Book Summary of It Happened in India

MAY 2009 41 This book summary of It Happened in India by Kishore Biyani and Dipayan Baishya provides useful insights into an Indian entrepreneur. It Happened in India is an ideal read for Students, Young Professionals, Managers and Business Leaders, Budding Entrepreneurs and Young Indians. This book will rekindle an entrepreneurial spark. The book is humorous and has well explained ideas and thoughts and deep insight into the retail industry. The Highly motivating It Happened in India, advocates Indianness. It Happened in India traces the humble beginnings of the head of the Future Group, Kishore Biyani and is a compilation of his values, readings, contemplations, reactions and experiences in Retail. It also has the reactions of others closely associated in his profession and the company. The book summary presents reviews, a gist and a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of It Happened in India. The book is divided into different sections/chapters that tell us the story of how KB came up to the position that he enjoys today. The first chapter opens dramatically with the story of what happened on 26th January 2006 when Big Bazaar announced its first ever megasale across all its outlets across the country for three days. As the narration unfolds, he takes us on a roller-coaster ride from his college days, to his factory for making trousers, to his first Pantaloons outlet, to his inorganic and organic growth along the pathway of radically different paradigms of business. His recounting of the Big Bazaar story almost made me leap up with joy. After this, he went on to tell us about his foray into producing Hindi movies - he produced two and both flopped miserably. This related, he tells us about his new venture, the Central Malls - which he calls the "destination malls" of the city. A place where all shoppers, young and old, must go on weekends. Interspersed with a small album of photographs that tell about the past, present and the possible future of Pantaloons Fashions and all its subsidiary companies or formats, "It Happened in India" is a carefully compiled collection of facts, anecdotes, messages and lessons that every Indian will enjoy reading. The language is easy, the type is pleasing, and the book size is just right for browsing and carrying to ones place of work.

After reading this book, a majority of readers would become Kishore Biyani Fans! or KB Fans for sure. Kishore Biyani is addressed as KB or KishoreJi within his organization & friends, This book is a winner from the word Go. True to his style & philosophy, Kishore Biyani has included all the people in the book who have made his happen. Not just by mentioning their names, but by interviewing more than hundred people, getting their thoughts in the form of their stories & versions, in each chapter of the book. Their narrative is appropriately placed within each chapter & their thoughts on that particular topic give a insight from the very people who were involved at that particular stage of the project. To me, personally the most important part in the book were his views on Trust & Relationships. These are from pages 192 to 197. I would request you to re-read these pages a couple of times & analyze as to how you or your organization correlates to this. These pages are under the Chapter: Business @ the Speed of Thought, topic starting from number VII [7], in Kishore Biyanis book: It Happened in India.

Here he emphasizes the important of a Win-Win situation between his organization, his business associates and his customers. He says, if you approach your business with this framework in mind, then you shall see benefit in all interactions. However, this is not as easy as it sounds. To get to that level, every persons aspirations & dreams have to be understood & more importantly, addressed appropriately. Therefore, to build great relationships, sacrifices will have to be made.

He goes on to say that Most businessmen make the mistake of creating an environment wherein only then win. They see life only as a competitive arena & not a co-operative one. Relationships are built on principles, and not on the basis of power & position.

Now coming to the contents of the book. It is a good, simply written book with no big words or teachings. One unusual approach in this book is so may reviews about "Kishoreji" from various people who have been with him during his ascent. This includes family members, friends, colleagues and business partners. In an autobiography this is unusual because an autobiography is supposed to be the story of the person from the person. But disappointingly rather I must say as expected all the people who reviewed (20% of the book is only made up of other people writing about him), none has mentioned any weakness or shortcomings. This makes the book so very usual since it is only human to have shortcomings and weakness and then he too is a human. What I liked about the book/kishoreji is the extreme focus on learning, un-learning and re-learning. Though Biyani is also writing about customer as his only focus but I think that is something most of the people say. I offcourse do not intend to say that it might not be the case with him but for me an autobiography is not proof enough. Though I would still agree with him as I myself have been a keen observer of the Big bazaars and Centrals and I had noticed a lot of things that he is mentioning specifically. An autobiography normally (in fact very often) contains 98% past(history) and 2% future. This one contains almost 60-40. Instead at times Kishoreji is laying so much focus on his projected plans and future strategies that it starts to seem like an investor meet where the idea is to impress about the company and then ask them to invest in it. It is a good read for those who are part of the retail industry or aspiring to be part of it. I also liked it because it is very much Indian with usage of Hindi words at a number of places, which makes it so very easy to relate to things.