Ronnie Screwvala: The Serial Entrepreneur

We all know Ronnie Screwvala as the founder and CEO of UTV Group which was established in 1990. However, his entrepreneurial journey began a decade before UTV came to life. Ronnie’s father wanted him to become a Chartered Accountant. But, Ronnie wanted to start his own business. To keep himself busy while he looked for business opportunities, he took up a job of a copywriter.

On a trip to England with his father, Ronnie visited a hairbrush factory. He bought two discarded machines from the factory for £4,000. He came back to India and started his own business of manufacturing toothbrushes. The company went on to become the largest supplier of toothbrushes in the country supplying to the top notch brands like Colgate Palmolive. Ronnie sold the company in 2004 at a profit.

When he was just 25 years old, he started his own cable network company by the name “Network”. Ronnie went from door to door in his building and convinced the residents to sign up for his cable service at a fee of Rs.200 per month. What started with just 30 houses spread to buildings in Cuffe Parade, Colaba, Napeansea Road, Breach Candy and Hanging Gardens. What’s commendable was that at that age Ronnie understood the importance of good service. He took care that he provided family oriented content with good picture quality. Not just that, he regularly met his customers to understand their viewing preferences. He had the qualities of a great entrepreneur that he is today. 

 

In 1998 he sold off his cable company and established UTV which to begin with, was a small production house in 1990. UTV today has ventured into every possible direction in the entertainment industry from producing TV shows to animation and TV commercials; dubbing English and Japanese cartoons in Hindi; creating television channels for various age groups and distributing & producing movies. UTV was recently bought over by Disney and Ronnie is now the Managing Director of Disney UTV- India.

Ronnie Screwvala: A man on a mission to empower Rural India.

Ronnie Screwvala along with Zarina Mehta started the SHARE foundation with a vision to empower Rural India through the best practices, modern technology and values. Today SHARE (Society to Heal Aid Restore Educate) has been rechristened to SWADES. The organization is Ronnie Screwvala and Zarina Mehta’s attempt to bring together highest standards of corporate governance and transparency to this industry. Ronnie Screwvala strongly believes that India’s true potential cannot be tapped until there is a transformation in the lives of rural people in India.  

The foundation has so far provided 39,000 people in 139 villages in Maharashtra with drinking water and has developed the infrastructure to provide education and health facilities. SWADES has also successfully created 276 Women’s Self Help Groups and 111 farmer groups. SWADES is supported and sponsored by Unilazer Ventures Ltd.  SWADES aims at investing 700 crores on its projects by the end of 2017 which will be funded partially by the foundation and partially by raising donations. These funds will be used primarily to improve water & sanitation, livelihood & agriculture, education and health. Ronnie Screwvala believes that unless these facilities are provided permanently to the rural population, the growth will not be permanent and sustainable.

Ronnie Screwvala: The TV Entrepreneur of India

Ronnie Screwavala is the man who pioneered organized cable TV in India in 1981. He is also the man who brought to the Indian Television, its first reality show Saanp Seedhi in 1992 and the first drama series Shanti- Ek Aurat Ki Kahani in 1994. The show to this day is considered as one of the best drama series aired on the Indian Television. It had a phenomenal fan following and was adored by male and female audiences. After the success of Shanti and Saanp Seedhi, Ronnie Screwvala went on to produce many television shows.

In 1990, Ronnie established UTV Software Communications which was into production and distribution of movies and television family programs. Ronnie along with his better half Zarina Mehta entered into television broadcasting with the launch of  Hungama children television channel. The channel with its carefully tailored content became the number one channel for children in India, surpassing international channles like Disney and Time Warner. Ronnie has launched many other television channels such as UTV Bindass, UTV Action, UTV World Movies, UTV Movies, etc. 

Today the Indian TV distribution market with a reach of 146 million households is the third largest in the world. The industry is currently valued at Rs. 20,000 crore. The format and content of Indian Television has seen tremendous transformation. However, Ronnie Screwvala who has known the Indian Television audience like none other believes that the key to successful TV content creation is appeal to the masses and not just the metropolitan audience. He says that the audience today has access to hundreds of national and regional channels and the only way to win their interest and attention is to create innovative and meaningful content. With the growing competition, the channels today cannot take their audience for granted. He also believes that local adaptations of international television formats is not what the major chunk of audience want to watch. The creators of television content must produce original shows that the audience can relate to. Also, India with it's diverse culture and languages is not an easy market to crack. 

From a small cable provider to a media and entertainment emperor, Ronnie has come a long way. He has changed the face of  Televison and film industry with not just innovative content but also the way in which business is done.

Staying the course is really the key to Success

DREAM MERCHANTS CAN SUCCEED ONLY IF THEIR CREATIVITY IS BACKED BY A SOUND BUSINESS PROPOSITION, SAYS THE MEDIA MOGHUL.

Entering the media business was not a visionary thought that emerged early in my life. After my B. Com, I found myself at the same Crossroad many of us do- should I create something new as an entrepreneur or proceed with a professional career? Those days, for a commerce graduate, chartered accountancy and MBA were prized possessions. Instead, I chose to go along a path I was already treading in some way - as a student, I had done a lot of theater and voice-overs for commercials. But media meant just Doordarshan while film was a completely different world. There was zero inclination towards the media business but, thanks to my exposure to media and my confidence- theatre gives you tremendous confidence and frees you of inhibitions - there came about the idea of cable television.

In 1981, people all over the world had multiple choices for television channels and here we had just Doordarshan. When I talked about my idea of having an alternative channel, everyone said, “Fantastic idea, but we cant do anything about it. “ Nobody had the concept of satellite television – not even in the West, really – so anything you did in this sector would be a first. My breakthrough was he idea of offering video entertainment for our building. The society agreed and by default, I was a pioneer.

But it was tough because it’s a completely non-trodden path. I had no seed capital to expand - you sold the concept to the building and if more than 30% of the residents paid you in advance for the year, you had the working capital to start and install the CCTV in their houses. For an entire year, all we did was make demonstrations to all the large hotel chains and to about 300-400 building co-operative societies in Mumbai. We offered three hours of programming operating through a control room the residential complex would give us. The cable business was a good learning curve. But honestly, although I was the pioneer, I had no vision. The biggest evidence of this is the fact that before I started UTV in 1990, I started a toothbrush company!When you’re starting up as an entrepreneur, you need to be opportunistic. Toothbrushes, for me, was opportunistic. It was an idea that occurred on a holiday with my father, who was working with a multinational called Smith & Nephew, which made Nivea cream and Wisdom toothbrushes. At the UK plant, a brand new looking automatic toothbrush-manufacturing machine had been set aside as scrap.

We imported it and set up a manufacturing unit in India after getting positive feedback from the Colgate-Palmolive senior management. It could not make toothbrushes - the category was reserved for small scale industries - and so I got the opportunity to enter the business. Ultimately, when we took a strategic call to focus on the media business, we sold that business. But it was only in 2000 that I realised that media and entertainment was a bigger value creator than B2B contract manufacturing of toothbrushes.

Coming back to the cable business, about six years after I started it, the space got extremely crowded. The challenge in India is the herd mentality. When you drive on Indian roads, you first look at how five people around are driving and take your cues from them. Extrapolate that analogy to business and it fits to a T. Trouble is, not everyone comes in with the same philosophy – there will be entrants who will spoil the market by offering a lower price or whatever else and the economics of the business will change. So when I saw crowding, I decided to move out of the cable business and instead focus on content creation.

AN ALTERNATIVE PATH

In 1992, Zee TV had already started and was looking for content and programming. But Subhash Chandra wanted it at the lowest cost because he had paid a fat satellite fee to Li Ka-shing. He wanted to minimise his risk so he was willing to experiment with creativity, but at the lowest cost. We got a 550-episode contract and that’s when U’I‘V scaled up dramatically. It was the Zee engagement that actually drove home to me that you need to have the highest level of creativity but, if it is not matched with business sense, it’s completely esoteric. That balance now runs in the DNA of the organisation. You need to be dream merchants, but you have to build that into a viable business proposition to go forward.

I realised early on that you needed very deep pockets in the broadcast business because, outside of Zee, everyone else was a multinational. As a first-generation entrepreneur with nothing to fall back on, the big question was, could we fund the business in a manner that did not dilute our equity to the extent the company ultimately ceased to be ours? Equity was the only option because banks did not understand the media business and, therefore, did not lend. We didn’t have deep enough pockets, so we focused instead on content. We created a large post-production studio and started making ad commercials, airline in-flight programming, animation and so on, apart from producing several television programs. But all of that was at the whim and fancy of our customers because we were in a B2B business. It was important for us to control our own destiny,so we decided to create B2C businesses.

The large picture in front of us was the movie industry. The large picture in front of us was the movie industry, which we did not fully understand. But we knew from our TV experience that the younger generation was looking for something different, even though they were also happy enough with what was there. A whole set of young directors and writers were also looking for opportunities from the same prism. So it was a simple, straightforward entry into movies, thinking,“Let’s grow this one step at a time.” Our first film Dil  Ke Jharoke Mein proved a dud, and the traction in the business came with our co-production ventures: Shah Rukh Khan for Chalte Chalte, Ashutosh Gowariker for Swades and with Hrithik Roshan and Farhan Akhtar for Lakshya.

Many people would have got out of the business after that first failure. But that was not part of our DNA – wherever we’ve not done well, we've come back with a vengeance. Because if you don’t capitalise on learnings from your failures, it is a complete waste. Staying the course is really the key to success in any business. It’s also important to do your homework diligently. Often, there is a perception that films is a risky business. It isn’t it’s just like any other business if you do the right analysis. We go through tonnes of feasibility reports. We look at the pedigree of the director, the concept, the genre and so on. The other 50°/o is about timing, date of release, marketing, positioning, brand and so on. There is no secret sauce for success but your research.

It was our research that showed us the way to broadcasting also. We knew we had lost the general entertainment channel game initially and playing catch-up required deep pockets. Our approach would have to be different to effectively compete against large multinationals. Our research while doing Shaka Laka Boom Boom showed kids were desperately looking for local content. So while Cartoon Network, Pogo and Nickelodeon Disney with their 10,000 hours of programming and deep pockets were already entrenched in the kids’ channel space, there was still a gap we could fill. So we started Hungama and in 18 months, became the No.1 kids’ channel. That’s when Disney approached us and we stuck a good partnership and took the company to great heights. Instead of dividing UTV into the three parts we wanted to grow – movies,broadcasting and gaming and new media - we decided to consolidate, allow Disney to increase their holding and infuse capital. I was happy to do that because for me growing the company was important. 

Promoters in India are obsessed with 51% and control. I crossed that bridge way, way back. I was a shareholder and the value of my shares would increase with everything one did right for the company. Now, if you think as a 60% shareholder in a company you are the owner, you have a big problem. The definition of ownership is 100%. If you think differently, you are not going to create value for the shareholders and the company.

BEYOND BUSINESS
It would be wrong for me to say that the decision to finally exit the company was based solely on business need alone. It was also about how I viewed the next 25 years of my life and what I wanted to do. Very early in my career, we had started an NGO called Share, driven by the thought that about 10% of whatever we made every year should go to charity. Once we listed, we ensured Share was separated from UTV; it become my personal engagement. Over the past five-seven years, we’ve been active in rural India, especially in Raigarh and Ratnagiri districts in Maharashtra, improving access to water. We are now looking to create a model that is scalable, but for that one needs substantial resources. Of course, we’ll still raise more funds. If I could convince Disney, which came to buy Hungama, to buy the entire company, I’m sure I can convince philanthropists around the world to put money in a good cause. As an entrepreneur, that’s what I bring to the table and that's my calling right now.

 I am also looking at seeding entrepreneurs. If we can’t take entrepreneurship to the next level over the next 15-20 years, we won't be able to progress as a nation. I believe opportunities exist in non-glamorous sectors and that’s where I would like to add value with budding entrepreneurs, by building scale, brand and value. At the end of it all, what is essential for entrepreneurs is staying the course. You’ve got to be able to constantly ask yourself, “What have I got to lose?” In fact, the best way to handle crisis is to fast-forward to your worst case situation. Align yourself to that. If you can live with that, everything else is doable. I started with Rs.37,500. What’s my worst-case situation? I’ll go back to Rs.37,500 and it’s not that petrifying. My ability and my confidence will restart because, as difficult as it may sound, it's not insurmountable.

Looking back, it may seem I have always planned my exits. But that’s a false way to start. If you start Day one in a job with a view to hand over in two years’ time to somebody else, imagine your performance. You’ll never have any clarity of role. You’ll never be a leader. Also, success leads to complacency. Don’t take anything for granted and instead say, “Let’s move on.” That can be quite rattling for many team members but for me, it’s been a good formula. Remember, life can be very fickle and transient. So stay grounded.

Success Formula Ronnie Screwvala, Md, Disney UTV

 'With inspiration, you can do the impossible'

First generation entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala is a pioneer in the television, entertainment and gaming industry. Screwvala, managing director, Disney UTV, and founder trustee, Swades Foundation, spoke on various aspects of leadership. Excerpts:

How do you define a leader? What are the most important traits of a leader?

A leader has to lead from the front, and lead by example. Most importantly, a great leader must build credibility and trust all around – with colleagues, customers and the public at large. Integrity of thought and word cannot be relegated to second place at any cost. It is also important to inspire, as with inspiration, you can get colleagues and others to turn the impossible into the possible. This is particularly true in times of crisis as at such times, everyone looks up to the leader for answers and solutions.

Can leadership be learnt? In other words, how can a manager become a leader?
Leadership has to come from within, and, if you look at yourself as a manager, then chances are that you may not emerge as a leader. It has to come naturally, instinctively and needs to be embedded in the DNA of the leader. In some ways you can “learn” or “train” leadership qualities and how to take
charge, but, in my View, real leadership in areas such as entrepreneurship is more of a natural process.

What is the role of a professional leader in a promoter-driven company?
I think a lot is being made, incorrectly, of this “professional” versus “promoter” debate. This argument sometimes creates the impression that founders and promoters can never be professionals. I think an optimal combination of a professional leading and a promoter heading an organisation can inject dynamism into it. The promoter brings on the table his risk taking ability, pioneering spirit and quick decision-making, backed by action. A professional leader can add to this with sharp execution plans and skills, an unwavering focus on deliverables, in-depth research and a thorough understanding of the consumer and the rigour of a strong review process.

Since Septr 2008, the world has fallen into a maelstrom of serial crises. What is the role of a leader in these times?
Part of the reason why the world fell into this maelstrom is that a small minority of heads of companies thought they were great leaders and let their perceptions overtake reality. These leaders closed themselves to feedback on ground realities. These are traits every leader should consciously avoid, for these are the precise reasons that cause leaders to fall off the cliff.

Leaders often carry the cross of other’s wrong doings and inefficiencies. Take the global banking sector today, for instance. What role can good leadership play to counter balance this image?
Leadership is very individualistic and cannot be generalised. A leader has to be viewed as a distinct entity and cannot make up for the inefficiencies of others. Actually, in each industry, one will see some clear leaders who stand out clearly, demonstrating that it is as much about the individual himself as much it is for the specific sector. Stay the course in your own belief and performance, and that will be noticed and respected.

Who are the leaders that have inspired you?
More than individuals or personalities, there are certain situations that have inspired me. For instance, the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which held out great lessons in leadership. To see the entire management and staff, irrespective of seniority, thinking of every client in the hotel as a guest even at a time of such a grave emergency, was a remarkable lesson on ownership, commitment and pride in your work. This is a direct reflection of great leadership – of leading from the front, of credibility and of standing by your beliefs at all times.

What is worst decision you have taken as a leader?
Not taking a hard call to pull the plug on something even when all the signs I pointed otherwise and not knowing at that moment that it’s wiser to cut your losses and walk. This inability to take a tough call when needed can lead to some of the worst decisions.

What is the best decision that you have taken as a leader?
Staying the course clearly is not only one of the most important aspects of a leader, but also the
hallmark of a resilient organisation. Resilience is the key to long term success and to being a
great leader. Also, it is imperative not to give up when failure knocks, as it will many a time.

Ronnie pads up for his second innings

The Disney India MD will use his private wealth to build scale and brands in agriculture, health care and education.

Rohinton (better known as Ronnie) Screwvala is on a high these days. Even as a Google app on his mobile phone frequently takes him to a few districts in Maharashtra where his “dream project” is taking shape, the 56-year-old says the second innings of his life is like going back to his entrepreneurial roots. 

 

But there is a vital difference. When he started his entrepreneurial journey over 30 years ago with a cable service venture called Network, his bank balance was virtually zero. This time around, he is resuming the journey with a neat cash pile of 900 crore the money he got after selling 19 per cent stake in UTV Software Communications to Walt Disney last year. Screwvala continues to be the MD of Disney India. So, what is his dream project like? Screwvala hastens to say-it has nothing to do with media & entertainment, something he has been involved with for 30 years and an area too crowded already. This time, he has chosen agriculture, health care and education.

He has done two things. First, he has launched a private equity fund (Unilazer Ventures) with a corpus of 800-400 crore, which would provide seed capital to companies in these areas. “I want to look at scale, build brands and change the perception about these three sensational areas,” he says.

To begin with, the company has already invested about 20 crore in INI Farms, involved in pomegranate plantations on over 1,000 acres across Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The project involves doubling productivity and increasing the export content from 40 per cent of the total production now to over 70 per cent with the help of modern farming and post-harvest technologies. The idea is to create a pomegranate brand.

“There are huge opportunities in agriculture and health care. Nobody has positioned these sectors as an exciting opportunity when it comes to business, even though» the margins are as high as 45-70 per cent. If two or three people start glamorising the industry over the next two-three years, we’ll be able to look at scale and brand building for such sectors," he adds.

Screwvala is also looking at opportunities in rural health care, a sunshine industry that remains neglected. ‘‘That‘s the opportunity. Chances are you are going to be the only guy in this business. It’s true there is a shortage of qualified doctors, but basic amenities in health care like pathology labs don’t need MBBS doctors,” he says.

The second part of his dream project, for which he has himself committed 250 crore over the next five years, is even more ambitious. His foundation called Share, has finalised a blueprint to “improve the livelihood and empower people” in seven villages of Maharashtra, covering a million people across eight talukas and five districts.

“Our idea is not to donate money but to help the villagers become independent enough to earn their livelihood. We want to have an exit strategy where we help them for the first two years by giving them enough push. Then, they take it over themselves,” he adds.

Screwvala is now looking to raise another 250 crore from other donors. “If I could hold roadshows for UTV during its IPO, I think I can do it for a good cause as well. We need to have a corporate mindset in social responsibility kind of work,” he says.