FAMILY BUSINESS IN INDIA

In India, family business accounts for about 70prcent of the total sales and net profits of the biggest 250 private sector companies. Big families’ have carved up the big industries. In vehicles, for example, the Tatas make Lorries, the Birlas make ambassador cars, the Bajaj family makes two wheelers and the Mahindras make jeeps. They diversified into any business where they could get a permit to operate. Borrowing, mainly from public sector institutions, was easy, and company law makes it simple to control subsidiaries through very small shareholdings. The Tata Empire, for example, embraces some 70 companies, making everything from tea to watches in which the parent company’s average stake is rarely above 15 percent.

Entrepreneurship is not just a way to- increase the level of innovation and productivity of organizations, although it will do it. More importantly, it is a way of initiating vast business so that work becomes a joyful expression of one’s contribution to society. The Indian entrepreneur, intrapreneur and/or manger of the 90’s have to be molded in psycho- philosophy rooted in the Indian context and values.

“The crisis in business is spiritual” says Prof. Sitangshu Kumar Chakraborty,

“All management ideas till now have been external directed paradigms, developing behavior, skills, not character, and values. But meaning and richness must flow from mind to work, not the other way. We need a fundamental shift from the current reductionism, fragmentize and materialistic paradigm to one which recognizes consciousness and spirit as the right approach”.

The concept of entrepreneur and entrepreneurship incorporates basic qualities of leadership, innovation, enterprise, hard work, vision and maximization of profits. All his socio-economic, organizational and society and the community. He is committed to progress. He is a catalytic agent of development and change. Personal satisfaction and monetary rewards are blended with social betterment and welfare of mankind.

In August 1992, with their combined savings of Rs. 25,000, Alka and Anupam Joshi launched premier clothing as an export- oriented unit. The premier clothing has been licensed to market, for the first time, The Disney babies’ range of products in India.

Having several information mail- order companies, not to mention store chains, in the bag isn’t enough for Joshi. Now, he’s planning a move into the booming readymade shirts business. As always, Joshi plans to hedge his bets: he’s talking to some foreign companies about starting off by producing shirts for them. That’s clearly part of his philosophy of manufacturing for a readymade market. And, as in the case of the Disney babies’ line, to a ready- made mindset, either ways, it’s a premier strategy.

Chandan Sumaya look plunge in 1985 armed with only” a passion for cars” borrowing Rs 30,000 from his mother to float Kent. This name he chose because it rhymed with rent and had an international ring- car. Apparently, he fell in love with the business while helping his uncle run one. Working out of his home in Bombay’s Nepean Sea Road, Sumaya installed a desk and a telephone in the front half of his garage; the car took up the rest. Only by the end of the second year could he afford to invest in two more Ambassadors

cars.

He has invested in a fleet of 136 cars and concentrates on the corporate sector, where they are market leaders. Kent Cars is now poised to drive into the national market place through the franchising route. Whether or not he does as well in these cities as he is in Mumbai, Chandan Sumaya has driven a long way from the home garage he started from. And that’s the spirit of Kent.