Young, impatient and raring to go, Harshvardhan Chitale, vice president at Tata Honeywell, has achieved a fair share of professional honours. This, while finding time to trek and captain the company's cricket team

Nailing down Tata Honeywell’s Harshvardhan Chitale for an interview is quite a task. Blame that on a hectic travel and work schedule, but it’s par for the corporate course that Harsh, as he is usually called, has charted.

Harsh and his team are currently busy putting together the company’s largest and most challenging deal. Tough as that may be, it is unlikely to faze a person who has the distinction of being the youngest-ever Tata Administrative Service (TAS) recruit.

In this interview, the vice president (industrial solutions) at Tata Honeywell shares some of his high points, professional and personal, with Shobha Ramswamy.

Tata Administrative Service
Since management was my focus, I had planned to do an MBA after completing my engineering from IIT Delhi. I had even taken admission at IIM Ahmedabad, but then TAS happened. Though I didn’t know much about the institution, it sounded interesting, and working with the Tata Group was an incentive. I was TAS’s first direct recruit, which also made me the youngest TAS officer.

Back in 1993 TAS was very different: loosely structured and without any central monitoring of the recruit’s movements within the group. Yet it was, and continues to be, a very good learning ground for young managers. It increases your exposure to management, not in the theoretical sense but through functional areas like marketing, finance and human resources.

During my year at TAS I worked with many group companies spread across the country. The learning I gathered about Indian industry was invaluable. The mobility that TAS offers, during probation and thereafter, allows for holistic growth and additional opportunities. TAS is an unbeatable combination of talent and opportunities.

Tata Honeywell
I chose Tata Honeywell for a multitude of reasons. The company was clocking about 30 to 40 per cent growth every year. Also, the set-up was young, with the average age being below 30. The company’s partnership with Honeywell meant exposure to good practices, strategic planning and human resource development on a global scale. And, most importantly, it was close to my educational background.

I joined the company as a product manager. My responsibilities included launching a product that I, as a TAS officer, had researched and recommended. After a year and a half, I became the marketing manager of that entire business, which included other products. Then I became the business manager for our modular business (as it was then called). During my tenure here the business grew from Rs 10 crore to Rs 30 crore.

Corporate strategy cell
Around this time our growth had started to peak after five years. We were number one and investments had begun to dwindle; we needed to look at alternative areas for growth. This led to the creation of a corporate strategy cell. As the head of the cell, I worked with several growth ideas. Some worked, some didn’t and some are still to be implemented.

Hi-spec solutions
When the manufacturing industry started demanding software solutions, I moved into the hi-spec solutions division. Hi-spec is the advanced software and services division of Tata Honeywell, the leader in providing business optimisation solutions that help the process industry maximise profitability. We do this through a balanced approach that improves business processes, manufacturing performance, asset capabilities and decision making. We grew from Rs 10 crore to Rs 20 crore this year.

Industrial solutions
Recently I have taken over as head of manufacturing solutions, which is part of Tata Honeywell’s industrial solutions business unit. With the need to give customers a single front, the organisation has been made customer focused. With our customers feeling the effects of the recession, consolidation has become a norm and sustaining costs a necessity.

In two to three years we will be left with select big players, as opposed to multiple players at the moment. So our future strategy is to be the partner of choice of the surviving companies. We have already started focusing on the likely leaders and on identifying key accounts. Our goal is not just to sell a product, but to sell a benefit. The aim is to improve the client’s bottom line.

This entire concept of value selling is the major shift we are making at Tata Honeywell. Engineering exports continue to be a big opportunity, since globally customers prefer to outsource to reduce cost pressures.

Despite putting in 50 to 60 hours a week, even more, I still find work relaxing. The way Tata Honeywell is structured, the informality of the entire operation, makes work a pleasure. We have interest groups in the company. As part of the trekking group, I trek to Sinhagad near Pune. I am the captain of the cricket team, which takes part in industrial tournaments. We’ve even reached the semi-finals of some of these tournaments; our aim is to win a few this year.

Frequent travel means I get ample opportunity to read (I love John Grisham’s thrillers). I am a movie buff and I make it a point to see a film the very week it is released. Luckily, my wife shares this passion. Being a new father, I love spending time with my son.

I’m inspired by…
I admired J. R. D. Tata for his vision and work even before I joined the group. Jack Welch of General Electric is another person I look up to. I admire his ability to look at business dispassionately.

Dreams
Someday I would like to teach, to share my experiences on management, corporate strategy and marketing with the younger generation.