Narayan Barasia is an astute, focused, result-oriented professional with two decades of experience in FMCG, engineering and agri commodities. Over the years, he handled business strategy, business turnaround, profitable growth, M&A, significant revenue generation, cost improvement initiatives, treasury, processes and system improvement initiatives.
In 2013, Barasia took over as the chief financial officer of Greaves Cotton, the manufacturer of widest variety of farm equipment such as automotive and diesel engines, generators, power transmission systems and construction equipment in India. Ever since he took over, Barasia has displayed great team building abilities and has continuously upgraded skills through his experience and constructive feedback.
Before joining Greaves Cotton, Barasia worked as director of finance at Olam Agro for a short period of 11 months where he established strong risk management processes to manage commodity, currency and credit volatility and risks. He had entered Olam with his long experience in Godrej Sara Lee as its chief financial officer and company secretary handling financial and legal issues.
Designated as CFO & CEO (of Auxiliary Power) at Greaves Cotton, Barasia is heading finance, business, strategy and IT functions of the organisation. He is also leading M&A opportunities, media and investor communications, finance and accounts verticals of Greaves Cotton. In addition, he is also responsible for Greaves Cotton’s Auxiliary Power business.
In his current role, Barasia has driven business turnaround, portfolio strategy, working capital reduction, margin and supply chain improvement, implementation of CRM, PLM, IoT, making a huge difference to the bottom line of the organisation in the last few years.
During the last financial year, in spite of the challenging macro-economic conditions, Barasia along with the management, took a tough call to exit from the loss making infrastructure business. This, along with the value engineering approach and focus on operational efficiencies, enabled Greaves Cotton to improve its profitability during FY15-16.
Under Barasia’s vigil, Greaves Cotton registered total revenue of Rs 1,660.73 crore during FY15-16 compared to Rs 1,713.71 crore in FY14-15. The profit after tax stood at Rs 198.78 crore during FY15-16 as against Rs 81.53 crore in the previous financial year.
Despite tough challenges faced by Indian companies, Barasia has been successful in ensuring that Greaves Cotton continues to be profitable. During the last quarter of financial year 2016-17, net profits registered a healthy 20 per cent growth, up from Rs 39 crore in the quarter ended March, 2016 to Rs 47 crore currently. The company reported revenues of Rs 1,819 crore and net profits of Rs 181 crore for 12 months ended March 2017. That’s no mean achievement. With both the farm sector and the overall economy picking up, one can only expect improved profitability in the near future for Greaves Cotton.
To former colleagues and financial professionals, Barasia is that rare finance professional who also has an excellent strategic sense and a great understanding of business. That coupled with a strong task orientation and follow up, means that any business, will run just that much better, with Barasia driving the finance wheel.
BW Reporters
The author is associate editor at BW Businessworld
