Business Is In Their Veins

Title: Rokda: How Baniyas Do Business

Author: Nikhil Inamdar

Pages: 242

Price: Rs. 199

Published by: Random House, India

“The companies I have chosen not only represent different sectors of the Indian economy, but also the changing landscape of doing business in India.” Nikhil Inamdar, Author

Whenever we hear the term ‘Baniya’, we are conditioned to think that the person being referred to as Baniya (the term comes from the Sanskrit word Vanij, which is synonymous with India’s trader class) has a business of his own. Historically, too, the Baniya cast has been known to be moneylenders and merchants. Written by a senior journalist in Mumbai, Nikhil Inamdar, who is currently a special correspondent with the Business Standard, Rokda: How Baniyas Do Business tries to talk about the business acumen the popular Indian trader class has in abundance. It does so by not only interviewing the entrepreneurs themselves – from the Agarwals of Emami to Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal, to the Guptas of Meru cabs, to RK Somany of Hindware – but their families and friends too, which takes the readers a little closer to their private lives. Most importantly, the interviews help us understand the qualities which make these highly motivated individuals running multi-million dollar companies so successful. Published by Random House India, it takes six such Baniya entrepreneurs and talks about their exceptionally successful ventures.

The book starts with demystifying the perception everybody seemed to have formed of this caste over the years. It says that Baniya is a loosely used expression. It helps further the belief that they are a community that only knows money making. Although when the current business ecosystem is talked about and discussed, the organisations run by their clan, ranging from internet enabled retail, mobile telephone, and oil and gas exploration, form the core of the modern economy.

The interviews are extensive and the book inspires and gives business insights in equal measure. One inspiring story in Rokda is that of Radheyshyam Agarwal and Radhyshyam Goenka, founders of the cosmetic company Emami, of how they started the company in just twenty thousand rupees and turned it into a conglomerate worth Rs. 8,000 crore. The writing connects the early days of these businesses with their present, the conditions that prevailed then and now, the opportunities and pitfalls, and many more of such themes. The book can be of interest to anyone from budding entrepreneurs to business journalists, to anyone who is interested in business and entrepreneurship.

Author: Rakesh Godhwani

Pages: 240

Price: Rs. 299

Published by: Random House India

So you are a student or an entrepreneur wanting to become a persuasive communicator, a quality which, among other things, is the key to a successful business/personal relationship? What to Say and When to Shut Up is a rather fancy title of Rakesh Godhwani’s highly researched book, offering invaluable advice to become compelling to others with your language. Not only does it make your work simpler by offering advice in easy-to-remember and comprehensive pointers, it also makes you test your skill-set improve by way of exercises at the end of every chapter.

Although a quick browse through the book’s contents doesn’t make it any interesting than countless books on communication, but five minutes into the book and you know you are investing your time wisely. It covers topics such as motivating audiences to action, nailing the interview for your dream job, making impressive business presentations, pitching to investors to raise money, selling product to a client, negotiating a win-win, networking professionally and socially, resolving conflicts, etc. It is a must have for corporate, students, entrepreneurs and anybody who is wanting to make a permanent impression on their audience.

“Ability to communicate well not only resolves conflicts but also makes life much pleasurable.” Rakesh Godhwani, Author

Design Your Restaurant for Hygiene and Comfort

Design for Hygiene

On 24^th February, 2009 one of the leading restaurants in the world – The Fat Duck, located in a county near London, shut down operations for more than a fortnight because of a health scare. Forty of its customers had complained of getting ill after a meal. The management could not find the cause. They closed down operations and called for a health inspection. No reason was discovered. The Fat Duck is reputed to have self-imposed the most rigorous process of health monitoring. The cause was never found out and the restaurant was re-opened in mid-March, after incurring a loss of 100,000 pounds in lost revenues.

Hygiene and health issues can never be taken for granted, and hence a deep concern about it from the design stage will pay rewards later.

In India, water-based pollutants and vectors are a big cause of spreading disease and sickness. You should consider installing a reverse osmosis (RO) plant to ensure that food items and crockery are washed and prepared in treated water.

Ensure that the flows of food under preparation and clean plates do not overlap in anyway with the removal of dirty plates and leftover food and disposal of waste. Ensure that stations where raw meat and fish are prepared do not overlap with vegetables and fruit, to prevent cross-contamination. Set up separate sinks for kitchen staff to wash hands in the back of the house area. Institute surprise checks to ensure that processes set up for hygiene are strictly followed. In matters of hygiene, prevention is the only solution. The example of the Fat Duck tells us that finding a cure is too expensive.

Design for Comfort

As with most production spaces, special attention should be paid to design proper ventilation. The intense operations of a restaurant kitchen will call for chimney hoods, exhaust blowers and ducting to ensure that all smoke and cooking odours are directed outside. Good ventilation will enable that conditions do not get too intense and impact the preparation and cooking processes.

It would be useful to designate areas for staff where they could keep their belongings and, if possible, change and wash up. In full-service restaurants, staff would need a separate restroom. This will clear other areas for smooth operations.

Income Projections (Restaurants)

Your income statements are also called profit and loss statements or operating statements. These are forecasting and budgeting tools that can be used for estimating income and anticipating expenses in the near-to-middle range future. For most restaurants, income projections covering the first three years are adequate.

Estimating income is an important aspect of the business plan. If you do not know how much you will be taking in, you do not know how much you can spend. Forecast your sales before you forecast your expenses. It could be calculated by figuring how many guests your restaurant has during a meal period, also known as covers, and multiplying that by the check average or the average amount that each guest will spend.

While anticipating expenses we need to understand that even before our restaurant’s doors open we incur expenses. In case you are not paying an rent, you bought the fridge, gas, papers, computers, so on and so forth. You invest even before you realise a single rupee in income, let alone profit. When forecasting expenses, you will anticipate every single thing that you spend on: cost of sales, salaries/wages, employee benefits, operating expenses, music/entertainment, marketing, utilities, general/administrative, repair/maintenance, occupancy, state and other income taxes.

We need to see expenses in terms of two components: fixed and variable costs. Expenses that we incur regardless of sale are fixed costs. Expenses that can be directly attributed to a particular sale are variable costs. We can work out income forecasts by projecting sales and reducing sales revenue by anticipated expenses.

Let us know in the comments’ section what you think about income projections.

Getting Investment.

The investment route to acquiring funds is a challenging route for a start-up. As investments are against equity rather than on collateral, the investors would be sharing the risk. Hence, the investor would be as interested in you as an entrepreneur, your vision and your commitment to the enterprise as he would in the assets you have created.

If you have a sufficiently innovative idea, you may approach angel investors who would help you at the starting stage. A commendable business plan too can help you arrange alliances and therefore obtain financing from them. Like bootstrapping and getting a bank loan, obtaining funds via investors has its share of challenges. In this day and age, having high-profile investors can give you new business credibility and contacts, which can help make your business a success. Though success cannot be guaranteed, it can provide you with a source of financing that can easily help make a more rapid growth.

You usually have to give up a large percentage of equity ownership in exchange of venture capital funding. This gives them a huge say in your business, which could put you under great scrutiny in your duties and earnings. When accepting this way of funding, you also have to agree to certain restrictions with the investors on things such as how you will pay yourself, how involved you will be in other operations and how much equity you will have to give up to your investors.

But more than the current assets, the investor would base the investment decision on the potentially inherent in your business to grow dramatically in the near future.

Growth Potential of your enterprise is measured in terms of your own commitment to your business, as you are the most important aspect of it. Investors will then determine the value of the concept, the potentiality of the market and your financial projections. The crucial aspects over which the final decision rests is the intangible value you have created in your business in terms of the brand, the goodwill with customers and the processes and systems put in place that deliver satisfaction to customers.

Your commitment to your enterprise will be viewed in terms of how much of your personal assets have been invested and whether you are dedicating all your professional time and attention to the business. The originality of the concept and the difficulty to replicate it will enhance investment prospects as it keeps you ahead of the competition. The size of the market is important to see if the growth plans would be supported by availability of targeted customers. These factors being default, investors will be keen to review the extent to which you have been able to build success in your business.

Write in to us for your views and opinions. Best of luck, Quitters!

Is to have a purpose behind your business important?

It is a simple question, really. To ask yourself the Why behind your business than the What. When Maggi launched the ‘Atta’ version, it changed its brand slogan to ‘Taste Bhi, Health Bhi’. Although it did not come soon after the ‘maida’ version, which was the original and sold and loved as much as any comfort food around the world, it came after the health conscious took a backseat as started labelling it as fast food. HDFC Std Life’s ‘Jiyo Sar Utha Ke’, ICICI’s ‘Hum Hain Na’ and The Indian Express’s ‘Journalism of Courage’ (among many, many others) too understand the need to be purpose driven and the fact that adding something meaningful to your venture goes a long way in helping an entrepreneur make a business decision.

Many international businesses such as Walmart, BMW cars and even the most popular social networking website, The Facebook started with a purpose. Where they are now is, as they say, stuff the dreams are made of. And money, well, it could just be termed as a ‘by product’ of contributing to something that is bigger than the entrepreneur and his/her people put together. Finding a purpose should not be as superficial as having to decide on what will look good to the world, it is indeed as easy as dreaming a dream and had come quite naturally to people whose organisations today even look for candidates who possess the similar traits at the time of hiring.

Let’s understand it with the help of an example, through which we will explain how can purpose of an organisation work for the greater good of the society. The manner in which employees of Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel endangered their own lives to protect customers is known to all. Eleven employees laid down their lives. A Harvard Business Review article describes how the Taj has built such a team. The Taj Group has a three-proged system of recruiting. They target small cities and towns where they feel the traditional values of respect for elders and consideration for others still persist, because they themselves stand for these values and want their customers to feel the same. They recruit from schools looking not for academic excellence but for students who display respect for elders, cheerfulness and are most in need. Selected individuals are trained for a year and a half, while being paid a stipend and are given free boarding and lodging facilities. Finally, candidates who show high potential are recruited to the Taj.

The Taj Mahal is sure known for the service, it is that which it is respected for. We can always learn from the industry leaders on how they find a purpose to live by. The names Ruchard Branson and Azim Premji are known to one and all, not only for the amazing organisations they have helped built, but also for their, not-for-profit, philanthropy work, which has helped more millions of people than their companies have affected.

What are your thoughts on it? Please feel free to write them in the comments’ section.

Understanding a Restaurant.

As an ordinary customer the impression we have of the restaurant business is made up of a few scattered images based on our experience as customers. A successful restaurant is one that is consistent in all that it does. If we intend to start our own restaurant, we need to understand what makes a restaurant in greater detail, so we can design for consistency across all aspects of its operation. There are two aspects of a restaurant, these are food production and service; to this we should add a third aspect: the theme.

While the quality of the food and drink you present to your customer and the polite efficiency of your service must be superior by default, the differentiator in your restaurant is the theme around which you design both. It is the theme that will determine the overall experience and will eventually help customers rate your restaurant above your competition. Places that make your customers happier and more fulfilled are those that have the greatest positive impact.

Food and Beverage Production: Food and beverage production lies at the core of the restaurant business. Culinary excellence, thus, is the default function and has to be the top priority in restaurants. While all the three are interconnected, special attention should be paid to the freshness of the raw material used, hygiene and ultimately the taste of the food. Never use food supplies that are past their expiry. Ensure that all food served is freshly made and not stale. Washing hands before and after handling the food is another consideration, while food items as meat and poultry must be cooked to the correct internal temperature.

Food and Beverage Service: The level of service depends on the type of restaurant that you want to start. Having said that, there is a minimum standard of politeness and service that customers across all categories expect from the staff members. The service should be perfect! The basic elements of service are: speed, accuracy and politeness. Speed of service is default. An allied attribute to speed is accuracy, and regardless of the category of restaurant all customer dealing requires basic politeness.

Theme: As mentioned above, high quality in the production and service of food and beverage is the default need of the day. No restaurant venture will be successful without this. However, to build the differentiator that will ensure growth and brand building, special attention has to be made on creating a theme for your restaurant that will make a unique experience for your customer. The theme needs to match the type of restaurant you will be starting. While designing the theme, you need to keep in mind three elements: concept, uniqueness and consistency.