Negotiating rough business tides in India

Kiwi company ASR Ltd is a business harnessing and influencing small corners of the world’s oceans. 

Mimicking nature, ASR’s multi-purpose reefs provide the same benefits of natural reefs – acting as a protective barrier to the coastline to help decrease sand erosion on beaches, as well as creating a new marine habitat.

ASR was already established internationally when it decided to aim for the prime Indian market.

The idea was to bring environmentally-sensitive coastal protection methods to India’s shores, which had been battered by the 2004 Asian tsunami and were exposed to the ravaging effects of the annual monsoon.

Its first foray into India is a project at Kovalam Beach in the southern state of Kerala. The government-funded project is an attempt to counter monsoon erosion, with better surf added to the design as a bonus.

The project was agreed in March 2008: a 4000 cubic metre submerged reef, 200m offshore at a maximum height of 2m.

ASR deployed its entire team and equipment to India in January 2009. However, a tweak to its reef design triggered a series of sign-offs that stalled the project and an up-front payment that was due to the company. Monsoon weather was approaching and ASR figured it should pull out.

That’s when, just five months after joining New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s Beachheads programme, ASR found itself calling on the expertise and networks of the advisors within the group, in particular the chair of the India Beachhead Advisory Board, Pradip Madhavji.

With considerable experience in travel and tourism, including many years as the head of Thomas Cook India, Mr Madhavji was able to coach ASR through the delicate situation and his talks with the Indian buyers helped get the project back on track.

As a result, ASR goes back to India to start work again in November 2009 with 60 percent of the Kovalam surf reef bill pre-paid.

ASR’s managing director Nick Behunin says the experience of the Beachheads advisors rescued the company’s foray into the Indian market.

“We would not be in India without their help. They were invaluable.”

In particular, Mr Madhavji and fellow Beachheads advisor Peter Baker (a kiwi businessman based in Delhi) had convinced ASR to abort an effort to get the matter settled in the courts – a move which could have kick-started decades of litigation in India’s notoriously clogged legal system.

“We nearly made what would have been a fatal mistake in this market.”