Elvis Has Left Town
he Man: Diwan Rahul Nanda, 37, Chairman
The Company: Topsgrup. With close to 85,000 employees and Rs. 867 crore in revenue, it is the second largest security services provider in India.
His Goal: Create a multinational security behemoth from India by acquiring other security companies around the globe.
The Risks: Acceptance of an Indian company in Western markets will be a challenge, especially as private security companies there run jails, man borders and guard cities. Nanda will have to battle perceptions about Indian companies being synonymous with cost cutting and lowered standards for training.
Around 1.15 p.m. on October 7, an auto-rickshaw pulls up outside Gate 2 of Hewlett-Packard’s campus in Bangalore’s Electronic City suburb. The lone passenger in the auto-rickshaw, a young man of average build, pays off the driver and hurriedly walks through the campus gates along with a group of other employees. He is carrying a shoulder bag.
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Image: The Times Of India Group. BCCL
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Diwan Rahul Nanda, Chairman, Topsgroup
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When one of the security guards asks him for his identity card, he tells him that it is inside his pocket. He is lying, for HP had sacked him over three years ago. Since then he had found it impossible to find another stable job in India’s IT capital. Worse, his wife had left him a year back, taking their daughter with her.
Siraj Ahmed, 34, had come back for revenge.
Inside the campus he unzips his bag and takes out a gleaming new machete and starts slashing passing employees, screaming, “They have stolen my brain!” By the time the security staff overpower him, three HP employees, including a woman, are bleeding from deep cuts.
For the $100 billion HP, which like other major IT companies goes to great costs to provide a secure and comfortable work environment to its thousands of employees, the incident was a rude jolt of reality.
For the $9.5 billion G4S, the world’s largest security services provider and HP’s security contractor in India, the incident was an inopportune embarrassment.For the Rs. 867 crore (revenue) Topsgrup, the largest Indian security services provider, the incident couldn’t have come at a better time.
That’s because HP was in the process of reviewing its security services contract, and nothing would have pleased the 37-year-old chairman of Topsgrup, Diwan Rahul Nanda, than to displace his arch-nemesis G4S. In the last two months, Nanda has already done that at two of G4S’s big clients, Bangalore International Airport and IBM India.
Mr. Security
Barrel-chested and stocky, his biceps bulging through his form fitting shirts, Nanda is an imposing personality. With two black belts, a Ph.D in martial arts and a licensed revolver, he projects security like Vijay Mallya projects “good times”. The similarities don’t end there. Like Mallya, he takes his partying as seriously as his work. He is a regular on the Mumbai party circuit. And like Mallya, he too inherited his business from his dad. Okay, maybe that last comparison was stretching it. That’s because the business Nanda inherited from his father, Major (Retd.) R.C. Nanda, was more a liability than an asset. Tops Security was started in 1970 by Nanda Sr. after he retired from the Indian Army. The company spent its first few decades limited to Mumbai and Ahmedabad because a poorer and safer India didn’t really see the need for private security.
In 1991 when Nanda Jr. took over, there were less than 40 employees, Rs. 35 lakh in annual revenues and years of piled up losses to boot.
Eighteen years later, the view is quite different. “Four years back we touched Rs. 100 crore, this year we’re close to Rs. 1,000 crore and next year we will be Rs. 2,000 crore,” he says in his booming voice. Topsgrup, as Nanda renamed his father’s company after taking over, is today the second largest security services provider in India with close to 85,000 employees.
The largest is G4S, with over 130,000 employees. Not for long, if Nanda has his way. “We are looking at a few strategic acquisitions, and if things go well, we will overtake G4S within a year,” he says.
He said this during a visit to India a few weeks back. That’s right, a visit to India. That’s because Nanda shifted permanently to London five months back.
The Chairman Goes Global
The secret to Nanda’s relocation is the prefix that’s been added to his title, “global”. As the global chairman for Topsgrup, he now wants to expand Topsgrup into a global security services firm that will give biggies like G4S and Securitas, the $7.9 billion second largest player in the field, a run for their money.
In May 2008 Topsgrup acquired a 51 percent controlling interest in UK-based Shield Guarding, a $121 million security services provider. The company is now raising money to buy out the remaining 49 percent in Shield Guarding and possibly acquire newer companies. “We have signed a memorandum of understanding with a $300 million US security company for acquiring them. After that we want to get into the Middle East, Africa and some parts of Asia as well,” says Nanda.
“We want to become the Shah Rukh Khan and Narayana Murthy of the security industry — humble, accessible and down to earth. And our aim is also to do $10 billion in revenue by the year 2020,” says Nanda.
Single Page View
I work for Tops and would like to say Dr. Nanda is an inspiration to me as an Indian and as a Security Professional.
It just shows that even in today's world the personality at the top still dictates the success of the company and our company is most very successful. What a personality!!
When a man that can dance like the Dr, can fight like the Dr and when a man that can wear tight clothes like the Dr runs your business, you know the future of that business is secure.
Image is everything and what an image he creates. Where other doctors heal bones, he can break them. His success is India's success and long may it continue. I wear my Topsgrup badge with pride.
Please Sir, do you have more photographs of the great man? Especially dancing shots if you please.
