Legacy is a double edged sword. Leading the company with right environment can be a challenge. Speaking about his company, Sunjay Kapur, CEO, Sona Group noted, "It is a familyrun business since the company was established by my father and our founder Dr Surinder Kapur in the late 1980s. Our forging arm of the business was also constituted less than a decade later in the mid-90s through a joint venture. At Sona Group, we have always inculcated a positive learning environment wherein we are constantly encouraging our teams towards innovation. This has really helped us evolve our business practices and processes in terms of how we look at the business, market and the opportunities."

While talking about future of the company, Kapur mentioned, "Today, the automotive industry is moving at lightning speed comparable to that of the IT industry and Fin-tech. This environment forces us to be completely agile and open to change and new processes, new systems and new products. If you look at the automotive industry in terms of buying habits, electrification and autonomous driving, even the number of new competitors entering the industry, one will notice there is much change happening. While we maintain the foundation of quality and building systems, following the relevant systems and processes, we are forced to continuously improve upon what we have already built and enhance the foundations we have - be it processes, products or systems - in terms of what our customers are demanding in delivery, quality and cost. One needs to continuously evolve in order to meet and exceed customer expectations."

Taking ahead the legacy also comes with few tough decisions. One of such decisions was selling Sona Koyo Steering Systems Ltd to JTEKT. Speaking on the same, Kapur opined, "We decided to divest our entire equity stake in Sona Koyo Steering Systems Ltd. Though a tough decision to take, it was carefully thought out. Looking back at it a few months later, we are very happy as it was a win-win deal for JTEKT, Sona Group, our customers, employees and other stakeholders. The decision to exit a 30-yearold partnership with JTEKT after we grew the business to revenues of Rs. 1,600 crore was because our growth was restricted only to India and we did not own the technology. But the decision has been a transformational step in Sona's journey and allows us to completely focus our investments, attention and energies on the fast-growing precision-forgings business - Sona BLW, wherein there is immense potential for growth and global market leadership."

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