An evening with Dr Ajai Chowdhry
Introduction
On November 15, we had the 171st WiseViews Leadership Conversation featuring Dr Ajai Chowdhry, a co-founder of HCL and a trailblazer in the tech world. Dr Ajai Chowdhry cofounded HCL in 1976 with five others, with the dream of leveraging the microprocessor and changing the world. Today, HCL is valued at an impressive US $50 billion.
About Dr Ajai Chowdhry
Ajai Chowdhry’s parents moved from Pakistan to India along with their six children, during the partition. They arrived at a refugee camp in Delhi. Ajai was born on August 29, 1950, in Mount Abu.
The young Ajai was first admitted to a Hindi medium school. He later moved to Jabalpur and was forced to learn English in 4 months. There he studied at the famous Christchurch Convent School. He graduated from Jabalpur Engineering College in 1971. After graduation, he joined DCM Data Products. Three years later, his remarkable journey with HCL began.
Dr. Chowdhry has played a leading role in the establishment of the electronics industry in India. In 2009, he chaired a task force created by Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MEITY). The Task force concluded that the country's import bill for electronics would soon surpass that for oil. The recommendations of the taskforce formed the foundation of a new Electronics Policy.
Dr Chowdhry is Distinguished Fellow at NITI Aayog (public policy think tank of Government of India), and Fellow at Indian National Academy of Engineers. He has been nominated by MEITY as a Member to the Advisory Board of India Semiconductor Mission.
In 2011, in recognition of his efforts to build the IT & Electronics industry in India, Dr Chowdhry was conferred the prestigious Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honour in India, by the President of India. He is the recipient of many other awards including Lifetime Achievement Award by Electronics Sector Skills Council of India (ESSCI) in 2024, Electronics Man of the Year 2010, CNBC TV18’s India Innovator of the Year Award 2010, and Cybermedia Business ICT Award 2013 for Lifetime Achievement in ICT.
Dr Chowdhry has set up a charitable trust called Swayam, which focuses on education and women's empowerment. Swayam has recently set up the Aspire Scholarship for B.Tech students in eleven renowned engineering institutes across India. Dr Chowdhry is also a Board Member of the Population Foundation of India and a Trustee of the Save Life Foundation.
Dr. Chowdhry holds a Bachelor's degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Jabalpur Engineering College. He has attended the Executive Program at the School of Business Administration at University of Michigan, US. Dr Chowdhry has also been awarded Honoris Causa (D.Sc) by IIT Roorkee, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design & Manufacturing, Jabalpur, and University of Engineering & Management Kolkata.
Dr Chowdhry’s best-selling memoir, Just Aspire: Notes on Technology, Entrepreneurship and the Future, has been published by HarperCollins India.
DCM Data Products
When Dr Chowdhry completed his Engineering degree, there were few jobs. Most of Dr Chowdhuri’s batch mates joined the government, especially the Department of Telecommunications, as Jabalpur had the oldest telecom department in the country.
Dr Chowdhry however took a different track. His brother who worked with ITC impressed upon him that to lead an organization, one had to be good at marketing. So, Dr Chowdhry began to look seriously at marketing jobs. He had to wait for six months but then received three interview calls in Delhi during the same week. He got all the three jobs but decided to join DCM Data Products at a meagre salary of Rs 600.
Dr Chowdhry was posted in Bombay. It was while working in DCM that he understood the intricacies of selling. His boss, later his co-partner at HCL mentored him. Dr Chowdhry would travel to smaller towns in Maharashtra sometimes on bullock carts to give demos of the calculators which DCM offered. The hard work paid off and laid the foundation for a successful career.
Setting up HCL
After a stint of three years, Dr Chowdhry along with a few others left DCM to form HCL. Their dream was to take the microprocessor and change the world. They only had Rs 1.86 lakhs with them. They also needed a license to make computers. And that was impossible to get those days. But when they looked around, they found the UP Government was sitting on a license. Through a partnership with the UP government, they set up Hindustan Computers Limited.
HCL’s first product was a scientific computer. The founders realized they did not have enough money to last till the product was launched in the market. So, they made some bold moves. They went to IIM Calcutta and recruited 6 bright young students for R&D after convincing them they were being offered not so much a job as an adventure. They also brought on board some outstanding salespeople driven by a need for achievement. They prepared a beautiful brochure and started to sell to potential customers before the product was ready.
One of the founders, Arjun Malhotra took the lead and sold a computer to his alma mater, IIT Kharagpur. On the strength of this order, the others then sold many more units to other customers. Dr Chowdhry himself sold 6 computers to IIT Madras. By March end, they were able to deliver the computers. If they had not done so, the budget of the public sector customers would have been exhausted, and the orders would have been cancelled.
From that point onwards, HCL began to grow at a fast pace. Better and better microprocessors became available in the market.
Dr Chaudhri spearheaded HCL’s expansion into Singapore in 1980, setting up a manufacturing facility there. He created a successful business spanning ASEAN, China, and Hong Kong. This was the beginning of the company’s globalization.
By 1986, ten years after it had been founded, HCL had established itself as India’s leading computer company. The company was generating more business than it could handle.
Global foray
In 1989-90, McKinsey which had entered India convinced HCL to become its first customer in the country. McKinsey offered to help HCL to set up a manufacturing facility in Silicon Valley and build a strong business in the US. It was like taking coal to New Castle. But for the young team, there was no fear. They went to the US and got a lot of business. Unfortunately, the power supply of the computers was not certified in the US. Due to this one problem, the business failed.
Pivoting to software
The failure in the US did not end the dreams of the founders. They successfully pivoted to the software business. The company’s R&D engineers who had strong capabilities in Unix were posted in the R&D organizations of companies like HP. The move paid off.
In 1995, Dr. Chowdhry took over HCL Infosystems and was instrumental in turning it into a leader in hardware products, systems integration, and mobile telephony through the distribution of Nokia handsets. Under his leadership over the next 15 years, it grew to become a Rs. 12,000 crore (US $1.6 billion) organization.
Listing and beyond
By 2000, HCL was ready to list on the stock exchange. Again, the company made an audacious move by offering shares from the founder’s quota to customers who could give $ 75 mn of business. HCL got 8 orders in the process. This made the IPO even more successful. It was oversubscribed by 23 times.
HCL is today present in 70 countries. It is the third largest IT company in India and the largest product company. It is also the 18th largest product company in the world with revenues of around $ 1.4 bn.
Becoming an author: Just Aspire
It was during Covid while putting his grandson to sleep that Dr Chowdhry realized that he had a story to tell the world. After all, he had a life before HCL, in HCL and after HCL.
Dr Chowdhry had learnt from management guru, Prof CK Prahalad that aspiration is more important than resources. If we have the aspiration, the resources can always be mobilized. HCL itself had succeeded with just Rs 1.86 lakhs as seed capital and no license. So, after a discussion with the publisher, they named the book, Just Aspire (similar to Just do it, the trademark of Nike).
The book provides a lot of learning but is easy reading. It is like fiction and full of humorous anecdotes. Several important themes are covered in the book: entrepreneurship, salesmanship, getting the best out of people. When it comes to talent management, HCL is a great example. The company has encouraged its employees to be intrapreneurs and take risks. People are expected to not just sell but also provide great support to customers.
Current interests and pursuits
At the age of 60, Dr Chowdhry stepped down and made way for a new CEO. Since then, Dr. Chowdhry has been deeply involved in nurturing, mentoring, and investing in startups and has personally invested in more than 50 of them. He is also on the Investment Committee of Electronic Development Fund and Canbank Venture Capital Fund. He is part of the Indian Angel network.
Dr Chowdhry has played a crucial role in shaping national institutions like IIT Hyderabad and IIIT-Naya Raipur. IIT Hyderabad is the only IIT which offers a minor in entrepreneurship. IIT Hyderabad also encourages students to have breadth of knowledge in addition to specialization in the chosen areas. The aim is to make them well rounded professionals. Dr Chowdhry has transformed NIFFT (National institute of Foundry and Forge Technology) Ranchi, into National Institute of Advanced Manufacturing, to serve the needs of ‘Industry 4.0’.
Dr Chowdhry has served as Chairperson of the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India (ESSCI). Dr Chowdhry also heads the Quantum Mission, an effort to build the country’s first quantum computer. Quantum computing can be used to speed up solutions to large complex problems like drug discovery and climate change.
Q&A
According to Ray Kurzweil, we will reach singularity by 2045. Singularity means computers and the human brain will fuse resulting in unprecedented capabilities. Computers will pass the Turing test by 2029. This means the capabilities of computers will overtake those of the human brain.
On the positive side, AI will take away the low-end jobs and free up human creativity for handling high end jobs. But the rise of AI also implies the need for regulation. AI should not be in the hands of wrong people.
As a country, we must develop deep R&D and manufacturing capabilities. There are exciting opportunities for us to make and export electronics products. In this context, President Trump’s recent announcements are a shot in the arm. While Chinese exports will attract 60% tariff, India’s will only attract 20%. This gives India a major cost advantage for the first time. Historically, Chinese products have been cheaper than India’s.
In the last 5-7 years, the Indian government has paid a lot of attention to electronics and semiconductors. The PLI (Production Linked Incentive) scheme to promote domestic manufacturing and reduce imports, has been well received. But India is mostly engaged in services and not products. The value addition is very less (5-10%). Real value lies in branding and R&D (about 60%). Due to poor government policies in the past, Indian brands vanished. Now that we have government support, we should capitalize on the opportunity. We have already built scale. The next step is to create value by investing in design and R&D.
Incidentally, Dr Chowdhry has been a relentless advocate of self-sufficiency in electronics. In keeping with this vision, he co-founded EPIC Foundation in 2021, a not-for-profit, that aims to make India a product nation in electronics.
Dr Chowdhry pointed out that fabs are being set up in India to make semiconductor chips. A lot of the taxpayers’ money is going into these plants. We must figure out how to feed these fabs with enough orders. We must take care of the front end fast by incentivising chip and product design. We should give preference to products made in India.
We could not take full advantage of China + 1. Vietnam moved much faster than us. Now with the recent tariff announcements by Trump, we have no time to lose. We must move at exponential speed, if we want to become a developed country and escape the middle-income trap.
We must also improve our logistics capabilities. Between components moving into factories and finished goods moving out, it should take not more than 2- 3 days, not weeks.
Ease of doing business is still a major factor. We must make it easier for businesses to be set up and run in our country.
Our entrepreneurs must have great aspirations. Then the resources will flow. They must also have more patience. Too often, they want to move to the next stage too quickly. It takes time to develop capabilities.
Passion is sometimes missing from today’s entrepreneurs. Work life balance is a term that should be done away with. If we enjoy our work, why should we not work long hours? After all, today, it is possible for most of us to work from home. And if we are not enjoying the work, why not find something we really like to do? So, the recent statement by Mr N R Narayana Moorthy that we should work for 70 hours in a week, makes a lot of sense.
Europe is growing at 0-2%, US at 2-3% and Asia at 3-4%. India is growing at 7%. Still, we have a lot of work hard to do to escape the middle-income trap. Our per capita income is only $ 2700. We can change all that only by working harder and smarter. We must design and make products in India. We must invest in R&D. Our youngsters must realize that we can change the world through science and technology.
On the positive side, there is nothing beyond us if we work hard. After all, if we work 7 days a week, and Europe 4.5 days, who has a brighter future?
Aspire, Perspire, Inspire are all interrelated. If entrepreneurs aspire, they will perspire to achieve their goal and when they succeed, they will inspire others.
Our journey towards becoming a product nation must start immediately. No educational institution in the country is teaching product development. During their course of study, students must be able to do more hands-on work in product development. Academics must not wait for the industry to approach them. They must be more proactive. Industry on its part should leverage the knowledge of the academics. Centres of excellence must be set up in our top institutions to give an impetus to product design and development. Entrepreneurs working in these COEs should get both business and knowledge mentoring.
Agriculture is important. But we need a different approach. We have come a long way since the days of PL 480 when we had to eat the poor-quality imported wheat rejected by the US. Today, we are feeding ourselves and the rest of the world. We can put Indian grains on dining tables across the world. In this context, initiatives like MSP (minimum support price) do not make sense. They only end up increasing food prices. We need to move from the green revolution to a science and technology revolution. We must focus on value added products though food processing. We Indians have brilliant minds. If we apply our brains properly, no problem including agriculture is beyond us.