"You Can Achieve Success Only If You Dare To Dream Big"’

Young, dynamic and eloquent, she has a profound insight into the working of today’s fast evolving real estate market. She believes in exceeding – not just fulfilling -- customers’ needs and expectations. Meet Manju Yagnik, Vice-Chairperson, Nahar Group, whose innate talent, coupled with sharp business acumen, has helped the Group scale newer heights of success. Established in the year 1973 by Sukhraj Nahar, the Group is one of the leading real estate entities in the country today.

You are one of few businesswomen who have made a distinct mark in the construction and real estate industry today. What kind of best practices and professionalism have you ushered into the working of Nahar Group?

I’ve been associated with real estate now for over two decades. Although it still largely seems to be an unorganised sector both in terms of recognition as well as internal operations, things are changing fast. We had realised that if we were vying for an industry status, we would have to put our house in order. Hence my stress has been on formulating systems and processes across departments. Although it is perceived by the outside world that real estate is one of the slowest moving industries, ‘operationally speaking’, my experience is otherwise. With well-defined systems, there is a seamless information flow and the occurrence of human errors is to a great extent mitigated.

Could you briefly take us through the Nahar Group’s journey since its inception in terms of its growth? What sets the Group apart from your competitors?

Nahar Group’s success story is well known at the industry as well as at the consumer level. Speaking at a macro-level, today’s successful organisations have a common attribute relating to their past – the ability to detect one or more aspects that would be scarce and thus in demand in the future. In our case, we were early to realise that with the rapid urbanisation taking place all around, true luxury would be what’s most scarce and in the case of real estate, it’s nature. At Nahar’s Amrit Shakti, we have this luxury of nature in abundance and it’s irreplaceable. So while most others offer hi-tech automated systems, hi-end fittings in the name of luxury, we feel these can be easily sourced and incorporated. Let’s take our R12 sector as an example – 22 buildings on a green-vehicle-free podium that’s spread over 9 lakh sq ft. It’s one of the largest podiums conceived and executed in the country housing over a 5 lakh sq ft garden. The buildings are planned in such a way that each gets a green view. The garden has zones for every individual in a family and apart from the regulars like children’s play areas, amphitheatre, fountain areas we have included a sculpture garden, a reflexology walkway, larger than life chess board and snakes & ladders etc. We also have one of the largest car parking at R12 – 3000 cars. The entire sector including the parking area is being equipped with electronic CCTV surveillance.

What were the challenges that you faced while taking the Nahar Group to greater heights of growth? Have you given a new dimension to the business model of your company after you joined its management?

I believe vision and challenges go hand-in-hand. On the project front, at Nahar’s Amrit Shakti, we had over 100 acres at our disposal and one of the biggest question was what to create first – residential buildings or infrastructure and this was like the chicken and egg story. We took a tough decision to create basic infrastructure like roads, necessity-shops, banking facilities, clinics and club house first. Today, apart from over 40 residential buildings housing over 3000 families, we are offering a holistic lifestyle where one really doesn’t have to step out of the township for absolutely anything. We are on the brink of commencing a state-of-the-art hi-tech medical centre, an ICSE school with modern teaching infrastructure and facilities, a business centre and a mall and multiplex. One can easily imagine the challenges we would have faced to create a city within a city. The other big challenge was to understand our customer needs and not just fulfill them but to exceed expectations. We live in an environment where the speed of consumer awareness is at par with global developments. Accommodating these aspirations in our project and still ensuring its viability has been a challenge in itself – commercially, statutorily, technologically and topographically. Health, wealth and happiness are our guiding principles towards achieving consumer satisfaction. We are in the process of creating over 50,000 sq ft of a club house, which again would be one of the largest in any residential complex in the country, offering physical and mental sporting avenues as well as zones where one could spend time with loved ones. At our township’s current sector we have tennis courts, pools, cafes, skating rinks, long-winding jogging and cycling tracks and a lot more to ensure that every resident -- irrespective of the age group he or she belongs -- lives a healthy life. Speaking about wealth, there was a challenge for us to create a constant cash-flow to fuel our development and at the same time we wanted our residents and the investor community to enjoy a constant appraisal in terms of value of their investment. We are the pioneers to introduce the 20/80 scheme as early as a decade ago. Under this scheme one just needs to pay 20 per cent of the value of the apartment now and the EMIs of the balance 80 per cent would begin only after possession. This is a boon for investors too as by just shelling out the initial amount, they would enjoy an appreciation on the entire apartment value. And what bigger testimonial to its success than the fact that we have many investors reaping benefits only to re-invest in our projects. The 20/80 scheme augured well at home and the next big challenge was to take the scheme international. Two decades ago overseas markets were virgin markets for Indian projects. And with regards to this aspect we were one of the early risk-takers. We understood the apprehensions and expectations of the NRIs and with the 20/80 scheme we opened our projects to the vast untapped international markets across the globe, and success was at our doorstep. Today Nahar’s Amrit Shakti is a home to thousands of NRI families.

Give us a peek into your educational background and do you think it helped you in your present role? Were you being groomed from a young age to join the business?

I’ve been brought up in an environment where women are trained to be brave…maybe even more courageous than their counterparts. My childhood was never about dolls, cooking sets and pink frocks. I learnt rifle shooting under a professional guidance at the age of 14. I’ve represented hockey at the state level and have won quite a few medals. When I began my stint with real estate industry, which most felt, was a male bastion, not once did I feel that I wasn’t quite cut-out for it.

Who has been your role model or mentor and how has this person helped you evolve and grow professionally?

Experience is one’s biggest mentor. It sometimes teaches you the hard way but the learning remains for a lifetime like jewels in one’s treasure-box of knowledge. Adopting good qualities from every person is an attribute that has always come naturally to me. So in that respect, I’ve been picking up every good virtue from all those around with whom I interact and it may be something as simple as the mantra – keep smiling. In all my endeavours, I’ve enjoyed the support of Sukhraj Nahar from whom I’ve learnt that one can achieve success only if one dares to dream big.

What, according to you, are the challenges confronting the growth of real estate sector in our country?

Being the largest contributor of 5-6 per cent to the overall GDP growth of the Indian economy and being the major source of livelihood to millions that also provides the reason for existence for a host of allied industries, real estate still hasn’t been awarded an industry status. Among other benefits, this recognition is imperative to raise funds at lower rates. Let’s look at this from a perspective that as per current Planning Commission report we are short of 27 million residential units. To bridge this gap there’s a dire need to establish public-private partnerships in the housing and infrastructure sectors at a larger scale and a faster pace than the prevailing state of affaris. I think the road map towards this should begin from special incentives from the Government including that of giving speedy project approvals. Do you think the entry of more and more women in real estate career will help in changing the common misgivings and misconceptions about the sector, especially the lack of transparency that plagues its functioning? In my opinion there is no gender bias as far as ethics, trust, transparency, accountability and responsibility are concerned.

What are your views on the proposed bill to regulate the real estate sector in India?

We agree with the views expressed by MCHI, saying that the real estate sector is already over-regulated by innumerable laws and controls by the state governments and local bodies. The sector should be liberalised as is happening in case of other industries.

If you were not a real estate professional, what would you be doing now? Apart from running a very successful business, what do you like doing in your leisure time?

Ha-ha… wasn’t quite prepared for the question. But now as I think of it, my right brain suggests I’ve would have been into some form of creative arts like say designing – which anyways I do while giving my inputs to my architectural and interiors team – and my left brain advocates that I would have been a strategist chiseling out business models. I’m an avid thinker and thinking is an activity that runs simultaneously when I’m spending time with my friends and family. I have a penchant for art and although time doesn’t permit me to create but I certainly do take time out for viewing and appreciating good works of art across the world.