Quotes from Anand Mahindra

The most important thing that I tell myself is that no matter where I go in this journey, the humility is what's gonna keep me honest and real. And perhaps a better manager.

It is such an uncertain universe out there that you have to create what I call 'real' options and develop capabilities that will enable you to deal with an environment that will change anyway.

To my mind, the education of children - girl children, specifically - is what really creates an enlightened society. It creates a liberal society.

Nobody understands how the world will change. The only way you can plan for the future is to have scenarios. You have to have the courage to take a leap of faith on one of them.

When we heard that America is pulling out of the Paris Agreement, that's unfortunate, but frankly - speaking purely from my competitive juices point of view - we are delighted that somebody's not going to look at these opportunities. They'll be all there for us.

Businesses look for stability; they look for direction.

Our credo says that, in the end, we want to drive positive change in the lives of our stakeholders and communities across the world, enabling them to rise.

The term 'niche' is no longer pejorative.

I have no problem with money coming in and spawning competition. I am honest enough to admit that Mahindra & Mahindra would not have been going to the IITs and doing research if there was no competition.

My own ambitions were eclectic. My father ran a steel plant, and I was expected to study metallurgy and end up at the steel plant when I finished high school at age 15. Despite my proficiency at science, I decided against it and instead went on to study filmmaking.

Sometimes the only kind of innovation comes when you have some solitude; when you step away.

It requires a different holistic approach and a recognition that it's not simply a question of stepping into China's shoes. Our 'Make in India' has to be different from China's in the sense that we have to do a 'taal-mel' or 'jugalbandi' of our IT skills that exist and our evolving manufacturing skills and become intelligent manufacturers.

One of the demonetization benefits, in some markets like used cars, is that organized, transparent businesses are gaining at the cost of unorganized players.

I'm an optimist about NAFTA merely being updated.

Benchmarking is an ongoing exercise in any company that aspires for leadership.

XUV is a living proof of the value of MRV. In that sense, the XUV was a wonderful validation. The XUV grew along with MRV. As the institution was built, the product was created.

If your strategy calls for you to be in America, then you will go into America. If your strategy calls for you to be in M&A, then you'll do an acquisition. You usually acquire a company to acquire technology, geographic advantage, etc. Similarly, geographic expansion is very much like M&A. It's done to advance a strategy.

Mahindra's brand strategy is about niches across areas of mobility.

You go into battle with your strengths.

The more I learn about industry structures, the more I feel that once a company has paid the fee, in a manner of speaking, to enter a sector, it becomes even harder to stay afloat.

I've been criticised for being an eternal optimist.

My aspiration is that M&M become one of the most customer-centric organizations in the world. If we focus on understanding our customers, we will be able to develop customer-centric innovations.

Just like you have fire regulations, they should have regulations that no building would be made without charging points for electric vehicles.

To me, Scorpio was a big bet and a quantum leap in the kind of sophistication of our products. People forget that, apart from the Bolero and the Armada, until the nineties we never made hard-top vehicles.