Rags-to-riches stories are now cliché. Dhirubhai Ambani’s is among the most popular Indian ones, told and re-told with great felicity and flourish. The 16-year-old son of a school teacher goes to Aden and starts work at a petrol pump. He returns 10 years later and finds his way trading in textiles. Some smart work later, he takes over the market for imported polyester. Soon he builds a factory to manufacture it, manoeuvres his way deftly around the ‘Licence Raj’, and eventually builds a petrochemical and oil refining empire out of Reliance. It ends up as the first privately owned company to make its way to the list of Fortune 500 companies.
In doing all of this, Dhirubhai taught India two lessons alien to Indians:
• It’s alright to be rich:
Telling a nation that it’s alright to make money wasn’t easy at a time when Soviet-style socialism was the dominant theme. Dhirubhai started out telling people that in spite of coming out of nowhere, he could build something, and if they invested in his dream, the profits would be theirs to share. When Reliance debuted with its IPO in 1977, 58,000 Indians took the bait. He didn’t disappoint.
• Size matters:
He was the first Indian to truly understand the term ‘economies of scale’. At a time when government decided capacities for business, Dhirubhai thought otherwise. He outwitted the system and built capacities that were not based on reasonable projections of demand. When times were good, he had the bandwidth to meet demand. When times were bad, he had the economies of scale on his side — for instance, in 1997, when the markets were in crisis, Reliance’s profits grew 25% over the previous year. Either which way, Reliance gained. To that extent, the global ambition India Inc now harbours and the belligerence it exhibits, is Dhirubhai Ambani’s legacy.
1 comment:
after some period the shyju photo will be there
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