The Master of Detailing: How Exide Legend S.B. Ganguly Transformed Su-Kam's Battery Division and Solar Ambitions

Kunwer Sachdev alongside S.B. Ganguly at the 13th Conclave for CEOs, Kolkata, 2012

Why I Needed a Legend

When I made the strategic decision to move Su-Kam into the heavy industrial and utility-scale solar inverter market, I knew our biggest hurdle wasn't going to be the technology. Innovation was in our DNA. The real challenge was scale and human infrastructure.

To build big solar systems, you need big organizational discipline. You cannot run a massive, high-stakes industrial division with the informal structures of a typical growing startup. My background was entirely in electronics and engineering innovation—I was not a battery manufacturing expert. I needed to understand how global giants managed talent, built execution pipelines, and maintained unyielding operational standards.

I did an intensive round of research to find the one person who held the blueprint for heavy industrial power scaling in India. One name stood above the rest: Mr. Satya Brata Ganguly—known universally as S.B. Ganguly.

He had served as Chairman of Exide Industries from 1992 to 2006, leading the company through a period of extraordinary growth despite stiff competition from global battery giants entering India after liberalization. Under his watch, most foreign car makers who came to India chose Exide as their battery partner. He also oversaw the landmark integration of Standard Batteries into Exide—a defining chapter in India's battery industry history.

Winning Over a Corporate Titan

When I first reached out to Mr. Ganguly through a mutual connection, he wasn't interested. He was a corporate legend accustomed to structured multinational environments, and a young power backup company in Gurgaon seemed entirely outside his world.

But I didn't back down. I secured a second meeting and laid out the raw strategic vision. I didn't talk to him about small home inverters; I explained our roadmap for entering the heavy solar sector and our need for absolute industrial discipline. I showed him our state-of-the-art facilities in Gurgaon and then proposed a trip to our modern battery plant in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh.

We drove to Baddi together. Walking through that assembly line, he saw the sheer scale of our vision. His hesitation vanished. He said yes.

He immediately went to work. Leveraging his decades-long network in the power sector, he connected me with key industry veterans. More importantly, he opened up the playbook that changed the way I ran my company.

The Multinational Talent Blueprint

The greatest wealth of knowledge I absorbed from Mr. Ganguly wasn't about chemical equations or manufacturing lines—it was about people. He taught me how world-class multinational companies build high-performance cultures. Under his guidance, I learned four pillars of corporate talent management:

Lessons on the Shop Floor: The Hard Taskmaster

Mr. Ganguly was the absolute master of detailing. He believed that a company's true health wasn't found in a polished PowerPoint deck, but on the raw factory shop floor.

He travelled with me many times across our facilities, and watching him work was a masterclass in industrial psychology. He would walk slow, quiet lines through the shop floor, intently observing the workers, the machinery calibration, the material handoffs, and the structural safety systems.

Operational Focus	The Typical Approach	The Ganguly Standard at Su-Kam
Shop Floor Monitoring	Reviewing monthly manager reports from a distance.	Personal, granular observation of worker hand-movements and system bottlenecks.
Quality Discipline	Accepting standard industry tolerances.	Instilling a rigorous, zero-defect culture across the Baddi battery assembly lines.
Executive Execution	Soft, conversational alignment in meetings.	Combining a polite demeanor with unyielding, strict operational expectations.

The Ganguly Approach: He was an incredibly hard taskmaster, but he delivered his critiques with absolute politeness. He taught me that leadership isn't about shouting; it's about seeing the details that everyone else skims over.

He was also a heavy smoker. I distinctly remember walking with him between meetings or factory bays, watching him light up another cigarette. Sometimes, out of genuine care for his well-being, I would comment, "Sir, why don't you leave the cigarettes? It's not good for your health."

He would look at me, smile calmly, and say, "Kunwer, one day will come, and I will not touch it afterwards." It was his typical, unflappable way of handling the world.

At the Ganguly residence in Kolkata — an evening of stories, social work, and lasting bonds

Su-Kam Employee Award Ceremony — the manufacturing culture that Ganguly helped build

Beyond the Boardroom: Evenings in Kolkata

Our professional alignment quickly grew into a deep personal bond. Whenever I travelled to Kolkata for our regional dealer meetings, market surveys, or distributor visits, Mr. Ganguly would graciously invite me into his home.

I had the privilege of dining at his residence twice, which opened my eyes to an entirely different side of his life. His wife was a passionate, driven social worker who ran a prominent local NGO. Sitting around their dinner table, listening to their shared stories—balancing the mechanics of massive industrial empires with grassroots social responsibility and human empathy—was an experience I cherish to this day.

They didn't just teach me how to manage a balance sheet; they modelled how an influential life should be lived with purpose.

How He Transformed Su-Kam's Battery Core

Mr. Ganguly took our battery division into an entirely different league. My experience in battery manufacturing was limited, and he was the legend who bridged that gap. He didn't just sit in quarterly boardroom meetings in smart suits. He got his hands dirty. He took the factory floor as his classroom and transformed our manufacturing discipline from the inside out.

His relentless focus on manufacturing precision—from the selection of raw materials to the calibration of assembly systems—left an unshakeable impact on our organization. The systems and strict manufacturing disciplines he anchored into me during our travels together remain the core pillars of how I evaluate engineering and operations to this day.

The Legacy of True Mentorship

Many modern startups view board appointments as mere public relations exercises designed to look good for venture capitalists. My time with Mr. Ganguly proved the exact opposite.

He took a founder who knew electronics, pushed him to understand chemical manufacturing precision, and helped scale an alternative energy footprint across India. The rigorous review mechanisms, the structured training systems, and the eye for detail he instilled in me became the very engine that allowed Su-Kam to aggressively capture India's growing renewable energy market.

A mentor doesn't just advise you in a boardroom. A real mentor travels with you, walks your factory floors, challenges your assumptions, invites you into his home—and quietly transforms the way you see your own company.