I completed this book, almost in single sitting. And found this really good book. There is a ton of new things in the book, which we can adopt in day-to-day professional life.
Mainly, Kishore talks about how to dream big and convert that dream in to reality. This is book about step by step process of building a business group, starting from a humble beginning. Starting with Pantaloon retain, how Kishore build the big business empire ranging from apparel, home solutions, grocery and micro-retail (Focusing on retail in rural India), is really an astonishing story.
There are few new things which captured my mind. The idea of empowering managers of all level, there by building an organization which is known for making decisions and owing that. Like painting employee’s house on the eve of Diwali (Best known HR policy!). Coming up with new business structure every three years in order to be in business, up-to-date.
Innovative thinking or ‘re-writing’ the rules keeping the basic values intact is one thing which is being referred through out the book. Kishore writes, “An Organization dominated by systems, analyses and processes, will only be good at repeatedly performing one particular task very well. But it wouldn’t be able to innovate or create something really new”.
What stuck me is Kishore’s focus on business growth. He says, ‘if you focus more on operation, there is a limit to an extent you can improve the efficiency, rather then that companies need to focus on growth, operational efficiency comes by itself by following well defined processes”.
This book is all about having a dream and working to make it come true. It is a dream of middle class man, with all possible limitations one could have in life. Paulo Coelho writes in The Alchemist, ‘And, when you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it’.
It is all about that, having a dream and following that! In summary, it is a must read.
Finally; wishing you all a happy and prosperous New Year 2008. May your all dreams come true in this New Year.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
It happened in India!
‘It happened in India’ is the autobiography of Kishore Biyani, founder and CEO of Future Group. Future Group has retail brands like Pantaloon, Central, Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, and Pyramid.
Recently I purchased this book and have started reading it. It is too early to write a review on this book yet, I need to turn more pages to do that. But, this post is all about my first thoughts about Future Group and first generation entrepreneur, Kishore Biyani.
Mr Biyani has understood the Indian buyer’s mindset very well. And more ever, he is more of a calculated risk taker. This book talks about his strategy in all segment of retail business in India. He talks about ‘Sabase sasta din’ concept in Big Bazaar and how it created the word of mouth publicity among the people. This book can be liked because of such innovative ideas.
Being first generation entrepreneur, it is not easy to set up such a large business. We can see very few people who have been there and have done it. Sunil Mittal from Bharati group is another person who has done that. Mr. Biyani’s great achievements are in dreaming about big things and execute them up to greatest accuracy. In this way, it seems to be an inspirational reading.
Though, his ideas seems to be inspired from American retain business, like Home Depot (His recent venture of Home Town has similar business plan), Central (Similar business plan of Target) and Big Bazaar (Similar to WalMart), but these are truly ‘Indianized’ to server Indian consumer.
Any way, watch is space for more posts related to this book if I find it truly good. I am sure he has some thing to offer!
Recently I purchased this book and have started reading it. It is too early to write a review on this book yet, I need to turn more pages to do that. But, this post is all about my first thoughts about Future Group and first generation entrepreneur, Kishore Biyani.
Mr Biyani has understood the Indian buyer’s mindset very well. And more ever, he is more of a calculated risk taker. This book talks about his strategy in all segment of retail business in India. He talks about ‘Sabase sasta din’ concept in Big Bazaar and how it created the word of mouth publicity among the people. This book can be liked because of such innovative ideas.
Being first generation entrepreneur, it is not easy to set up such a large business. We can see very few people who have been there and have done it. Sunil Mittal from Bharati group is another person who has done that. Mr. Biyani’s great achievements are in dreaming about big things and execute them up to greatest accuracy. In this way, it seems to be an inspirational reading.
Though, his ideas seems to be inspired from American retain business, like Home Depot (His recent venture of Home Town has similar business plan), Central (Similar business plan of Target) and Big Bazaar (Similar to WalMart), but these are truly ‘Indianized’ to server Indian consumer.
Any way, watch is space for more posts related to this book if I find it truly good. I am sure he has some thing to offer!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Sunday, December 09, 2007
The Five Messages leaders should manage
I was reading a review in ‘Harvard Business Review’ this weekend, titled ‘The Five Messages leaders should manage’, by John Hamm.
This is all about functioning of CEO and what they need to really focus on. Author says, CEOs need to focus on how to pass the correct message through out the organization, it’s very vital for company’s success. He compares the situation with Emergency Medical System, where all the team members seem to be on the same page, all the times. The doctors, the paramedics, the nurses, all of them share the same thought when comes to saving a life. The same situation should be there in the organization. Otherwise, the vision and dream of a company will remain in the boardrooms only. Author says, CEOs should not assume that all his top management shares the same thought that leads to disaster. CEO should inspire the organization to take up responsibilities for creating better future.
1) Organization Structure and Hierarchy.
Organization restructure should happen to align with market competition and that should always aim to take up the competition. In this competitive market place, aligning the company structure is the need of hour and CEOs needs to do a better job on communicating the organization changes up to the bottom level. Otherwise it just creates confusion amongst employees about what is the future of the company and who is what in new organization. Communication should be so effective that there should be no room for confusion or fear.Author gives example of HP and its then boss. He says, when reorganization happened, everyone was so confused about their future that the actual work stopped for 12 weeks, which is one full quarter! Instead, he says, with in 48 hours of announcement of restructure, CEO should have a company wide meeting and a web cast as why this is been done. To keep the confusion to a bottom level, CEO should have involved everyone in the structure plan.
2) Financial Results:
Results are another powerful concept that left unmanaged, poses a risk to a company’s long term health. When a CEO tells, focus on our results, senior managers often interpret that as meaning ‘Do whatever it takes to meet investor expectations’. By loosing the sight of the connection between employee behavior and results and failing to take advantage of existing opportunities, thus leaders miss out building a long term value for their firms.Results should be used as diagnostic tools in the service of improving future execution.
3) The Leader’s sense of his or her job.
Surrounded by people who seek their feedback and approval, some fall in to the trap of thinking that their responsibility is to be the person who has all the answers. The ‘answer man’ falsely believes himself to be the final arbiter of conflicts, decisions and dilemmas. This puts him in to a very lonely and isolated position.Effective leaders should understand their role is to get answers from others. Everyone has answers, ask questions, especially when some thing goes wrong.
4) Time Management:
Every executive feels that time is in short supply. CEO must communicate to the company that resource of time must not be squeezed for all it is worth but instead must be strategically utilized. Time is fixed to choose wisely within constraints.
5) Corporate Culture:
Culture is not created by declarations; it derives from expectations focused on winning. Culture that encourages performance if you hire right people and implement processes that will allow the company to win. CEOs who fail to communicate the vision and expectations very clearly, produce meaningless culture.
I feel these are important points to be shared by a leader, after all, we all follow a CEO or a leader while we are with corporate hat.
Leaders should sell dreams and show path to execute this.
There is no other way out there!
This is all about functioning of CEO and what they need to really focus on. Author says, CEOs need to focus on how to pass the correct message through out the organization, it’s very vital for company’s success. He compares the situation with Emergency Medical System, where all the team members seem to be on the same page, all the times. The doctors, the paramedics, the nurses, all of them share the same thought when comes to saving a life. The same situation should be there in the organization. Otherwise, the vision and dream of a company will remain in the boardrooms only. Author says, CEOs should not assume that all his top management shares the same thought that leads to disaster. CEO should inspire the organization to take up responsibilities for creating better future.
1) Organization Structure and Hierarchy.
Organization restructure should happen to align with market competition and that should always aim to take up the competition. In this competitive market place, aligning the company structure is the need of hour and CEOs needs to do a better job on communicating the organization changes up to the bottom level. Otherwise it just creates confusion amongst employees about what is the future of the company and who is what in new organization. Communication should be so effective that there should be no room for confusion or fear.Author gives example of HP and its then boss. He says, when reorganization happened, everyone was so confused about their future that the actual work stopped for 12 weeks, which is one full quarter! Instead, he says, with in 48 hours of announcement of restructure, CEO should have a company wide meeting and a web cast as why this is been done. To keep the confusion to a bottom level, CEO should have involved everyone in the structure plan.
2) Financial Results:
Results are another powerful concept that left unmanaged, poses a risk to a company’s long term health. When a CEO tells, focus on our results, senior managers often interpret that as meaning ‘Do whatever it takes to meet investor expectations’. By loosing the sight of the connection between employee behavior and results and failing to take advantage of existing opportunities, thus leaders miss out building a long term value for their firms.Results should be used as diagnostic tools in the service of improving future execution.
3) The Leader’s sense of his or her job.
Surrounded by people who seek their feedback and approval, some fall in to the trap of thinking that their responsibility is to be the person who has all the answers. The ‘answer man’ falsely believes himself to be the final arbiter of conflicts, decisions and dilemmas. This puts him in to a very lonely and isolated position.Effective leaders should understand their role is to get answers from others. Everyone has answers, ask questions, especially when some thing goes wrong.
4) Time Management:
Every executive feels that time is in short supply. CEO must communicate to the company that resource of time must not be squeezed for all it is worth but instead must be strategically utilized. Time is fixed to choose wisely within constraints.
5) Corporate Culture:
Culture is not created by declarations; it derives from expectations focused on winning. Culture that encourages performance if you hire right people and implement processes that will allow the company to win. CEOs who fail to communicate the vision and expectations very clearly, produce meaningless culture.
I feel these are important points to be shared by a leader, after all, we all follow a CEO or a leader while we are with corporate hat.
Leaders should sell dreams and show path to execute this.
There is no other way out there!
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