It Happened In India

Kishore Biyani's beautiful book, where he traverses through his experiences in growing Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, Central etc. from his life as a trader to an industry 'maverick'. I particularly enjoyed the simplicity (or Indian--ness) of his writings .. a symbol of his own self.

I am taking one small part of this book (Pg 100-101) for all to read -

".. we were fortunate to have a group of long-term individual investors who stared believing in us. All of them had visited our stores and were prepared to focus more on the number of customers coming in, rather than the financial numbers on the balance sheet ...

One of the first was a Bengali gentleman from Kolkata who happened to visit the Pantaloons outlet in Gariahat. He saw the crowds and the merchandise we were offering and started to put in his stakes. He did not get good returns in the beginning, but his trust in us was so strong that he kept acquiring our stock as well as recommending it to his friends in the investment community ..."

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala :

The market's anxiety emerged from a lack of appreciation of retailing as a business and of Kishore as a person. He was considered over-ambitious, but they all missed the big picture as well as the bus.

Kishore was aggressive in a field that was supposed to see a lot of growth in India. The stock market was concerned about the high debt-equity ratio. But I found that it wasn't the debt that was high, it was just the equity base which was low. So we helped him raise funds through private placements.

The backed Kishore because he was very different from most entrepreneurs. First of all, he was very aggressive and secondly, he wasn't money-minded. For him achievement meant doing what he thought innovative. He understood customers well and there was a lot of clarity in his thinking. Also, he went beyond the numbers. I found this quality to be a key differentiator. ...