Alumni Stories
“A place to grow”: UC’s effect on Rahul Mirchandani and his burgeoning family agribusiness
It’s been more than 25 years since he graduated and Dr Rahul Mirchandani still looks back at his time at the University of Canberra as a pivotal phase of his life – one which shaped his approach to business leadership and changed him as a person.
Rahul grew up in Mumbai, surrounded by family and immersed in the family business Aries Agro Limited, a specialty fertiliser company founded by his parents in 1969. He joined the business in 1994 as part of the market development team. When it came time to pursue a postgraduate degree, Rahul decided he wanted to strike out overseas.
“I wanted to go beyond my comfort zone in India, make a name for myself beyond my surname – and that meant getting out of the northern hemisphere,” Rahul says.
“Being part of a family business meant that I was quite protected, and I was part of a network where everybody knows you.
“The whole experience at UC was life changing for me, as I’m sure it is for many international students, because it just gives you a place to grow.”
For Rahul, his choice to head Down Under and study a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at UC was made for two distinct reasons: the course offering and the lifestyle. He was drawn to the applied learning approach after focusing on the theoretical side in India and says Australian business courses are “closer to home” than those in countries like the United Kingdom or the United States, allowing him to adapt what he’d learned very quickly.
“I was able to customise my MBA program to suit my return to the family business. It was important to me to do a general management degree, where I could pick and choose subjects that I knew would give me the skills I need, and UC allowed me that flexibility,” Rahul says.
“I was also coming from one of the biggest and most vibrant cities on the planet, so I didn’t want to live in another concrete jungle and Canberra has everything you need from a city – along with space to breathe, beautiful bushland – all with a world-class education.”
It was the life experience outside the classroom that amplified Rahul’s personal growth. Having never worked outside the family business, he picked up casual jobs during his studies and went on to teaching two subjects on campus. He also built connections with government and industry during his time in Canberra, gaining insights into policymaking and the workings of multinational organisations.
“It all shaped me as a person, enabling me to manage my own life without the family,” Rahul says.
“I went from being a very introverted person to a globally connected, extroverted businessman who would actually socialise – I mean, I would never mingle before at all!”
In 1998, Rahul graduated with his MBA and returned to India with a plan for the family business – a plan to use his newfound skills to transform the systems and processes that had existed for decades.
“First, I had to really understand agriculture, so I spent about eight years meeting every conceivable farming group in the country, and I'd go and visit every potential buyer of our fertiliser products to understand the market,” he says.
“It took years to be able to prove myself because everyone in the business had seen me as a child, running around in shorts, they'd all carried me, fed me food, and now to go back and be their boss was not something I could ask for – I had to earn it.”
Rahul implemented changes he says transformed Aries Agro Limited into one of the fastest-growing agribusiness companies in India, which he now leads as Chairman and Managing Director, overseeing 1,200 employees. While he credits his studies at UC, particularly his major in marketing, with helping to pioneer several unique processes within the business, Rahul says his approach to branding is what he is most proud of.
“We took the category of fertilisers and built 130 of the best specialty brands without spending a single rupee on mass media advertising,” he says.
“It's always been a below- the-line activity – demand creation from the bottom up.”
Rahul describes how his company made the farmers themselves as the ‘marketing celebrities’, creating impact in their own ecosystems and boosting their farming incomes by reducing dosages of unnecessary chemicals. He explains that the Aries customer is empowered through a ‘shock and awe’ marketing tactics that came about through product development and innovative campaigns.
“We have fertiliser packaging that dissolves in water, which has that ‘shock and awe’ effect – it seems like magic, but it's actually chemistry,” Rahul says.
“Here you have something that you throw in the spray tank, and it dissolves, creating an effervescence which agitates the solution that is ready to be sprayed on crops.
“The farmer calls the entire village and says, ‘look, this is magic happening,’ which again, is just chemistry – but for the farmers, it's truly exciting and empowering.”
Building sustainable fertiliser brands is the tip of the iceberg for Rahul, with a string of innovations leading to more business success. He oversaw the first civil aviation-approved crop-spraying drones for agricultural use in India, the use of nanotechnology and high-density fertilizers, and the use of Artificial Intelligence-driven soil scanners that generate soil health reports within seconds.
It was this kind of product innovation and leadership that led Rahul's company to be one of eight selected to meet with US President Barack Obama to discuss Indian agricultural innovation.
“It was a wonderful opportunity for our company and one that I entrusted to some of our customers, so, instead of me being there, a group of Aries farmers while dressed in traditional attire spoke with President Obama in perfect English, about the benefits our innovations being used on their land,” he says.
While Rahul was pouring his energy into growing the family business, he was also eager to nurture the business aspirations of others, creating the G20 and Commonwealth Alliances of Young Entrepreneurs (CAYE-Asia) back in 2011. He had an audience with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II during a Commonwealth Day event at Buckingham Palace in 2013 to report on the success of the Alliances.
“I wanted to establish a network for mentorship and training so that young entrepreneurs from across Asia could get together and learn from industry experts, as well as each other,” Rahul says.
A business leader, a mentor and a family man, Rahul returned to Australia in May this year to visit with his wife and son and return to his alma mater to connect with old friends, meeting with his former teachers, advisors and classmates on campus and over dinner. It was his first time back to UC since winning a Distinguished Alumni Award in 2013.
“We had an amazing evening with laughter and a nostalgia overload from the Class of 1998,” Rahul says.
“It was also wonderful to show my family around the Bruce campus – it’s a beautiful place, filled with great memories.”
In true entrepreneurial style, Rahul took advantage of the Canberra reunion to share his newly published book: Empower to Enslave. He says the book provides new insights for businesses about the dynamics that drive markets and forecasting demand for products using a mind map of current consumer intent as a proxy for past demand data.
“If you intend to buy a product or service today, everything that you've experienced with it in the past or what others have told you about this in the past, is all reflected in that decision.
“I can break that decision down into a set of influencing factors, plug it into an equation, and use it to forecast short to medium term demand. A product thus designed, makes a customer feel like they have purchased a product that is designed specifically to address their pain points and habits which leads to empowerment ... which then leads to enslavement, because we are all loyal to the brands we love.
“How do you get the loyalty of your customers? By understanding their habits and giving them exactly what they need.”
Words by Emma Larouche. Photos by Liam Budge and supplied.