Kannan Mahalingam: A Seasoned Real Estate Leader Spearheading The Company Towards Great Heights
Kannan Mahalingam
CEO
Kannan Mahalingam is a seasoned leader in this space, with over 20 years of expertise in construction and cost management at several organizations of repute. Currently, Kannan Mahalingam is the CEO of Alamo XS Real, a prominent real estate development company in India with more than 28 years of expertise in the residential real estate sector.
In an exclusive interaction with CEO Insights, Kannan Mahalingam elucidates his professional journey and the distinct traits of Alamo XS Real.
How has been your journey so far with Alamo XS Real and what drives you today?
At Alamo XS Real, taking over and running a company post-Covid, had its own challenges but I had seen a lot of opportunities. The key was to reinstate financial discipline throughout the company. At a time when the market was in a 'wait and watch' mode, we at Alamo XS Real comprehended the opportunity. Customers would have saved corpus working from home during
the pandemic, and real estate is the go to investment product for Indian consumers. We introduced an affordable housing project in Coimbatore with an appealing marketing campaign featuring Kovai Sarala, communicating 'Right Product at the Right Price'. The campaign was a roaring success, with 70 percent of the inventory sold out in the launch month itself.
This successful launch has generated positive energy across the company. At this point, we are preparing for an exciting journey of multifold expansion across south India namely Chennai Bangalore, Hyderabad and Coimbatore.
How would you define Alamo XS Real as an organization and its position in the market? What is the unique proposition that your organization offers to its clients?
At Alamo XS Real, our vision is to be an industrial leader and create landmarks across residential, commercial, and retail spaces and become a role model in the industry. We believe in building landmarks that are inspired by places all over the world. We are the only developer to have developed residential development in eight different themes inspired from across the world. Our promise:'Uniquely designed Homes with the best quality delivered on time'.
Reflect on some of the major challenges you have experienced in your journey so far. How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
In 2015-16, I worked as a project control manager in a large refinery in the United States.The culture and working environments were radically different from what I was used to in the real estate building industry in India. It was challenging to prove your worth and find a voice as the sole Indian among a large team of Americans in an industry where cost control and management information systems were in their infancy. I developed a simple dashboard, fetching data from the entire database to concise into important parameters to make decisionmaking simpler. With this system, we were able to track the time and cost on an hourly basis and thereby generate savings. This has helped me to be recognized and
If the plan doesn't work, change the plan but never the goal
This successful launch has generated positive energy across the company. At this point, we are preparing for an exciting journey of multifold expansion across south India namely Chennai Bangalore, Hyderabad and Coimbatore.
How would you define Alamo XS Real as an organization and its position in the market? What is the unique proposition that your organization offers to its clients?
At Alamo XS Real, our vision is to be an industrial leader and create landmarks across residential, commercial, and retail spaces and become a role model in the industry. We believe in building landmarks that are inspired by places all over the world. We are the only developer to have developed residential development in eight different themes inspired from across the world. Our promise:'Uniquely designed Homes with the best quality delivered on time'.
Reflect on some of the major challenges you have experienced in your journey so far. How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
In 2015-16, I worked as a project control manager in a large refinery in the United States.The culture and working environments were radically different from what I was used to in the real estate building industry in India. It was challenging to prove your worth and find a voice as the sole Indian among a large team of Americans in an industry where cost control and management information systems were in their infancy. I developed a simple dashboard, fetching data from the entire database to concise into important parameters to make decisionmaking simpler. With this system, we were able to track the time and cost on an hourly basis and thereby generate savings. This has helped me to be recognized and
appreciated across the company by every one.
Learning for me from this exercise is to not be bogged down by small things in life and look at the larger picture of what your role is and think about how you can effectively and smartly contribute to the organization and shine in life.
How do you maintain the perfect balance between your personal and professional life? What is your success mantra?
My success mantra is to carve out separate times between personal and professional life. I have established expectations clearly in the family and profession at times. Sundays are exclusively for family and friends and every six months a 10 day holiday with the family.
Going forward, what are the changes in market behavior that you anticipate, and what are the opportunities that you foresee?
The real estate market has undergone a series of regulatory changes, such as GST and RERA, which have streamlined the industry. These changes have resulted in market consolidation, and only enterprises with exceptional financial discipline can survive. With only a few good developers in the market, we can expect developers to increase market share provided they take care of their consumers and deliver homes on time and in good condition. Customers' Post-Covid preferences have evolved. They would prefer to have a lifestyle outside of their homes. Gated Residential communities offer a life outside their homes but with secured boundaries. We expect that these trends will be very beneficial to large-scale developers like us, and we can only expect faster growth in the future.
Kannan Mahalingam, CEO, Alamo XS Real
Kannan Mahalingam pursued BE Civil, ME Construction Management, and an MBA from the College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University. He has over 20 years of expertise in construction and cost management with organizations such as CCCL, Exceed, DLF, MARG, Eversandai, and TVS Emerald, as well as a successful stint with Costrack (In the US). Apart from being a seasoned professional, Kannan Mahalingam is also a husband and a father. Kannan Mahalingam says “I am supported by my wife Ajitha, daughter Mahathi, and a 2-year-old shitzu baby named Simba'.
Learning for me from this exercise is to not be bogged down by small things in life and look at the larger picture of what your role is and think about how you can effectively and smartly contribute to the organization and shine in life.
How do you maintain the perfect balance between your personal and professional life? What is your success mantra?
My success mantra is to carve out separate times between personal and professional life. I have established expectations clearly in the family and profession at times. Sundays are exclusively for family and friends and every six months a 10 day holiday with the family.
Going forward, what are the changes in market behavior that you anticipate, and what are the opportunities that you foresee?
The real estate market has undergone a series of regulatory changes, such as GST and RERA, which have streamlined the industry. These changes have resulted in market consolidation, and only enterprises with exceptional financial discipline can survive. With only a few good developers in the market, we can expect developers to increase market share provided they take care of their consumers and deliver homes on time and in good condition. Customers' Post-Covid preferences have evolved. They would prefer to have a lifestyle outside of their homes. Gated Residential communities offer a life outside their homes but with secured boundaries. We expect that these trends will be very beneficial to large-scale developers like us, and we can only expect faster growth in the future.
Kannan Mahalingam, CEO, Alamo XS Real
Kannan Mahalingam pursued BE Civil, ME Construction Management, and an MBA from the College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University. He has over 20 years of expertise in construction and cost management with organizations such as CCCL, Exceed, DLF, MARG, Eversandai, and TVS Emerald, as well as a successful stint with Costrack (In the US). Apart from being a seasoned professional, Kannan Mahalingam is also a husband and a father. Kannan Mahalingam says “I am supported by my wife Ajitha, daughter Mahathi, and a 2-year-old shitzu baby named Simba'.