Brain drain in reverse: fifteen years ago, Farhad Forbes packed his bags in California's Silicon Valley and returned to India to help run his family's business.

Fifteen years ago, Farhad Forbes packed his bags in California's Silicon Valley and returned to India to help run his family's business. He tells Michael Smith why.

India is renowned world-wide for her excellence in computer software and technology. But Farhad Forbes admits that his decision to return to his home country, from a plum job in California's Silicon Valley, was one of the toughest of his life. A Masters graduate in electrical engineering from Stanford University, he was working in research and development at Hewlett Packard, the major computer manufacturer.

Three events encouraged him to come back to Pune, one of India's largest industrial cities, and join his family's business there in 1982. In January the previous year, he had accompanied his parents to an `international dialogue' conference at Asia Plateau, the MRA centre in Panchgani town, in the mountains south of Pune. There, says Farhad, he was impressed by `seeing a lot of very committed people involved in various causes and issues. It made me realize that the individual can make a difference. It sparked the feeling that I should come back and do something here in India.' There was no family pressure to do so. But Forbes found that the emphasis at Asia Plateau on the need for moral values in society--such as honesty and unselfishness--`related very well' to his Zoroastrian faith.

Returning to California, he attended a talk at Stanford by Nani Palkhiwalla, then Indian Ambassador to the United States, who urged Indians to return and make their mark on their nation's future. This helped to strengthen Forbes' resolve. The following year, the division he was working for at Hewlett Packard announced plans to relocate to Colorado. It was a natural moment for him to make the break, after nearly eight years in the United States.

`Initially I felt very unsure whether I was doing the right thing,' says Forbes. `Life in India was very different, and in 1982 there was no thought of liberalization and real economic progress. In Silicon Valley I was working with all this marvellous technology. Would I really be able to use it in India? There is also the shock that hits you when you come back and find that you have to struggle for very mundane things. We still had hassles making phone calls in those days.'

He has never regretted his decision. His role at the Forbes Marshall engineering group in Pune, where he is now Director, `has given me a lot of personal satisfaction which I could not have got in the States'. Also, on his return, he met his wife, Rati, the daughter of a former Chairman of the Central Bank of India and cabinet minister in India's first post-independence government. Her mother was the Forbes' paediatrician. Rati is now responsible for the Human Resources Department of Forbes Marshall, which includes the company's social welfare activities.

At first, Forbes joined the company's research and development department. By 1985, he and his brother Naushad, who had also returned from America, had pioneered most of the company's six joint venture partnerships with foreign firms. The Forbes Marshall group, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, employs 850 people in the manufacture of steam engineering equipment for industrial heating, and process control instruments and systems. The company has seen an annual growth of over 30 per cent for the past four years, and profits have grown each year. Last year's turnover was nearly 900 million rupees.

Forbes points out that, in India's increasingly. competitive environment, cost increases have to be met by productivity gains rather than being passed on to the customer. Multinational companies are also pushing up wage rates. `They poach your best people. So we have to match wage expectations,' says Forbes. This creates a pressure not to replace retiring workers. Forbes Marshall saw a 100 per cent increase in productivity in the three years up to 1996 without significant job losses thanks to the company's expansion. Nonetheless, `we are still only about one sixth as productive as our German or UK joint venture partners'.

He also attributes the company's productivity gains to the influence of MRA. The company has sent workers and managers to Asia Plateau's `creative leadership' training seminars each year for almost 20 years. Most of the workforce have attended.

In 1989, the company wanted to introduce a structure of productivity-linked wage agreements. `There was a lot of opposition because people didn't understand it,' says Forbes. `We had a stalemate and couldn't come to a conclusion.' To his surprise, the trade union leadership and the management negotiating committee decided, without any prompting from the Board, that they wanted to continue negotiations in the `idyllic' setting of Asia Plateau. `They spent about ten days there. People from the centre spent time with them and they went to prayer meetings together,' says Forbes. `We gave our management committee full authority and they worked out the final agreement with the union which was ultimately signed.'

Returning to Pune, the union leaders had to sell the deal to the members. At first they had cold feet, says Forbes. `But they finally stuck by it and it was well accepted.'

Last year, a four-year wage agreement due to be signed in December was reached as early as May. `It was unique,' says Forbes. `We are fortunate that we have got to the stage where a sufficient number of people who have been to Asia Plateau accept that we need to have dialogue, respect each other and keep each other's interests in mind. So we do see benefits.'

Like other businesses, the company pays to send its employees to Asia Plateau, seeing it as a worthwhile investment. But is Forbes Marshall simply using MRA in order to make the company more successful? `I think you have got to look beyond that,' replies Forbes. `We don't ever force anyone to go to Asia Plateau. It is entirely voluntary.' He admits that `some of the union members had reservations initially, fearing that it was a way of softening them to negotiate more compliantly. But as more and more people have gone from various industries, not just ours, I think that has become less and less of an issue.'

The wives of the employees seem to welcome the effect on their husbands. They go on factory tours as part of a women's programme run by Rati Forbes. On the day we met, some 30 of them had spent the morning discussing family values, including the conflicts that can arise with adolescent children and in large families living together.

When it comes to corruption, Farhad Forbes admits that `it is difficult to avoid it entirely'. But the company has a strong ethos against it. For instance, it would be easy for the company not to comply with bureaucratic regulations by paying off government inspectors. Instead, says Forbes, `our philosophy has always been that we comply entirely with regulations. Rules have to be kept.'

Like other Indian businesses, Forbes Marshall also has a strong social commitment. For some 20 years it has run a private on-site hospital for all its employees and their families. When it was started, it was the only hospital for two neighbouring townships. All treatment is free. The company also sends an employee to run an education programme for children who would otherwise receive no formal education, in a village across the nearby railway track.

Recently, Forbes Marshall took the initiative in cleaning up a public park, overlooking the river in Pune, which had degenerated into a waste tip. The local government authority, which until then had done nothing, now provided four garbage trucks. Another initiative came after a woman employee was killed crossing the main Pune-Bombay highway outside the factory. The company gathered together other local businesses to pay for the construction of a central road reservation to improve safety.

Three years ago, an elderly employee died after some 30 years with the company. The Forbes family attended the funeral in his village. They were appalled to find a village of 15,000 people with no running water or latrines and only one well, just four kilometres from the factory. The teachers in the village school had to have bottled water in each classroom. The company's engineers cleaned up the well, laid new water pipes to the school and built a latrine.

Farhad Forbes attributes the company's social awareness to his father, Darius, Chairman of Forbes Marshall. `All these community projects started as a result of his vision and desire,' says Farhad. He hopes that such initiatives will help to improve people's quality of life. Forbes Marshall is by no means unique in its social programmes. Government may have the primary role in turning the tide of poverty. But as businesses benefit from economic reforms, their private initiatives could also make a world of difference to India's poorest.