Hard as it might be to comprehend, one of the Indian sub-continent's largest business groups grew out of the valleys. Its origins date back to 17 July 1788, when 23-year-old Welshman Robert Parry (1768-1824), from Welshpool, Powys, realising the potential for business and commerce in India, arrived in the city of Chennai (formerly Madras).
There, Parry set up a goods and banking business. His heirs added a sugar factory in 1842. The company grew to become a local household name - Parry.
More than 200 years on, one of the business areas of Chennai, Parry's Corner, takes its name from the intrepid entrepreneur - but his organisation has changed somewhat.
Still based at Parry's Corner, but now part of the larger Murugappa Group of, at present, 29 businesses, EID Parry, which upholds the tradition of making plantation white sugar from sugarcane, has factories in the village of Nellikuppam (one of the largest in India - crushing 5,000 metric tonnes of sugar daily) as well as Pugalur, Pudukottai and Pettavaithallai.
EID Parry also has its own bio-products division, which manufactures plant fertiliser and a 'nutraceutical' (a portmanteau of the words 'nutrition' and 'pharmaceutical') division, making foods that are enhanced with wellbeing supplements.
For EID Parry, the biggest growth has come since 2000. According to its vice president HR, SK Sathyavrdhan, who came to the UK in June to meet HR magazine (to pick up a 'highly commended' for best overseas HR strategy in the HR Excellence Awards 2011, no less), it has played its part in putting the Indian market on the map.
And, as the company has grown in size, Sathyavrdhan explains HR was not just important, but "fundamental", to this. "When a business is growing rapidly, but has to remain efficient, HR is important," he explains. "We have earned the respect of the business and we participate actively. We deliver business capability, manage talent and engage staff. Everything HR does is integrated to the company.
"If HR people only work on an operational level, they become too transactional - they can never be strategic. They can never be the strategy partner to the business. HR directors that don't realise this will get stuck."
EID Parry has a vision for its HR department to 'build an organisational capability to deliver superior business performances' and as such has grown five key strategic HR imperatives (see box, 'The Parry way'), which draw on employee engagement, leadership, talent management, and productivity. These, it believes, lead directly to a customer-focused, efficient, growing business that invests in its people and its technology.
And while these values will be nothing new to most capable HRDs in the UK, it is what Sathyavrdhan does with them that is interesting.
In recent years, growth in EID Parry has come from acquisitions. Since 2006, the company has made four acquisitions to expand its manufacturing divisions. Long before discussions with prospective acquisition companies take place, Sathyavrdhan and his team apply Parry's own strategic imperatives to the prospective business and plot its position on a graph. This allows Sathyavrdhan to gauge how well the company could be culturally integrated with his business and where talent gaps will need to be filled in.
"Parry is a cash-rich company," he says. "We aspire to take long leaps, but we have a game plan. The challenge for us in acquisitions is to gradually integrate people into our culture. Engagement in a takeover is pretty important - but we remove the disengaged people early on, so we can successfully engage the new people with the business."
Questions involving recruitment and unemployment across India have hit the world press. As it is one of the BRIC four (with China, Brazil and Russia), it is emerging as one of the world's superpowers: India has the second biggest population and the second biggest labour force. As the UK's GDP festers around 0.2% growth, for Q1 2011, India enjoyed GDP growth of 7.8%. In fact, according to PwC'S 2011 Annual Global CEO Survey, 18% of business leaders think India will be the "most important" country for future business growth.
But talent management provider Manpower carried out a separate survey, finding that the number of employers in India reporting difficulty in filling positions in their organisation had jumped by 51% since 2010.
With an enormous population and a steadily increasing number of rural poor, in 2005 the Indian Government launched a 'marquee employment programme', promising the rural poor at least 100 days of work per year at a minimum daily wage of 120 rupees (which works out at approximately £1.67).
But, as this wage is higher than that offered by a lot of private sector Indian companies, it simply means unemployed people are, in many cases, shunted into a situation of underemployment, while larger employers face difficulties in recruiting the right talent - especially in the agriculture sector, where businesses are struggling to match the Government's promised rates of pay. It also increases the temptation for jobseekers to take on illegal casual or informal work.
A 2010 survey by the Indian Government found 9.4% of the working age population of India was unemployed for more than six months.
But EID Parry has plans in place, both as part of its CSR strategy and its recruitment strategy, to develop the skills of its own staff and of the communities it operates in.
Twice a year, the company holds workshops for its employees' children, focusing on learning and skills. Children are taught about employment opportunities in order to help them make informed decisions when they reach working age. It also runs an apprenticeship scheme, each year training 56 candidates in areas such as IT and engineering.
In addition, EID Parry runs training events for the farmers it works with, to build strong and mutually beneficial links with the agricultural community it depends on for raw materials.
So, while EID Parry has come a long way from its British origins, the company is experiencing an unprecedented level of change, both from within and in the economy in which it operates. And the newest challenge is to develop the company into a strong customer service brand, rather than being seen as 'a sugar manufacturer'.
"We want to have a powerful brand, because we have a huge product. This is how we will enhance our market share and add value," says Sathyavrdhan.
"If we have best-in-class people and best-in-class products, it gives some value in return."
Ending his meeting with HR magazine, and getting set for the long flight back to Chennai, Sathyavrdhan brings up The X Factor, which launched in May on the sub-continent. It attracted, if the BBC is to be believed, potential global viewer figures of more than one billion - and Sathyavrdhan says he feels his HR department has the X factor in the business - which has been its theme for this year. A nice conclusion to the interview… Then he pauses.
"HR and business have to be seen together," he adds. "Business and HR have to realise the importance of each other, as if they are glued together. We have to have HR as a strategic partnership - because I know that what has brought us to where we are now will take us to where we want to be in the future."
An even better way to finish…
The Parry Way
EID Parry's organisational purpose is to 'enrich life by creating value from agriculture'. In order to do this, the company requires: a company focus (incorporating the creation of new products); efficient operations (keeping productivity high and costs low); growth (through acquisitions or selling strategies); and an investment in technology and people.
From an HR point of view, EID Parry's VP of HR SK Sathyavrdhan believes, in turn, these imperatives can only be achieved through the development of organisational capability to deliver superior business performance.
Sathyavrdhan is impressed by the writings of Wayne Brockbank, clinical professor of business at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Brockbank's work focuses on linkages between HR practices and business strategy, creating high-performance corporate cultures and HR competencies that differentiate performance - in the form of 'pillars'.
Drawing on and developing Brockbank's ideas, at EID Parry, the five 'HR pillars' in place are:
- Capability development - this involves creating an 'excitement' around the business, strengthening cane-growing and supply capability and building an effective leadership team through coaching
- Talent management - creating a talent pool and strategy suitable for a growing business and ensuring key talent in the company is groomed and retained
- Employee engagement - the company carries out Gallup Q12 surveys, follows this up by feeding back information to employees and then takes action. Sathyavrdhan believes engagement is especially important for the business, given the number of acquisitions it carries out and the numbers of new staff moving into the group
- Productivity and cost - the HR department is responsible for designing the marketing and sales structures to ensure they handle enough accounts and it raises awareness of cost issues among staff
- HR excellence - development of the HR team to be a strategic business function rather than an operational support service
