A FLOOR DESK and chairs welcome us as we enter Vellayan Subbiah's 'strictly shoes-off' and minimalist office in Chennai, which requires sitting cross-legged on the ground. Slight and athletic, he is at ease in this arrangement-no wonder the 54-year-old Executive Vice Chairman of southern conglomerate Murugappa Group's Tube Investments of India (TII) rode shotgun on a 50-hour truck ride from Delhi to Mumbai in 2016. As Managing Director of the group company Cholamandalam Investment & Finance Company (CIFC), it was important for him to gain a deeper understanding of truck companies, who were major customers. It was also a ride during which he supposedly kept up his yoga practice in a moving truck.
A few years after he joined the engineering and component maker TII as its MD-designate in 2017, the management recognised the need to shift away from relying heavily on the cyclical auto industry to achieve sustainable growth. TII, best known as the parent of BSA Cycles, specialises in manufacturing precision steel tubes and strips, automotive and industrial chains, car doorframes, and bicycles. Back then, automobiles accounted for over 70% of its revenues. The business had to be derisked. "It was basically that if auto is not growing, how do you make up through growth in other sectors?" explains Vellayan, the fourth-generation Murugappa Group scion.
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