‘Goal to enter the developed world’

Harsh Goenka, Chairman, RPG Enterprises

Harsh Goenka, chairman of RPG Enterprises, sits in an office that betrays his interest in the world of art, sculpture and paintings. The artefacts in the waiting area outside his chamber makes your wait interesting in many ways, but this is a man who does not make you wait too long. Goenka spoke to Suman Layak on Valentine's Day about the group's businesses and the way forward.

Power is the mainstay of RPG Enterprises isn’t it?
CESC Limited is our biggest play in power and in any other field and we are operating with very high plant load factors. Our transmission distribution losses are now below 14 per cent. We are coming up with a new plant in Haldia and Budge Budge, besides plans are afoot for new power generating units in Jhakhand and Orissa. KEC is our transmission play that we intend to use to get a global footprint. We are working on projects in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq where there are a lot of issues, including security. We are also in countries like Tunisia, Algeria, middle east. We have a joint venture with an US company called Power Engineers and are looking at growing the business in sub-stations, telecom towers and railway infrastructures. We want to become a world leader in the business. The goal now is to enter the developed world.

What is the latest in growth areas like retail and entertainment?

We are learning the ropes in movie making now. We have just released a new album with Sonu Nigam called 'Classically Mild' that has some classical touches to the music. We are also into DVD and VCD distribution. Spencers is expanding fast and we have upgraded the ambience. We are introducing new items. Some toys from the United Kingdom would be put on our stores, which were never sold before in India. We are opening a story a day and in different formats. We are also rolling out 500 RPG Cellucoms for mobile retail in the near future.

What about Infotech and Life Sciences?

Zensar is our vehicle for the infotech business. We bought out the stake held by Fujitsu in the company, besides acquiring two companies in the US and another in Japan. The Japanese acquisition has allowed us get a much better hold in the market where we grew by 55 per cent. The Oracle practice of Zensar is now among the top 10 in the business globally. We have also targeted the retail sector and now have Marks & Spencers, Target, Selfriges as clients.In life sciences, we have restructured the business into a life sciences company and an investment company. Our life sciences business will focus on biotech products.

Are there any plans to enter any new businesses?
No. We are not looking at any new businesses and rather trying to focus on our existing businesses at the moment.