Hot seat

The Thomas Cook captain

Being the reform-driven CEO and MD of Thomas Cook India Limited (TCIL) doesn't suffice for Ashwini Kakkar. The twin duties of the TAAI presidency and the chairmanship of WTTC's India Chapter will add to his exhaustive chronology of achievements, Kakkar impresses on Bhisham Mansukhani.

Diversity is known to be the essence of experience, but to Ashwini Kakkar, it is indispensable. On the academic front, in his formative years as a tyro accumulating knowledge or as fronting management in a number of different corporations before settling down to his current portfolio of nearly nine years, Kakkar has thrown many verticals into the mix. Mechanical engineering, finance, management, law! Otis, Phillips, General Electric, Thomas Cook! The choices couldn't be more poles apart and yet he regrets none. It would seem rather ironic that the industry for which he has become a unanimously celebrated ambassador was one he was most apprehensive to join.

"I had my reservations about joining the tourism industry under the prevailing circumstances back then. You had to secure RBI permission in order to receive US$ 8 on an international trip and an economy class round trip to London would set one back by Rs 54000. It was a niche market. In hindsight, I suppose that there are many professions that one can choose from but to participate in people's holidays is one of the more exhilarating ones," Kakkar reflects. Coming in from General Electric where he had been responsible for introducing many of its international businesses in India, selling the concept of international holidays in a regulated market, was a daunting task. "It was a tough role from the onset. TCIL was then a relatively small company with limited brand equity. The organisation needed an verhaul in tandem with the incipience of reform at a governmental level. So, I started with a numbers focus with the result that revenues swelled. My permanent focus on technology as a platform for driving growth at every company I worked in, held me in good stead." Kakkar's keen bent on technology reflected in some historic additions to Thomas Cook's infrastructure. The computer count went from 30 antiquated terminals to 1100 internet-capable computers and 100 servers. Thomas Cook also notched a notable first by setting up the first dedicated call centre by an Indian tour operator which has now 60 employees. These, Kakkar stresses "are travel experts, not a churned batch of neophytes."

"We moved seriously and quickly in the area of service delivery with a policy stressing on work ethic. The industry did not have any benchmark to follow at that point and our only barometer was guest satisfaction. However, that challenge therein lay in the fact that this aspect has to be pre-empted. I had the benefit of some notable mentors like the former chairman Pradip Madhavji and now retired members of the executive committee. With an engineer's bent of mind, I had a certain structure in mind and the enthusiasm to break new ground by applying successful case studies. I also initiated a tie-up with the University of Buckingham which is the only university to have a Masters and PHD Programme in Service and Quality Programme, according to which its faculty spends 100 man days a year, training out staff," he reveals. Over the years, Kakkar was inducted to the worldwide board and all countries stretching from Singapore to Egypt including Thailand, Mauritius and Sri Lanka were brought under his managerial ambit, the most for any Indian professional fronting multinational tourism operations.

The transition, Kakkar notes, was a very interesting one and on two fronts - organisational and industrial. Change was everywhere. And Kakkar was part of it on both fronts. He was instrumental in pushing for open skies which the aviation ministry is now introducing in phases. During his tenure as Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) president, he underlined the importance of Mumbai to India's economy for which he met with innumerable Indian and international bureaucrats. BCCI had a total reserve of Rs 7 crore in 165 years. When Kakkar left, it was Rs 12 crore, up by Rs 5 crore in a year. As TAAI president now and vice-president before, he envisages a travel agent business model which is more broad-based and sophisticated with little reliance on the international airline ticketing business. He is already busy at ensuring that WTTC Indian Chapter's retreat this year receives influential political and private domos at Indian and international levels.

But work is not all there is to the man. Kakkar does have a parallel, private persona - wine connoisseur, music composer, art collector, sports enthusiast et al. Despite his suffocating routine, he has time to ruminate on all of his 550 and more paintings of contemporary Indian and international artists. The spirit of enterprise is something he didn't restrict to professional precincts either. During his years at INSEAD, France, obtaining his MBA degree, he hitched a ride in the boot of a car to enter Austria without a visa to witness a waltz performance, first hand. He has ridden further afield since then, very much in the driver's seat with little to hide, not even his palpable excitement whenever ideating. Among many of the ideas Kakkar has materialised, he cites his primary marketing concept of exhorting people to spend quality time with their family as most critical. The quality time he has so far spend with TCIL and, no less, the Indian travel trade, has been just as much.