Anand Mahindra Quotes

There is no business in the world - I don't care what it is, whether it's I.T. or manufacturing - that does not have what I may refer to as a blended resource base. You have high-end work. You have engineering work. You have some local knowledge you require. Then, you have some very low-cost work to be done.

- Anand Mahindra

The job of automobile manufacturers is to passionately build something that others love to own.

- Anand Mahindra

If you are planning to save the planet, it will not be Tesla that will do it, since only a finite number of people can afford to buy one, even a $35,000 Model 3.

- Anand Mahindra

It requires a different holistic approach and a recognition that it's not simply a question of stepping into China's shoes. Our 'Make in India' has to be different from China's in the sense that we have to do a 'taal-mel' or 'jugalbandi' of our IT skills that exist and our evolving manufacturing skills and become intelligent manufacturers.

- Anand Mahindra

India's sprawling subcontinent can never become a plus-size Singapore. But perhaps we can weave together an urban web that is the equivalent of a thousand Singapores.

- Anand Mahindra

Ride-sharing is inevitably going to be 100% electric.

- Anand Mahindra

Nobody understands how the world will change. The only way you can plan for the future is to have scenarios. You have to have the courage to take a leap of faith on one of them.

- Anand Mahindra

To me, Scorpio was a big bet and a quantum leap in the kind of sophistication of our products. People forget that, apart from the Bolero and the Armada, until the nineties we never made hard-top vehicles.

- Anand Mahindra

As I have often said, acceptance of the idea of shared mobility is going to be one of the major disruptive trends in the automotive industry.

- Anand Mahindra

When you set the right targets, aspirations, and you work efficiently and diligently, the numbers happen.

- Anand Mahindra

The market will evolve into two segments: cars that provide ease of access to transport and are shared by many people, and cars that are exclusive, high-end symbols of the owner's status and aspirations.

- Anand Mahindra

Old definitions of segments are going to get blurred. Once you defined cars by horsepower, engines. That has changed.

- Anand Mahindra

There's this old Frank Sinatra song: 'If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere'... that song was about New York, but it applies to America. People know that if you make it in America, you can make it anywhere, and that is both in terms of sophistication and customer satisfaction.

- Anand Mahindra

Social media is one of the most under-rated business tools, in my opinion. It's an amazing cockpit for any CEO. I can narrate any number of stories how it has helped me to reach out to customers, dealers, protesting workers, and even security guards.

- Anand Mahindra

In 2001, I did some research and identified four characteristics that successful companies share. One, they aspire to be leaders in their businesses. Two, they have global potential. Three, they are innovative. Four, they display a ruthless focus on financial returns.

- Anand Mahindra

To my mind, the education of children - girl children, specifically - is what really creates an enlightened society. It creates a liberal society.

- Anand Mahindra

If you aren't humble, whatever empathy you claim is false and probably results from some arrogance or the desire to control. But true empathy is rooted in humility and the understanding that there are many people with as much to contribute in life as you.

- Anand Mahindra

I don't think the disruptor and the business model of a disruptor necessarily is an indication of the topography of the future. If it did, you would say then that everyone will make high-end electric cars, when the answer is clearly no.

- Anand Mahindra

To me, every decision needn't be a 'big-bang' reform but a signal of proactive decision-making and removal of red tape and bureaucracy.

- Anand Mahindra

Sometimes the only kind of innovation comes when you have some solitude; when you step away.

- Anand Mahindra

I have fond memories of my kabaddi exploits at Lawrence School. I also enjoyed tennis and swimming.

- Anand Mahindra

Whether in services or in manufacturing, the trick is to stay ahead of the curve. I believe we should not wait to be disrupted - we should become disruptors ourselves.

- Anand Mahindra

You incubate a product in an atmosphere where that product is best incubated. So, for example, we incubated our electric scooter in California. Because it's low-volume manufacturing but high-intelligence, intensive manufacturing, we are starting in Michigan.

- Anand Mahindra

Just like you have fire regulations, they should have regulations that no building would be made without charging points for electric vehicles.

- Anand Mahindra

My mother was a writer. She acted in one film before she decided that Bollywood wasn't good enough for her. My two sisters and I probably learned from her how to get under other people's skin. In contrast, my father was a simple man despite his success at business. He was a people person, and I think that's what led him to join politics.

- Anand Mahindra

The age of access being offered by taxi-hailing apps like Uber and Ola is the biggest potential threat to auto industry.

- Anand Mahindra

We're going to be selling our product to the American consumer. We want to have Americans who understand American consumers.

- Anand Mahindra

Women need a space that quenches their intellectual hunger, engages and empowers them with relatable content.

- Anand Mahindra

In India, we are forced to choose our specialisation very early, whereas in some other countries, this can be done much later in life. While the British have abandoned this approach, we in India seem to be struggling with the old British system of education.

- Anand Mahindra

The moment I say I'm going into scooters, they say, 'You're crazy.' Six months later, when BMW comes out with an electric scooter, it's fine. But when Anand does it, because he's some small guy in India, it's not fine.

- Anand Mahindra

2012 was a good year for the Mahindra Group, as we moved ahead by venturing into new geographies and businesses.

- Anand Mahindra

Businesses look for stability; they look for direction.

- Anand Mahindra

One of the demonetization benefits, in some markets like used cars, is that organized, transparent businesses are gaining at the cost of unorganized players.

- Anand Mahindra

For any sport to be sustainable, it cannot survive on government or corporate grants alone. The sporting ecosystem needs more investments from businesses, and businesses need to see the returns from their investment in sport. Cricket has achieved that distinction, but I feel a country of a billion-plus people cannot remain captive to one sport.

- Anand Mahindra

My aspiration is that M&M become one of the most customer-centric organizations in the world. If we focus on understanding our customers, we will be able to develop customer-centric innovations.

- Anand Mahindra

For too many years, we, as a country, have suffered from a poverty of aspiration.

- Anand Mahindra

It is such an uncertain universe out there that you have to create what I call 'real' options and develop capabilities that will enable you to deal with an environment that will change anyway.

- Anand Mahindra

You have to treat every day as a new challenge, and you have to remain paranoid, as they say.

- Anand Mahindra

My own ambitions were eclectic. My father ran a steel plant, and I was expected to study metallurgy and end up at the steel plant when I finished high school at age 15. Despite my proficiency at science, I decided against it and instead went on to study filmmaking.

- Anand Mahindra

We often say that the M&M Group's destiny is inextricably linked with India's. Both were born around the same time: India in 1947, M&M in 1945. The group has experienced the same vicissitudes that the Indian economy has.

- Anand Mahindra

The Indian government is extraordinarily large, and it is difficult to try and believe that one leader can make all the change. This is a federal system.

- Anand Mahindra

There is a growing interest in team ownership and promoting sports beyond cricket in India. I always felt it is important to encourage other sports, especially those that bring communities together and promote active lifestyles to Indian youth.

- Anand Mahindra

I am not a lonely person. I am happily married and not looking for companions on social media.

- Anand Mahindra

Our credo says that, in the end, we want to drive positive change in the lives of our stakeholders and communities across the world, enabling them to rise.

- Anand Mahindra

As far as passenger cars are concerned, I have always said, in the past, we will work more with partners and partnerships. Our focus on our own would be on the SUVs.

- Anand Mahindra

I call America our emerging market. They find it very amusing when I said that.

- Anand Mahindra

I do believe it is important to be future-ready with a portfolio to be able to deal with however the market evolves. This is better than just forecasting accurately but in having the weapons ready to deal with the uncertainties.

- Anand Mahindra

The Rise credo is about accepting no limits, alternative thinking, and driving positive change - the three pillars.

- Anand Mahindra

When people consume, they want more. Then they choose the best, and you suddenly get innovation coming in. Now combine that with desperation and people wanting to get a better life: you have a potent combination for innovation.

- Anand Mahindra

Being tied down to a pre-med or engineering track would have slotted me into a very narrow group. Being a young filmmaker allowed me to explore many areas of life and many kinds of people.

- Anand Mahindra

If your strategy calls for you to be in America, then you will go into America. If your strategy calls for you to be in M&A, then you'll do an acquisition. You usually acquire a company to acquire technology, geographic advantage, etc. Similarly, geographic expansion is very much like M&A. It's done to advance a strategy.

- Anand Mahindra

Mahindra's brand strategy is about niches across areas of mobility.

- Anand Mahindra

After I finished school, I went to JJ College of Architecture and then to Harvard. I did my B.A. with a major in filmmaking.

- Anand Mahindra

I have always said that, more than 'big bang' reforms, it is every day what is happening, changing on the ground.

- Anand Mahindra

We see ourselves as being people who want to take India to the world; we see ourselves as being aggressive, assuming risk.

- Anand Mahindra

You cannot mean everything to all segments of the markets. You cannot have a brand straddling too many meanings.

- Anand Mahindra

It is imperative for us to protect the flora and fauna around us.

- Anand Mahindra

The best way to propel the economy may be to encourage different parts of the country to go their own way.

- Anand Mahindra

I have personally invested in a company created by Rohit Khattar - Cinestaan Film Company. But that's what I do personally.

- Anand Mahindra

For India's economy to expand as rapidly and yet more sustainably than China's, we need to make our differences into virtues rather than vulnerabilities.

- Anand Mahindra

I think a CEO lives or dies in whether he's been able to hold on to elements of culture that are needed in the company.

- Anand Mahindra

XUV is a living proof of the value of MRV. In that sense, the XUV was a wonderful validation. The XUV grew along with MRV. As the institution was built, the product was created.

- Anand Mahindra

The more you drive positive change, the more enhanced your business model.

- Anand Mahindra

Sustainability is a part of our 'rise' philosophy. You cannot rise if you take more from the community than you put back.

- Anand Mahindra

In a large bureaucracy, you cannot exercise the transformation of any situation without coopting bureaucracy.

- Anand Mahindra

Autonomous tractors would enable a farmer to focus on the work that matters the most on a farm.

- Anand Mahindra

When we heard that America is pulling out of the Paris Agreement, that's unfortunate, but frankly - speaking purely from my competitive juices point of view - we are delighted that somebody's not going to look at these opportunities. They'll be all there for us.

- Anand Mahindra

Shared ownership will always mean that you will never sell as many cars as might have been sold without shared mobility... if people are sharing cars, then obviously you are going to sell less cars than would have been sold otherwise. But it doesn't mean that you will have a deceleration in private cars; it just means that the growth will be lower.

- Anand Mahindra

The more I learn about industry structures, the more I feel that once a company has paid the fee, in a manner of speaking, to enter a sector, it becomes even harder to stay afloat.

- Anand Mahindra

Education is like the pooja ghar for us. We are never going to become a for-profit player in education. It will be akin to selling the pooja ghar.

- Anand Mahindra

The story of rural India is a lack of empowerment: perceived impotence. Villagers are being constantly threatened by an authority. The Bolero symbolizes empowerment.

- Anand Mahindra

A lot of people who can afford a vehicle are deciding against owning one. They just need access to transport. So, our job is to offer wider choices to consumers with more innovative models.

- Anand Mahindra

The government should find regulation to encourage ride-sharing companies. Rather than finding impediments for them, regulate them by all means... create a framework by which ride-sharing companies can survive.

- Anand Mahindra

I'm an optimist about NAFTA merely being updated.

- Anand Mahindra

When you sell cars in the U.S., it forces you to be the most competitive.

- Anand Mahindra

India's states must compete, not march in lockstep, if India is to develop its own path to sustainable prosperity.

- Anand Mahindra

I love the blues, but I love a lot of music.

- Anand Mahindra

Make in India will not work if we take a conventional linear approach. It has to be a leapfrogging into the future, and India is ideally placed to do this.

- Anand Mahindra

The glamorous side is SUVs, but frankly, the tractor side is where we are number one in the world.

- Anand Mahindra

If I were to put labels on demonetization, it would be transparency and traceability.

- Anand Mahindra

We have never shied away from making investments. Even during downcycles, we never stopped our investments.

- Anand Mahindra

I think Tesla doesn't sound like it has a very collaborative culture.

- Anand Mahindra

I have no problem with money coming in and spawning competition. I am honest enough to admit that Mahindra & Mahindra would not have been going to the IITs and doing research if there was no competition.

- Anand Mahindra

The term 'niche' is no longer pejorative.

- Anand Mahindra

Anyone who makes time frames beyond tomorrow probably isn't pushing himself hard enough.

- Anand Mahindra

Can a person be inspirational? Does a person have global sensibility? That's the hardest thing to find.

- Anand Mahindra

We don't believe start-ups are the private preserve of only garage start-ups... The corporate garage is going to be the scene of a lot of action.

- Anand Mahindra

You have to seed internal disruptors. You need sources of internal disruption. They don't guarantee your survival, but you have got to try.

- Anand Mahindra

Sustainability has to be a way of life to be a way of business.

- Anand Mahindra

The most important thing that I tell myself is that no matter where I go in this journey, the humility is what's gonna keep me honest and real. And perhaps a better manager.

- Anand Mahindra

You go into battle with your strengths.

- Anand Mahindra

Life has an interesting way of teaching even the most powerful people that joy from wealth is fleeting at best.

- Anand Mahindra

Branding in electric mobility is critical, but I think what Tesla has also demonstrated is that you can build new brands.

- Anand Mahindra

You want educated women if you are going to have a modern society.

- Anand Mahindra

I've been criticised for being an eternal optimist.

- Anand Mahindra

Nothing is 'another day at the office.'

- Anand Mahindra

It is processes that are important.

- Anand Mahindra

President Donald Trump's policies are not global but inward-looking.

- Anand Mahindra

Leaders don't look behind; they don't look to the side - they look ahead.

- Anand Mahindra

Benchmarking is an ongoing exercise in any company that aspires for leadership.

- Anand Mahindra