The Hindu Business Line : At home with business

“We need places where the customer can walk to and back with all their service needs met at a one-stop shop but the concept also has to be in sync with the Indian ethos of living.”

Taste for India: Samir Modi, Director, Modi Enterprises - Jeetu Pali

Norm Sen

Cooking is an old passion for Samir Modi, Managing Director of Modi Enterprises, a part of the K.K. Modi Group, which has an annual turnover of Rs 3,600 crore. The K.K. Modi group is part of the overall Modi Group, one of India’s largest business conglomerates.

“When I was a child, if you went to any of the Modi households over the weekend, the meal by default was biriyani with potatoes and lassi,” Modi says as he slumps back on his plush leather chair behind his desk at his New Friends Colony Office in Delhi. “It was almost like religion and very soon I got a tad bit tired of it. That’s when I started experimenting with cooking and started to bake cookies and cakes and tried my hand at different types of cuisine.”

Modi, 37, says even now he enjoys gardening and grows his own herbs, brinjals, chilli and bitter gourds. The entrepreneur is especially fond of Thai, Lebanese and Indian food and often tries his hand at cooking up a storm with his favourite dishes from these diverse cultures. “I am averse to using paste when I cook,” he says, drawing leisurely from his Marlboro Lights cigarette, which is his favourite brand. “I make baklava (a Middle Eastern dessert) from scratch.”

Modi’s penchant for cooking took him to Australia to pursue a course in hotel management in 1986. “At the end of the final semester, all the students, including me, had to cook for 40 students,” he says about the experience. While also in the Land Down Under, Modi honed his culinary skills working as wait staff for an Indian restaurant, Tamarind, in Frankston, near Melbourne, and earning A$55 a day.

As part of his management duties, he oversees the operations of Twenty Four Seven Convenience Stores, Delhi’s first round-the-clock retail outlets; ColorBar Cosmetics, a US-based brand targeted at the working woman and marketed in India by the K.K. Modi Group; Godfrey Philips India Ltd; Modicare Ltd, which is a goods distribution channel that employs nearly 9 lakh people along the lines of US-based Amway; Modi Apollo International Group Pvt Ltd; and Modi Entertainment Ltd. He is also the vice-chairman of Modicare Foundation, set up in 1996 as a non-profit organisation to promote HIV/AIDS awareness. The Foundation spends nearly Rs 4 crore annually towards this cause.

Modi, who is a graduate of Doon School, earned his B.A. degree from Hindu College in 1992, dabbled in electrical engineering for a year in Bangalore and completed a course in executive management from Harvard University. He was also assistant brand manager with Marlboro, Philip Morris, in the US, where he spearheaded the tobacco company’s first customer loyalty programme.

The young entrepreneur’s office is a hub of activity and tranquillity. It has a metal sculpture of construction workers sitting on a metal beam, which is being hauled to construct a skyscraper in the Big Apple; he had bought it from a Greenwich Village street vendor in New York City.

Modi is a gadget freak who can fix iPods, digs the BlackBerry and flaunts the latest mobile phones. He also owns ARCHOS, a portable media player, and an Apple iMac. An avid reggae, pop and classic rock fan, he never misses a chance to soak in Hindi playback scores from the 1960s and 1970s.

He says convenience stores such as Twenty Four Seven, which has four stores in Lajpat Nagar and another in the works in Nehru Place, are here to stay to meet the changing needs of the affluent, urban population. “India today requires at least 60,000 convenience stores of the likes of Twenty Four Seven, where you can find everything from Hunuman Mandir Ka Aloo Ki Kachori, Starbucks Coffee to hot dogs, which are among the 80 ready-to-eat food items available at our outlets,” he says. All the outlets typically also feature a pharmacy, credit card, mobile phone and utility bills payment centres, courier services and movie ticket kiosks.

“We need places where the customer can walk to and back with all their service needs met at a one-stop shop but the concept also has to be in sync with the Indian ethos of living,” he says. “It’s about giving busy, urban professionals more time to go about their lives.” But he admits there are challenges. “It has to do with the old and new economy. Nearly 40 per cent of our resources are spent in managing the environment, otherwise our growth would be much higher,” says the proud owner of a Harley-Davidson Limited Edition Fat Boy motorbike, which is fitted with an off-market exhaust.

The organised cosmetics market in India is estimated to be Rs 500 crore. “I think there is tremendous potential for growth in this area,” Modi predicts. “Our goal is to bring beauty to every woman and she doesn’t have to be Aishwarya Rai. We want to make good quality make-up available at reasonable prices. For instance, our lipsticks have the same formula as Chanel’s but cost a fraction of what the brand charges.”

He says not enough is being done to educate the masses in India about HIV/AIDS. “The high-risk groups are the ones who are the most vulnerable . There is a lack of awareness even among the educated people and the issue is not a priority among the corporates and most of these organisations lack an HIV workplace policy.”

Modi, who follows Richard Branson’s way of doing business, says he follows his grandfather’s philosophy when it comes to doing business. “Our country deserves the best. Either you build the best or you tie up with the best in the world.”

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At home with business