'Every crisis offers lot of opportunities', says Murugappa Group's Vellayan Subbiah

At a time, the conflict in West Asia has driven up oil prices and disrupted supply chains, Vellayan Subbiah of the diversified Murugappa Group feels every crisis offers opportunities.

"The risk around supply chain has become a key area of focus now. So everybody is beginning to think of how they diversify. That offers us a lot of opportunities as a country," said Subbiah, Executive Chairman, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance; Vice-Chairman Tube Investments of India; Chairman, CG Power and Industrial Solutions.

Earlier, one could have had one tie up or alignment, but now one must be open to multiple alignments and learn how to work with those alignments as potential sources and customers, he said at the 14th edition of the Business Today MindRush & India’s Best CEOs Awards.

Subbiah is now the fourth generation of the conglomerate. The base being solid allows him to take lot more risks than before, he said.

"When we start looking at businesses, we are really seeing what's going to be around for the next 50-75 years and start thinking and identifying sectors like that," said Subbiah. 

In August 2025, CG Semi, a unit of CG Power, launched its first Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) facility in Sanand, Gujarat. With this launch, CG Semi became one of India’s first full-service OSAT providers, offering solutions across both traditional and advanced packaging technologies.

"There's an opportunity to look at industries that need to get built in India for the next 50 years and from that perspective, it is a real imperative nationally," said Subbiah. 

He also feels India is well suited to semiconductors;  pointing to the fact that 20 per cent of the world's semiconductor engineers are Indian.

He also stressed that businesses that had been successful over a period of time, were the ones always focused on growth. "Growth is like oxygen. Without growth, businesses stagnate," he said. 

But, he also pointed that growth couldn't be the only metric. Free cash generation, he pointed, was an obsession. Growth without free cash generation was a "recipe for disaster," he warned. 

The group is also into transformers, where there are immense opportunities, Subbiah said.

"When you look at renewables and what they are beginning to do, when you begin to look at consumption on data centre side, EVs, charging infrastructure, all of that requires a lot of electricity. And that offers a huge opportunity for us," he pointed. 

Financial services is another area he sees lot of opportunities in as India grows in the coming years. 

Overall, import dependence is a risk in many sectors, admitted Subbiah and felt there was a need to reduce in dependence on fossil fuels  and lot of things we are still dependent on imports on.