An Indian business leader who has connected with masses on social media impressively over the recent years is Anand Mahindra, currently serving as the executive Chairman of the conglomerate Mahindra & Mahindra. M&M under his leadership has been a pioneer in its core automotive sector and manufacturing the largest number of Tractors in the whole world. With many other diversified businesses across IT, Hotel & Tourism, Finance and Insurance, Retail, Media, Military, Defense, Energy, Utilities and what not, M&M group is one of the biggest success stories of independent India.
But do you know M&M was founded 2 years before independence in 1945 itself? It was started as a steel trading business by the group's founders Kailash Chandra Mahindra, JC Mahindra and Malik Ghulam Muhammed. And the company was initially registered as Mahindra & Muhammed. During the colossal partition of 1947, Muhammed went to Pakistan and eventually became the first Finance minister of Pakistan. The group changed its name to Mahindra & Mahindra in 1948 subsequently.
Now have you ever wondered why this group is known as Mahindra & Mahindra, and not just Mahindra, similiar to Tata, Birla, Wadia, Hinduja and other contemporaries?
A very funny odd tale behind this. Even before partition, the group had printed its stationary, account books and other materials under 'M&M' letterhead. After partition, with the market volatility and rising prices, they found it prudent not to reprint the whole material and use the existing lot only, but they also had to change the registered name from Mahindra & Muhammed. Therefore, very wisely, the tweaked brand identity Mahindra & Mahindra came into being.
Another interesting trivia about this automobile juggernaut is, that they tend to keep their model names ending with 'O' sound. They may compromise on any other details, but this habit seems to be a non-negotiable requirement in their SOPs. Now call it a superstition, or a unique branding strategy for a better customer recall, whichever suits you. But if you hear a car model name which sounds ending with an 'O', most likely its from the house of M&M. Examples: Scorpio, Bolero, Xylo, Supro, Verito, Marazzo, e2o, XUV500 (pronounced as 'five double oh')
And they say what's in a name?
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