Dhirubhai Ambani: The Indian business icon

He was Dhirubhai Ambani. He was a genius. He had an extra ordinary talent. He was creative. He mastered the secrets of business. He was the founder of Reliance industries. Dhirubhai Ambani changed the stream of Indian industries. He was the pioneer and hero of this success story. He changed the investment scenario of India and surely the shape of Indian stock market. Dhiru bhai Ambani is an Indian business icon and gem of the gems.. He is a man rags to riches. He was undoubtedly the most talented businessman of his time. He amazed the world with his success stories. He became a celebrity in India and overseas. What are the secrets of his amazing growth? What made him Dhirubhai Ambani? How he became an industrial tycoon, a global conglomerate? Why are people in India, The US, The UK, EU, Canada and elsewhere in the world his fan? He used some secrets throughout his life-time to become a business tycoon. Some of them are as follow: Business Secret No. 1: Gather information, whatever it may be. Gather information about Governments be local, state, central or international. Gather information about products, companies, consumers, markets, people, services, politics and any thing, just anything and everything. Do not forget to get information of your competitors. Dhirubhai Ambani had mastered this secret. It was in his practice to gather information about anything and every thing. He used to gather information, analyzed and processed those. He was also able to find opportunities out of those news and information. He was also quick to disburse those information to his sub-ordinates when and where required. One of my friends, Prof. M.L. Sisodia, a senior professor of physics and research scholar once told me a story about Dhirubhai Ambani. The story shows his extra ordinary ability in gathering information. Mr. Sisodia had undergone a bye-pass surgery after a heart attack. Just after few days of his surgery his son was called on for an interview with Dhirubhai Ambani. Dhirubhai wanted him for a senior position in his company. The very first question Dhirubhai Ambani asked him was " How is your father". This instance alone is enough to describes his capability of information gathering. We have to remember that it was not an Internet age. Business Secret No. 2: Find an opportunity. He always endeavor to analyze whatever information are gathered. He used to do that to convert information into an opportunity, a profit making opportunity. According to him, " There is no invitation for making profits". You have to find it. He always searched for news and information, a news or information that can earn him profit. Business Secret No. 3: Jump from an orbit to the next. No matter where you are. Just work there. Master that place or situation. Accumulate some energy and jump into another orbit, a

higher one. Stay there some time. control that orbit. Master it and again jump to another higher level, the next orbit. This is the way to success at faster pace. Dhirubhai did it many times. He did it life long. Caution: Do not jump from one orbit to another in hurry before mastering the present orbit. It could be proved dangerous. Do it patiently. Business Secret No. 4: Complete projects on time. Thrive to do it before the scheduled time. He and his sons completed all their projects on time, mostly before time. However big the projects were, they completed those timely. No matter how much disturbance or hurdles came in their way. Dhirubhai Ambani and his sons Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani derived some techniques to do so. They kept close eyes on their projects to monitor them effectively. Business secret No. 5: Think big. Think global. He thought global much before the globalization took place. Most of the Indian companies were not doing well in the global scenario at his time. Most of the Indian companies were not acting with global standards. He made world class projects and world class factories. No body in India could even think about that in his time. Business Secret No. 6: Hire the best people. Pay them well. Dhirubhai Ambani was able to employ the best people, top ranking masters of their respective fields. He was the best pay master of his time. He never compromised in Quality and timeliness. Only those top ranking masters could make it possible. Human resource is the best resource, according to him. Business Secret No. 7: Pay share holders well. He paid his share holders the best. His ambitious projects had hunger for capital. He required huge amount of money at that time to make his dreams true. Bankers and financiers were failed to assume his capabilities. They were reluctant and not agreed to fund those big projects. Funding his projects was risky in their eyes. Dhirubhai Ambani went to his share holders as he recognized them the best source to funding his ambitious projects. He went to his shareholders and asked money from them. The shareholders jumped out to fund his projects. He paid handsome to his shareholders in return. What he paid no body could even imagine. Shareholders trusted on Dhirubhai Ambani and they were rewarded for their trust. He realized the fact that the share holders can not be satisfied with dividends only that was the trend at that time. He knew the value of capital appreciation. He paid bonus, gave rights issues to his share holders in addition to regular dividends. He went beyond the expectations of his investors. Even he went to the extent of challenging the law. Once he converted a non-

convertible debentures into shares. Share holders got enormous profit, but it was against the law. He fought against that law and the government was compelled to change it. Dhirubhai Ambani had highest number of shareholders with him in his time. He boosted market capitalization of BSE. He brought millions of share holders under his umbrella, many of them were first time in the stock market.