Disaster Management to Fortune 500 Company | Shailesh Tandel | Creating Opportunities | Turning Problems into Learning

On 24th July 1989, heavy rains and strong winds of about 100/150 kmph had literally swept Mumbai to Konkan; in which several people were also killed.

The Patalganga area, which is the home to many chemical companies in Navi Mumbai, was also inundated with torrential rains for 8-10 hours overnight, disrupting normal life and submerging the entire area. Among the hundreds of companies in Patalganga, Reliance Petrochemicals also had a unit spread over in 200 acres.

While the nature was in its worst form & still smashing the region the Reliance unit became in action early hours of the morning and the entire unit was shut down in just half an hour. A special team of senior and junior officers was formed to handle the emergency. Within the next two to three days, skilled workers from around the world arrived with state-of-the-art technology and machinery to deal with such a catastrophic event, and within 15 days of the flood, the massive unit was reopened.

Who knows how many days it took for the surrounding units of Patalganga to restart their operations or were shut down their businesses permanently due to the unbearable losses but Reliance did not fail to deal with this sudden disaster & came out of it just the way Phoenix takes rebirth from the ashes.

Disaster management also requires a system to be in place, and if it does not exist, it needs to be put into existence immediately. Its success depends entirely on one and only one thing and that is 'discipline' and that discipline starts from the main leadership of the company.

I started the courier company in March 1989, so the July 24 rainstorm was definitely more expensive to me than others because of the closure of trains & other things deliveries were hampered. The courier company could not stop the delivery giving any excuses such as rains etc. whether the company was new or old. Being new meant taking special care and hard work is must. So anyway we had to perform on the day in spite of the disaster.

As far as I have heard, Reliance's Dhirubhai Ambani had entrusted his eldest son, Mukesh Ambani, with the task of handling the disaster within ten days. It didn’t completed in ten days but with the hard work & the efforts of all involved who were standing like a rock in that flooded water, approximately within a fortnight the target was achieved & it was fully operational by then.

It may not have been the only disaster that they dealt with and as far as I know, a similar disaster happened a few years later at Reliance's Jamnagar plant in Gujarat and even then they had handled it successfully, and that too in a matter of days. That is to say, it was not just a matter of fate to deal with the catastrophe that had befallen the Patalganga plant in the past, but there was a discipline in it and that discipline was a part of their day to day life it seems.

In my childhood, if anyone was bragging loudly, he would be told that yes, we know, you are a big shot like Tata-Birla.
At that time, Ambani was never been mentioned in any conversation as it didn’t even existed for us. Even now, Tata-Birla is still moving faster than their predecessor, but if anyone is growing faster than them, it is Ambani's Reliance.

Reliance Industries had set a target of freeing itself from the debt before March 2021, but it was achieved much before in June 2019. And when the whole world was struggling with Corona Pandemic, Reliance Jio freed itself from debt by getting huge investments.
Reliance Jio, a company founded a few years ago, has risen to such heights in a short span of time that big worldwide corporates are literally queuing up to invest billions of rupees in it.

How it became possible?

People put money on the same horse racing on the racecourse that has been winning sometime before or continuously, isn't it?

There has to be a special diet to take care of the winning horse and to keep him physically strong, and all of them have a set time, so everything happens according to a set plan. If there is no planning, one day he will win the horse race luckily, but the same alchemy will not be possible for him all the time.

The horse is important, but equally important is the jockey who handles the horse, because it is difficult for the horse to reach the destination on its own in a given time. He can only reach it when the jockey rides on it and handles it properly, and most importantly, only when there is unity between the two. If there is no unanimity, winning can only be a part of destiny.
And no one puts money on such a horse or jockey because everyone wants only and only benefit no matter what happens; No one wants to be harmed. Is that right?

Think about what you need to do to get the investment that you want, only then you will realize the seriousness of the matter. If there is no financial discipline, it will be impossible to get investment. At the same time we are often embarrassed not to get a loan from a bank or even a personal loan from the known person.
But if you are working in a disciplined manner, people and banks stand up for you if they see the possibility of gain in the future, even if it is a loss in the present.

If there is no discipline, the number of days or years you spend in the industry will be less of your deeds and more of your destiny.

Rhythm comes only when we do something consistently in a disciplined manner. Doing it only once or whenever you feel like it is not likely to come. Discipline cannot be applied in a single day, it requires constantly on working on it. Otherwise you will exercise once a month and still complain that the enlarged stomach is not reduced.

It is very easy to complain but it is very tedious to do something in a disciplined manner continuously for years. Success is at the feet of those who continue to do this tedious task year after year.

I have already given an example of the manner in which Reliance dealt with natural calamities and also mentioned that a number of companies may have been permanently shut down in that calamity. Reliance is not only survived from that disaster but also became one of the top 500 global Fortune 500 industry.

There will be differences of opinion on their working methods, but it is equally true that it is an Indian company that has reached its peak in a short period of time. And no company can go so far as to deceive anyone, but it is possible only by setting a goal and leaning on it in a disciplined manner.

At the same time, it can’t be achieved simply by keeping lot many people at work, but being able to use them in the right place. For that, you have to be able to judge the qualities that they possess, otherwise there will be a Goldmine in front of us and we will use them in a wrong place. Actually wasting the talent that surrounded us in a huge manner. Isn't it?

Dhirubhai may have seen the brilliance of the diamond, and he may have used the occasion of such a catastrophe to make the diamond realizes its own worth.

And yet not everyone gets the guidance of Dhirubhai Ambani and not all of them, like Mukesh Ambani, add their own intellect to the guidance of their father to meet the great crisis of life or turn a crisis into an opportunity. The one who is able to do this build empires.

And yes disaster management needs to be disciplined in daily life, otherwise how one can handle a mountain of natural disasters successfully when daily life is muddy?