RS Goenka & RS Agrawal on Emami & friendship on Passion To Win

We started with a capital of only 20,000 rupees. R.S. Goenka and I were close friends in school since, what you say, sense friends, and we were friends, and then we would meet in our shop in the evening. Even when we were doing our college, even when we were in our schools, so after we had completed our college, the question was more of meeting and less of business. Then the idea came: why not start a business so that through that business association we would be able to meet regularly? That's how the idea of starting a business started. Since we used to sit in our shop where cosmetics and toiletries were being sold, we thought why not start a cosmetic business because the chances of losses are minimum and they do not require huge capital. That's how we got into the business of cosmetics. In the early '80s, however, they tasted their first real success. The turning point started from 1974 and then in 1978 we took over Emami Limited, which was a 100-year-old company at that time but with very little resources. We took over that company and came out with the brand Boroplus. Emami glycerin was a leading glycerin soap in the country. Boroplus became an instant success. At that time, Borolin was the brand leader with more than 90% market share, and Boroplus we thought was a competitor. Our formulation of the product was very good, so the acceptance of the product was very immediate, and that's how in three years' time we could get a sizeable market share.

Emami is a 4,000 crore company, highly diversified. We are into paper, edible oil, healthcare. We have a chain of pharmacies. We are into retail. We have a ballpoint pen tips factory. And we are going into – these are the existing lines which we have – and then we are going into cement and power. We are thinking of hydropower as well, and we are in the process of acquiring some coal mines in Indonesia.

Left to me, perhaps I would have been able to manage the people, and the other thing I would not have been able to manage – money. Money is not my strength, though I'm a chartered accountant. Money, because I do not know how to conserve that; I know how to manage that. And we, Goenka and I, are the perfect complement to each other. And just like the certain music director duo – Laxmi-Parasher or Shankar-Jaikishan – we are a great duo, but with one difference: only in ours there is no 'it'. Oneness it is. We are not two. We are one.