Hot Seat

The road to Mars

Men are from Mars, it is said. The red planet has nearly all the characteristics of earth, and then again, is quite distinct from earth. And Sanjay Narang, an entrepreneur with a difference, epitomises this with Mars Restaurants Private Ltd. Neeti Mehra charts his roadmap to success

A person born into a family of hoteliers, will invariably end up in the same business. So when Sanjay Narang joined the management group of his family business as the director - operations of three Ambassador hotels and two flight catering units, for a period of eight years, no one batted an eyelid. For a man who claims to have flunked every cooking class he attended while completing a degree in Hotel Management at Cornell University, he's made a success of the Mars Group, trampling over naysayers hooting at its demise at every opportune moment.

His philosophy in life is simple. "I would like to bring a little bit of sunshine in the lives of those who are less fortunate, though I don't claim to be a saint." This philosophy extends to his business also. "I am the face of the company and the person everyone recognises - being the owner and the entrepreneur behind it. But the absolute modest truth is that I am just a facilitator. I have never had a drink in my life and we run bars, and I am absolutely not a connoisseur of food."

After the family business split up in 1990, he joined the Taj Catering business, which was on the verge of shutting down. "I took on the challenge of getting their flight catering business in order. I knew the ins and outs of catering, having worked in the family owned- enterprise." He took on the reigns and in five years it became one of the most profitable ventures of the Taj Group. Modest to the core, he says, "Luck plays a very important role. Hard work is just one element of it. With the aviation industry booming at that time, and many new airlines had taken off - Damania, East West, Modi Luft - I captured that slice of the market." He learnt a lot during this phase. "People would wonder who this upstart was and put roadblocks along the way. But one learns to navigate around all that. This experience helped me a lot, even more than my college education."

When his five-year contract ended with Taj, he decided to spread his wings, and thus the Mars Group was born. Reminiscing about the venture, he says, "In place of Jazz by the Bay was a successful restaurant known as Talk of the Town. But at that time everyone wondered if this concept of having live jazz bands would float and there were predictions that it would shut shop in six months. And the restaurant is celebrating its 10-year anniversary now." he says. It still is his favourite restaurant.

The story of The Gordon House - the niche boutique hotels is equally interesting. "The first Gordon House Hotel we built in Colaba was originally an old, dilapidated building given to their family as repayment of debt, and was known as a house of ill-repute. It was a tenanted property and our intention was to settle with each tenant and sell it off. But then the real estate prices crashed and we decided to make it into a hotel, because that's what we knew." The concept comes from a flamboyant Scotsman, Arthur Gordon, and one time owner of the property, who had landed at the Gateway of India to seek his fortune. Today, the boutique hotel is present in Pune and one next to the international airport in Mumbai will open by June 2006, plus in Bangalore and Delhi later on. "We have a highly loyal clientele base. The Gordon House is based on the precept that in the long run that value for money succeeds and if one can deliver a perception to the customer that he received good value for his experience, the property will do well."

A celebrity partnership with India's master batsman also created ripples when it first came out. But how well are Tendulkar's and Sachin's faring in this highly competitive scenario? "Anything Sachin involves himself in is expected to be larger than life, akin to his persona." The restaurant is doing well, though the sports bar could do better, he opines. "But when the footfalls increase at the mall, where it is located, we will see greater numbers. Currently we are doing our best out of all establishments present there," he adds.

The Mars Group is now looking to format the fast food brands into food courts in malls and technology parks. Citing the experience the group has in Pune, he says, "We found that this format works far better, so we are consolidating all brands underneath one umbrella. In one location, with common production facilities, lesser overheads, much lesser staff, lower rents and common management, the ventures are very profitable." The next stop is a deal with a developer to put out 100 food courts with all the brands out in the next 10 years across malls and technology parks, 28 in the next three years.

All these things lead to the question, is he a thinker who comprehends trends ahead of its time? "I just think differently. I didn't want to open a standard Chinese or Indian cuisine restaurant, which was the safer option. When everyone was opening lounge bars, we opened Polly Esther's, which was a retro bar. I'm not afraid of failure. Treading down the less trodden path has a higher risk of failure, but when you succeed the sense of achievement is far greater." Recently Navis Capital Partners picked up a 74 per cent stake in the company. The Mars Group will be investing approximately Rs 100 crores per year for the next three years. Plans are on for the expansion of Skygourmet, the airline catering unit, which is currently supplying upto 10,000 meals a day to Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways and Air India Express. The company is in the process of setting up a catering unit in Pune, having just opened units in Bangalore and Delhi, and is also setting up units in Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai within this fiscal year. Also on the anvil is the Waterstones Country Club and Spa, spread over a six acre plot near Sahar, which opened this month and a restaurant in New York, named 'Dabbawala', at an investment of one and a half million dollars.

What makes a man with fingers in so many pies tick? "I love this industry. I love what I do. I love the people I work with." His dream is to build approximately 20-30 chalet type hotels across the Himalayas in remote locations. "I grew up in Woodstock school, where I studied for 11 years. I have a house in the hills where I escape for a couple of days in the month. These small neat and clean boutique, value for money hotels will give people an opportunity to relax and get away from the world." In his spare time he loves to drive, though not in India but abroad. He loves nature too, and retro music.

He feels that the food courts will be the most profitable because of the footfalls. The company has almost 3,000 employees across India and it's growing at a rapid pace. "We're nearly doubling our turnover every year, and it is all done without my active involvement." He credits it to the great management structure in place.

In conclusion he says, "Success in life is measured not by how big you grow in business, but it is about the number of days you are happy versus the number of days you were unhappy. I sum up my life's journey till now with one word - happy. Absolutely happy. It's not to say one doesn't have pitfalls but if you learn to take everything in your stride you will be happy." For a man whose ideas are definitely progressive, it's a long journey back to earth.