to carry the plane safely to a place where a more suitable tyre could be found.
He repeated the success story in his next venture — industrial chemicals — too.
KSN joined the management of India Cements, which his father started in 1946, after his stints in a few countries where he acquired expertise in cement manufacturing and new technologies. He was associated with the company for more than three decades.
KSN, along with TS Narayanaswami, who the former called his closest friend and discerning advisor, expanded the group’s activities starting from the 1960s. Chemicals and Plastics India Ltd (Chemplast) pioneered the production of PVC from molasses, a by-product of sugar mills.
KSN handed over the reins of administration to his sons Sankar and Kumar during the 1980s, even as he continued to guide them till his last breath.
KSN’s leadership of the Sanmar Group was based on the highest standards of ethics, transparency and integrity.
“One notices that these days people don't mind cutting corners to make their lives easier, even if it does not result in any direct financial gain to them. If a person has not adhered to any of our policies, we deem it a violation. Our ethics philosophy has been in practice for over five decades,” says N Sankar, Chairman, Sanmar Group.