This is the concluding part of the three part interview with Kishore Biyani as published in “Enterprising India”. You can read Part 1 and Part 2 before proceeding.
Mr. KB’s Vision for Pantaloon / Future Group for the coming decade
We want to be a dominant player in India’s consumption, especially modern consumption. You can’t get a bigger canvas than US$400bn, which will become a trillion dollar canvas. That canvas is huge for anybody to operate.
Pantaloon Retail / Future Group Succession Plans
We believe that the role of family and management is different. Our job is to look at businesses dispassionately. Our job is to mentor businesses, allocate resources. The way we are grooming the next generation is by giving them a feel of the whole business, then letting them manage a part of it, and then moving to the whole again. I do not believe that we are in an era where one has to start from making a challan, and then move up the ladder. We are working towards a plan that will be fully implemented in two years.
On the Most Famous Designation in Corporate India – Chief Belief Officer
We believe that retail is our religion, the customer is our God, and stores are our temples. We are creating a belief system for our employees to reinforce this faith. It’s about how you write your religion; how you make your own rituals, and how you treat a customer as God and stores as temples, because people come here to buy things and that’s as good as praying.
On Mr. KB’s Movie Making Foray
Apart from producing the movie, I was also involved in creating the music for it. But, everything related to the direction of the movie was left to professionals. The most enjoyable part was getting to hear all the gossip of Bollywood much before the others! I would like to go back to movie making at some point.
Finally, Mr. KB chooses whom he wants to socialise with. He takes up a subject every year and reads almost all available literature on it. He never loses sleep as he can absorb the shocks very well. Concluding Remarks on Life – It is very simple—watch TV, movies, listen to music, meet a lot of people, and read some books. What else is there in life?