More than just a simple family man

More than just a simple family man

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

What does it take for an ordinary man to stand out from the
crowd?

For Sri Prakash Lohia -- a man who could easily pass unnoticed
-- it was quite an achievement to make his family's small, spun
yarn factory into Indonesia's largest polyester exporter, as well
as the world's 10th-largest synthetic fiber producer.

Lohia, nicknamed SP by his friends and family, could have
chosen to spend his youth enjoying the benefits of his family's
wealth. Instead, he used his head start in life to win the race.

When he was just 19, an age when most young people are still
struggling to make it to their lectures on time, SP had finished
his formal education at a university in New Delhi and started to
help his father run the family's polyester business.

He made sacrifices, among them missing out on weekend parties
and nights on the town, but it was worthwhile. Now, some 33
years later, SP has been more than just a source of help in the
family's business.

The man succeeded in nurturing Indorama Synthetics, the
company founded by his father, M.L. Lohia, in 1976, from only a
single fiber manufacturer into a company with an annual turnover
of more than US$400 million.

Indorama, a synthetic fiber supplier for textile manufacturers
in more than 71 countries worldwide, currently runs 10 factories
in Purwakarta and Bandung, West Java, with the help of almost
8,000 workers. It exports 60 percent of its products to markets
in Europe, Australasia, South and Central America, South Africa
and Canada.

"Textiles, and whatever is needed to make textiles, are one of
the primary needs," SP said in explaining his family's typically
Indian choice of industrial field. "It's a vast field to enter
into. Back then, it was easier to go into, the technology was not
very advanced."

SP's life was submerged by the world of business as early as
childhood, when the man of few words learned the skills needed as
an industrialist by watching his father and grandfather managing
family factories in India.

"Everyone in my family is involved in business," he said. "Our
lives evolve around our business and the welfare of our 12,000
workers worldwide."

The family business might have shaped SP into the strict,
officious man with a well-groomed appearance that he is now.
However, family values also became a foundation for his
entrepreneurial career.

"Business is not learned through education. You know business
by instinct. Education only helps with techniques," said SP, who
had managed to skip a grade twice when he was in junior high
school and was known as a bright student.

"I always think business, business, business," SP said in a
relaxed but clearly enunciated tone. "My father used to take me
to his factories. That is probably why business is in my blood."

Sitting in his conference room on the top floor of his
company's building in Kuningan, South Jakarta, SP projected the
image of a young businessman turned tycoon, after struggling in a
foreign country for more than 30 years.

SP said that he had to deal with language problems and the
country's weak infrastructure back in the 1970s. "The hardest
period was only the first three to four years."

Despite SP's formal appearance, he really opens up when he
talks about his son of 30 and daughter of 26. He refers to his
wife (whose brother is one of the world's top three tycoons,
Lakshmi N. Mittal) as a "real, lifetime partner".

"He firmly believes that a happy family is the foundation for
the growth of any business," said Lohia's friend of 20 years
Ganesh Grover, who is also a senior executive of the Lippo Group.

Admitting that hard work is the key to his success, SP said
that he spent around 10 hours a day on business matters. "Before
it was longer; my son is now running the business very actively."

Friends and colleagues describe him as a family man who likes
to spend time outside the office. And, though he comes across as
a man of the world, he claims to be a simple Indian who believes
that after living for nine years in a house, he has to move to
another. Or after five years of hard work, the next four years
should be spent relaxing a little.

"It's the nine-year life cycle -- expansion, consolidation,
and so on," he explained.

The vegetarian also holds on to traditional values, including
that families should stick together -- in the same house. For
now, that means his already grownup children, and in the future,
his children's children.

"He believes in humanity and all faiths -- that if you can
help a person, it will be the biggest contribution you ever
make," one of his colleagues said.

SP may be a man of values, a successful businessman and an
innovative industrialist but he shyly admits "I have been trying
to learn golf for three years, but I can't seem to get the hang
of it."

Well, as many people say, you just can't have it all. (003)