Many times the young joiners of family business rely on hiring external talent (read: consultant) for petty issues of their organization. In an interaction with an elderly businessman from Gujarat it was found that his grand-daughter became consultant to her own business and solved many miseries of her ailing family business.
The story begins like this:
A person started a factory to manufacture toy rubber balloons. He grew from one factory in 1970s to four factories by 1990s. The turnover grew from a few thousands to few lakhs and then few crores. His achievement was appreciable. He came to be known as the innovator in toy rubber balloon industry. He began designing different dies for making balloons of different shapes and sizes. He used plastic die, rather than the traditional wooden dies. This improved the quality of the balloons. He created his own brand (which he refuses to share the name now).
However as fate would have it, he fell tremendously ill, and could not attend to his factory on regular basis. It was at this time, his only son entered the business. But as fate was not satisfied by what had happened. The son lacked basic business acumen, lacked confidence, lacked in everything. He could not handle the factories. He usually got into feud with the workers, who then rebelled by stealing the balloons.
The factories began to take a beating. Competition began to mushroom around the factories. Old allies, suppliers, customers began to move out. One of their most trusted employees quit and set up his own factory. The situation got out of hand. The old-man’s health was deteriorating. He was getting worried about his business and also his son. Strong arguments, loud voices and sometimes deathly silence would be the best description of their home in the evening.
Enter the care-taker:
A young witness to all this chaos comes out of her closed personality and asks her dada (Grandfather) whether she can help her dad in the toy rubber balloon business. The old-man was ghastly surprised at the proposal. He had never thought that any women from his family would ever go to work. He felt that it was against their Marwari tradition. But the demand of the situation and the persistence by the girl got the Grand-dad worked up. He had to bow down to her repeated demand to allow her to go to the factory, at least once!
Therefore on a Sunday afternoon he allowed his grand-daughter to go with her father. The father had admitted failure by now. He resorted to chain-smoking and wasting the family money. He had no plans for growth and had become a burden on the family. The girl and father went together in the only car they had. The father told her that it is not a safe place for women. She answered politely, that 60% of their employees were women. The father smiled and realized that his daughter had done her homework.
Being the Catalyst:
As soon as she reached the factory, the first thing she did was a silent observation of the entire factory and the manufacturing process. She took some videos and photos in her mobile phone. She could realize that in order to improvise, she needed to understand the process first. She had spent five to six hours at the factory. She took some colorful pencils, a chart paper and began to scribble the entire process. She kept on working on it till late night and slept on her working desk. This may sound filmy! But the fact is, it did happen. However in films the heroine usually gets success at the end, our story is slightly different.
When she got control over the process, she said that she wanted to go alone to the factory, without her dad. The father who was already apprehensive about his daughter’s participation in the business, said, “koi kahi nahi jayega, mujhe koi business karna nahi hai”. The daughter did expect this. But her determination was higher than the restriction. She said, “mujhe teen mahine dedo, yadi main safal nahi hui, to main factory jana bandh kar doongi”.
She called one of her friends for help. Her call yielded result. There was one of her friend who was ready to help her. He had just completed his management education and was waiting for job. This task came as an activity for experiential learning. They both began their task.
The rubber used to be sourced from Kerala and the prices were heading northwards. The external market scenario was unpleasant as most of her customers had shifted to other manufacturers. There was no supplier in the market who would supply her goods on credit. There was none who would co-operate with her in re-setting up the business.
But she got used to the tricks of trade and even learnt to talk to the traditional minded old traders. She realized that she had to be calm and confident in everything that she did. If she wanted thirty days credit, then she had to bargain, if she offered thirty days credit to the customers, then she had to follow-up, if she went to a banker, then they would ask for collateral and if she wanted to purchase rubber from the direct source (by-passing the agent), she had to pay in advance.
Imagine! Yourself in her place. Remember she is naïve. Remember she has no support, except that of her friend. Remember she even does not know how to manufacture toy rubber balloons. But she gave a try!
Playing hide-n-seek with success:
Success to this girl was like the sun in the monsoon. Peek-a-boo. However she worked on her small successes to build her major successes. She began meeting her customers and suppliers. She thought that her mother had good people management skills, so she asked her mother to be at the factory. Both mother and daughter used to talk over the phone during the day to update each other. Some customers came forward to help by paying off her quicker than the rest. Likewise some suppliers came forward to help her by giving her credit. One of India’s prestigious national bank came forward and gave her a credit line.
However the good things always brought in some element of challenge for her. Some of her old employees, who had been laid off, filed a suit against her and her grand-father demanding payment for gratuity. One of the old employees, who had gone submissive, suddenly rose and began releasing information about the girl’s improved internal business practices.
She was once again on her toes to react. She met the customers and suppliers on her own. Her meeting gave them confidence. She used to call the customers before and after the delivery of her products to make sure she remains in close touch with them. She was very persuasive and she also made a point to meet the male-factor. She told him that harder he tries to disrupt her, better ideas she gets to manage the business.
In other words, for every problem she created or found a solution.
A new beginning:
Most of you would have thought about meeting the girl. Well that’s different in this story! After setting up everything right and running, her mother, her grandfather and her dad’s sister convinced her to get married. They had found the right match. She after being actively involved in business, decided to add one more dimension to her life. She said that she was never a career woman and that she wanted to settle down and start a family.
Upon getting married, she gave out two factory premises on rent to some other business. She sold one large factory premises and retained one for her father. The factory that was sold was used to pay off old debts and some money was invested for future contingencies. She is currently overseas with her husband.
Lesson :
Family Businesses are source of self-less love and commitment and this is just one story, I am sure there are many such stories, which have been created by different family businesses in which there have been heroes or heroines who have never got to the pages of great achievers but are silent creators of wealth and stability of family business, without even expecting a penny or dime.