As Rajeev Chopra moves to Belgium to take over as head of Philips Global Luminaire, he tells Prince Mathews Thomas that he will take lessons in creativity and adaptability from India
Rajeev Chopra
Age: 51
Education: Bachelor’s degree, IIT Kanpur; MBA, Tulane University
Career: Started in Hewlett-Packard, Asia Pacific; worked with Microsoft, Cisco. Joined Philips in 2003; last position was CEO & MD of Philips India.
Q. Starting your career in the FMCG sector, you moved to IT and then joined Philips, which has elements of both FMCG and IT. How was the transition for you?
Fundamentally, the basic principles in every job are the same, though there might be some industry particularities.
Those basic principles are: You have a customer, what does he want, and how do you offer the customer in a way that is better than anyone else. One has to do this in such a way that you are also profitable.
I have also learnt that one needs to set up business in a way to ensure that you get your short term results. But you also have to do things that will let you have results four-five years down the line. So, one needs to do things like seeding new businesses.
In the last few years, another aspect has become very important: Every company in India needs to know how to deal with competitors from the rest of the world and how to respond to them.
(This story appears in the 13 December, 2013 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)