Share this
Mister Wong
Digg
Del.icio.us
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Googlize this
Blinklist
Facebook
Wikio
Hear this text
Print
E-mail
Tags
Bill Venter:
in pursuit of a dream
At 75, Dr Bill Venter has completed his autobiography – six years after completing his doctorate on the role of family in business – not bad for a septuagenarian.
The stories of Venter and the Altron Group are linked inextricably, and he intends to retain the family link in a company that boasts a R26-billion annual turnover.
From humble beginnings in the Johannesburg suburb of Kensington, Venter’s drive and ambition and a burning desire never to be “poor” again saw him progress from a Telkom engineer to the founder and motivating force behind Africa’s largest electronics corporation.
Leadership met with Venter shortly after the launch of his book In Pursuit of a Dream, and asked him about both himself and Altron, with which he is still very much involved, even though the reins now have been handed to his eldest son, Robbie.
Can you offer one word or phrase that sums up your concept of leadership?
I can’t give one word or phrase, as there are so many ingredients here, but I’ll tell you what I think are the most pertinent factors.
The first is courage. Courage of your convictions – if one truly believes in one’s business or innovation, then one will need the courage to pursue a goal. The achievement of ambitions may involve significant risk, so that courage will be tested throughout.
The next is preparedness for hard work. No leader has ever achieved anything without dogged hard work. And remember, leadership does not always mean success – there have been several very strong leaders who have not succeeded, so hard work is a key factor.
And then there is commitment – to one’s business, to staff, to suppliers and most of all, to oneself and one’s values.
A very important aspect of leadership is leading by example – one cannot expect others to follow and help you achieve your goals if you ask them to do things that you have not shown you are prepared to do yourself.
If one adheres to these, then one will be able to build and lead an honest, decent business.
Why would you define it in that way?
Well, for 37 years, these factors have worked for me and I’ve seen them work for other leaders in business and other spheres. Without them, I do not believe that one can be a truly successful leader.
During the building of the Altron Group, what would you say was the single greatest challenge you had to overcome?
There have been a few really significant challenges. In the start-up phase, we had to face the reality that the control of entire world electronics as we knew it then was in the hands of British and German companies – GEC, Siemens and so on. Obtaining support in the early days was very difficult – it was an uphill battle to break that customer loyalty and get South African companies and the government to give a local manufacturer and supplier a fair chance.
The next big one was the remoulding of a company when, in 1975, we purchased STC.
We had to be able to meet the requirements of a public listing and cease to think as sole owners. We then had shareholders watching their investments and we had to be very circumspect about expenditure. It’s not always easy to convince shareholders that time on the golf course equates to new business.
Then when South Africa was becoming a true democracy in 1990, we were major suppliers to the old regime with massive contracts with Telkom, Eskom, Armscor and the like. We definitely had the image of being close to the government of the day and in conflict with the thinking of FW de Klerk and majority rule. We had to work really hard to change the image from that of favoured supplier to old guard, to responsible supplier to the new guard.
But as a result of that, I have become a firm friend of Nelson Mandela – so the challenge worked for me and it worked for him.
Finally, it was quite a challenge when the government decided that long-term contracts would be done away with. Everything is now done on tender and we have to compete with not only local suppliers but also with competitors from China, Europe and the like.
On the one hand, that is a big challenge to the surety of business, but on the other, it has resulted in a leaner, meaner company that has adapted to become as efficient, effective and aggressive as any of our competitors.
Your doctoral thesis is on “familyness” – what advice would you offer to aspirant entrepreneurs who want to keep their business within the family, yet still be successful in terms of business achievement?
Never make succession in a family business a fetish. It cannot be something where the children feel obliged to assist in building the company – it must be voluntary, and they must feel they are contributing in their own right.
One’s leadership style must be subtle and must accommodate the family role. One cannot be domineering. One must inspire one’s chosen successors with the values one had at the beginning and the effort it took to build it to where it is. One has to get them to buy in and to carry the business forward.
I have four sons, two of them have bought in and both are now significant players in Altron. The other two have not done so… yet. But they are much younger and if the desire is there, they can participate in carrying the family-ness forward.
But one also has to learn to respect their ability; to respect their individuality as they do the job their way.
They may have different styles, but if the objectives and concepts are the same and if the achievements are in line with your desires, then all well and good.
If you could select a board of any three people (living or no longer living) to help you with your toughest decisions –
who would you choose and why?
The first person I would choose would be Nelson Mandela. He is an inherently honest person and is completely dedicated to his values. I like dedicated people.
This does not mean that he is a starry-eyed idealist – he is extremely worldly-wise and can offer sound advice on almost every life science. But he does so in such a humble way. He never talks about himself or pulls rank; but he gets the job done.
The next would be a man called Harold Geneen. He was the CEO of ITT for 25 years – the largest telecoms company in the world, which owned STC when Allied Electronics bought it.
Geneen controlled a company that employed 365 000 people and he was such a great leader. His advice would always be valuable and sound.
The third would be Maggie Thatcher. I like her toughness. She did a great job for Britain – she would tackle things that most people would say were impossible, such as taking on the trade unions and beating them. I really admire that sort of strength of character.
Your career has seen some phenomenal changes in terms of electronic engineering, both in South Africa and worldwide – what enabled you to anticipate and capitalise on those changes?
Most entrepreneurs who can ride the technology horse have those qualities. It is important to be able to see the future – by that I mean to be able to accept the status quo and always ask: “What would be the next step? What could change the face of the world?”
Take Facebook, for example – more people are using Facebook than anything else, all because someone had the foresight to link the current technology to what people wanted. It’s something within you, constantly asking: “What else can I do?”
Some gut feels didn’t work, but most did. I had a few disasters – for example, in 1994 I anticipated that electricity would be distributed to all households in South Africa and along with this would come a huge demand for ‘white goods’.
I bought Jan Pickard’s electrical goods company and Hoover (Gentech).
It was a failure for two reasons – firstly, the anticipated electrification of South African households did not happen and secondly, I did not know the industry or the people in the industry.
In this case, they turned out to be dishonest – they copied the company’s drawings and moulds and set up lock, stock and barrel in Swaziland – and produced identical goods to ours at a fraction of the cost.
This also coincided with a spate of ‘dumping’ from the Far East – so my new competitors were out of business within a year!
On the other hand, some of the ideas were a huge success.
I thought I could do something about the appalling theft of cars in South Africa. The police statistics were terrible, and they seemed powerless to cut down on the rate.
Today Altech Netstar owns 96% of the vehicle tracking market, and we are doing something – if not to stop the theft of vehicles, then to ensure that recovery happens in just about every case.
Some apparent disasters are the seeds of success. We bought a company called Autopage at the time when all mobile communication was via pagers. The advent of cellphones ensured that pagers became redundant virtually overnight.
But we had a huge customer base and as we could not compete with the cellphone operators, we offered to buy large blocks of their airtime and on-sell that in small pieces to the consumers – today that is one of the largest businesses within the Altech Group.
If you were to offer a ‘toolkit’ to the contemporary South African manager/director/entrepreneur, what would you class as the three most important items or attributes for success?
Hard work, hard work and hard work!
One of the chapters in my book is entitled “How to make a million”. It really should be called “How to get on the way to make a million”.
That is achieved less by what one earns and more by what one does not spend. That is vital for success in any business.
The two other vital ingredients of the success of any company is an absolute realisation that the customer is king – and equally important, that the supplier is queen.
Without those two legs in the chain, you don’t have a business.
In your book, you make frequent use of the word “driven”. Are you still “driven” or is it now time to relax and enjoy the fruits of your labour?
Yes, I am still driven. When one has done something for 45 years and it has been successful, one doesn’t want to make the change. I don’t do what I did with the same intensity – I don’t go to China anymore, someone else can do that. The intensity is down by 30-40% and I have handed over the day-to-day running of the business to my sons.
But I’m still in the office every day, looking after offshore interests – the businesses in India, Portugal, Spain, the United States. I still enjoy building the company and keeping the shareholders happy.
At the age of 65, most men who have some money in the bank decide to wind down. Bill Venter had a large amount of money in the bank – what made him decide to go back to school?
When I was growing up, my family could not afford a university education for me. When I did make some money, my career took up all of my time. And then I discovered that I had two sons who had Master’s degrees and I did not (although I had several honorary Doctorates conferred on me, but that’s not quite the same).
I’d always wanted to say that I had been to university, so I went there and got my Master’s degree and my Doctorate – so now I can call myself Dr Venter and it’s not honoris causa. ▲
Interview by John Doolan
