Unsurprisingly, Lord Karan Bilimoria’s favorite beer is the one he invented. In 1989, after studying law at Cambridge University, the then contemporary set up Cobra with his business partner Arjun Reddy in a flat in West London. The elevator pitch, recalls Bilimoria, was to create a beer that had all the refreshing qualities of a lager and the smooth texture of an ale.
“Cobra is an intricate recipe made up of malted barley, rice, wheat, corn, and three varieties of Bavarian hops,” he enthuses evangelically. Over the past 34 years the beer has become a household name, with the Hyderabad-born Bilimoria more than happy to embrace its consumer perception as a curry companion.
“It’s a phenomenal beer and it pairs beautifully with all food, but especially spicy food,” he adds with a smile. “This is an objective fact.”
In 2011, Cobra became a subsidiary of Molson Coors, the Canadian-US multinational beer company. The split is 50.1% to 49.9% in favor of the conglomerate. “In practical terms, I still own half and they have half,” explains Bilimoria.
The move allowed Cobra to expand its consumer base. The beer is now available in 40 countries around the world, thanks to the significant export power of its partner organization. But Bilimoria, 61, remains president of Cobra and plays an active role in decision-making, from recipe refinements to packaging design.
That more companies should be open to mergers or acquisitions, particularly during times of economic hardship, Bilimoria is not committed. It all boils down to “individual circumstances,” he says. However, he points out that the key terms of the partial sale to Molson Coors were that Cobra would not become just one in a crowd and that he would continue to be involved in the business.
“That 0.1% is very important. It means Molson Coors treats Cobra as one of its own, as opposed to someone else’s brand,” says Bilimoria. “It is run as a joint venture. I am the president and have been since day one, 14 years ago. And we work on a very collaborative basis.”
How the drinking culture in business has changed
Even as a person who likes to drink, Bilimoria emphasizes the importance of “responsible drinking” both inside and outside the workplace. The corporate culture of drinking, in his experience, is in decline. Business meetings ‘down at the pub’, he says, are becoming less frequent, while he acknowledges that there are ‘potentially a million and one’ different reasons why someone might choose to abstain from alcohol.
“It could have to do with their religion, their health, or just their personality,” she says. Bilimoria points to Cobra’s growing range of non-alcoholic options as an awareness of this evolving consumer trend.
Earlier this year, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), for which Bilimoria is a vice-chairman, was forced to sack several of its senior staff, including managing director Tony Danker, after The Guardian The newspaper has published several complaints of sexual misconduct and irresponsible behavior by staff under the influence of alcohol.
Does the country need the CBI? The answer is a resounding yes, because no other business organization can do what we do
While Bilimoria does not deny that some of these things could have happened within a CBI environment, he attributes it to rogue individuals rather than a necessarily toxic culture within the organization as has been suggested in the media.
Dishonest individuals, Bilimoria says, were dealt with quickly and according to the seriousness of their offences. The CBI has been duly introspective, she adds, by hiring an external HR consultant and appointing a dedicated chief people officer. There have “definitely been some mistakes in our governance structure,” admits Bilimoria, but the “scandal” label currently attached to the organization is, in his view, a bit stretched.
Reviewing the evidence against Danker, Bilimoria notes that the decision to remove him from his position was made in “five minutes… I’m not sure how much faster we could realistically have been.”
In 2023, is CBI membership still worth the cost? Bilimoria is bullish in its response. “We have always been, and this is a fact, the business organization par excellence in this country. Does the country need the CBI? The answer is a resounding yes, because no other business organization can do what we do, or the breadth and depth of our business experience that we have accumulated over a long period of time.
Where individual trade bodies may be at the mercy of self-interest, Bilimoria suggests the CBI is better able to navigate “broader policy issues” and appreciate how different sectors converge. Bilimoria points out that the furlough scheme, which has kept many companies afloat during the Covid-19 pandemic, came about on the advice of the CBI.
“We are much more than a lobbying organization,” says Bilimoria. “We’re an organization that sees problems and finds solutions, and we want to act fast and act with government and make things happen.”
Why governments should incentivize companies
For many years, Bilimoria was a registered member of the Conservative Party and even considered running for MP. But he left the party in the mid-2000s and now sits in the House of Lords as an independent.
While his economics remains staunchly pro-free-market — “I don’t think you can grow an economy if you stifle business,” he warns — Bilimoria is highly critical of the “fear” narrative that has been developed by some conservatives around immigration.
Bilimoria is an outspoken opponent of Brexit and resents the way in which skilled migration, which he believes is “necessary for growth”, has been lumped together with the real problems of human trafficking or smuggling.
Raising the corporate tax is a step backwards… It’s a big mistake
Populism, Bilimoria says, should not be allowed to distract from urgent political needs. Most of the free trade deals that have been reached with other countries since Brexit, she points out, are rollovers from when the UK was a member of the EU. Only three new deals have been reached with Japan, Australia and New Zealand since the UK left the bloc.
And Bilimoria is urging the government to step up its progress on this front. Noting that ‘only around 10% of UK businesses export their products and services’, he says more needs to be done to create new market opportunities for them.
For Bilimoria, when it comes to business, the priority for any government, regardless of the party in power, should be to “encourage, rather than penalize”, particularly for green initiatives. He describes the decision to raise corporate tax from 19% to 25% as a “retrograde step… It’s a big mistake.”
According to Bilimoria, lower taxes and business rates would mean companies could afford, and would be more willing to pay higher wages. Higher wages, she suggests, would lead to a better quality of life and therefore higher productivity at work.
And what does Bilimoria think about the prospect of a Labor-led government in 2024? “Everything I hear [shadow chancellor] Rachel Reeves E [Labour leader] Keir Starmer is that they will be business friendly,” he reflects. “They didn’t put it in so many words, but I wish they would… emulate Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, when the top tax rate was 40% for income tax and when capital gains tax was of 18%, and when the relief of entrepreneurs was 10%.”
In many ways, adds Bilimoria, the last Labor government “was one of the most business-friendly governments that I as an entrepreneur [have] expert.”
Training and technology are necessary for growth
While going back to the future may be good for Labour, Bilimoria believes ambitious companies should never be content to stand still. As Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, he is a passionate advocate of lifelong learning and urges business leaders to see technology as a catalyst for reskilling and redeploying rather than replacing staff.
Cobra was an early adopter of automation to speed up its factories in Burton upon Trent, Roeselare in Belgium and Patna in the Indian state of Bihar. And, while he accepts the need for “reasonable regulation” around emerging technology, Bilimoria welcomes the advent of artificial intelligence and quantum computing as the next big “business-improving” innovations.
Indeed, as with the internet revolution, Bilimoria is confident that the new technology will create far more jobs than it replaces. “It will enable companies to do things they couldn’t do before. And it will enable people to improve and acquire new skills. This is the bottom line.
Bilimoria wants British politicians to learn from India, which he says has embraced the entrepreneurial spirit. If a government is serious about boosting businesses, Bilimoria says it will need to create an environment where people “would find it easy to thrive”. This means investment in research and development, transport connectivity, safe and legal pathways for skilled immigration and a clear and strong ‘outward-looking mindset’.
