Habib Rehman
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Rama Bijapurkar
January 15, 2015
Habib Rehman's modest memoir, where he describes building the ITC Hotels business, is a lesson in sophisticated market strategy
Reading Habib Rehman's memoirs is like eating a really delicious, home-cooked meal, caringly and thoughtfully prepared and served with a lot of graciousness and charm. It has no pretensions to grandeur yet it is far from ordinary; and it is unselfconsciously modest even though it is a first-person account of a very successful life.
Unlike many memoirs, it thankfully doesn't proceed in a boring linear fashion, chronologically documenting the journey from boyhood to adulthood and from junior management to the boardroom. It moves seamlessly and most engagingly back and forth, across time and life stages, and you get to see the whole person all the time. It is also an eclectic mix of topics right from the word go-sometimes he chats with us about the history of places or of kings after whom his hotels were named, sometimes about food, sometimes it is about the historical influences that shaped cuisines and why dishes like pathar kebabs and mutton do pyaza got the names that they did. His early life as an army officer is very much at the centre of his persona and his memoirs and is a strand that runs right through the book alongside hardcore business issues of trade union troubles, business development and brand building jostling with hotelier stories of close encounters with glamorous people (Bill Clinton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter O' Toole and more). All this is delightfully melded together and very easy to read. It also has refreshingly honest accounts of grand ideas that "didn't see the light of day", of professional disappointments and being done in by politicking.
For business readers, there is plenty of food for thought and lots of wisdom in the several events and situations and challenges which the author takes the trouble to describe in detail, from his enormous experience in building the ITC Hotels business virtually from scratch. The book describes sophisticated market strategy with zero jargon (much to my envy and inspiration!) and gets to the heart of the issue very quickly.Yet, the discussions have depth, such as the one on what "responsible luxury" (what the author terms as "the soul of ITC Hotels") is and how to create a hotel business built on seemingly contradictory terms.
Many other marketing stories make for interesting reading even for lay readers-how the image of the Maurya in Delhi was changed from a mid-market hotel to a five-star, how iconic restaurants were created, each owning a distinctive food experience, how the architecture and product propositions of hotels were decided and evolved to keep in tune with the times. There are a few jarring places in the book-mercifully few and far apart-when the tone changes and we get a dry-as-dust lecture typical of business books, almost as if the editor thought that the business reader market must be appeased. I preferred Rehman's business lessons which are far more subtle, fun and endearing. The author talks of how as youngsters in the army, they were reminded that they were not "pappus" (mama's boys), spoilt by their mothers who smacked the floor each time they fell down on it. So years later, in ITC Hotels, he added the "pappu scale" to junior management appraisal forms to assess the extent of their grown-up-ness and willingness to take responsibility for their own actions!
Go ahead and buy the book and settle down for a wholesome weekend read. Before you know it, you would have finished it, felt good and smilingly decided that this book is a keeper even if your bookshelf is overloaded and groaning.
