Did anybody said business?

“Business, who? Me?…Na”, that was my reaction some three years ago when one of my classmate asked me that whether I would do business in my life. For many science students, this was the common reaction in school days as business was something, which was supposed to be best handled by commerce students.
Things however changed when I came across a book known as “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. According to the book, we need to make investments and grow our wealth rather than just keeping them in the bank. The idea caught me and I decided that at some point in my life, I would invest in shares. But I was completely unaware of the share market. The scrip prices on the screens of CNBC were just meaningless for me. That’s when I decided to start reading economic times. And it was then when I fell in love with business.
M & A, Inflation, Market Cap, Turnovers, Profits…. all suddenly became so exciting to me. I just loved discussing on any M & A.
A major change in my life came after I finished my survey on petrol pumps. I thought that we needed a major improvement in our petrol pumps (from now on I will call them filling stations. It’s not just a pump!) I designed a new filling station, which laid more emphasis on the convenience store rather than fuelling of the vehicle. I took this design to a major oil company, which readily accepted it. However, I gave them this design with nothing in return. (And this was intentional, as you will see later)
“My company? Is it possible?”, these ideas were now floating in my mind. But it took me another seven months to decide on this. In January 2005, I was at Indore (my native place) for my summer job at IOCL. During this time, I never missed a single episode of “The Apprentice”. This serial was also about business, project management, etc. At the same time, I was also reading the book titled “Execution” by Larry Bossidy. I got so much inspired by both these things that I finally decided to launch a company.
The company was going to be a consultancy firm along with providing software solutions for the oil industry.
I was very much ambitious and had many dreams for my company. I knew that the petrol retail industry was on a roll with the coming of private players. So, I decided to again design a new retailing system with a software, which would assist in planning of the new retail infrastructure. I took the package to the same company to which I earlier gave my retail outlet design. And as expected, they took it!
And then things started to roll. I got some people who voluntarily agreed to work for the company. In 3 months, my company expanded to 4 countries-India, Nigeria, Egypt and U.S(California). I know that this all might be sounding strange, but this is the truth!
Clients were now flowing in and we all became busy like hell. I got calls from the International IQPC conference, London and International CEO meeting.
I wanted my company to be the best. That’s why I introduced the six sigma process from the very beginning so that we don’t have any defects right from the starting. People were told about project management and different management techniques. I introduced a strategy, which we called LED(Learn, Execute and Develop) for the professional and personal growth of the people associated with the company.
One of the major oil magazines came to us to feature our company in their magazine. This all was a dream run!
However, things began to change after 6 months. I had no time and with academics going on, it was all becoming very difficult. Our quality was getting affected which was the last thing I wanted as now we were known in the market. Finally, it was decided to shut the company for certain duration.
This all was a great experience for me. I came to know how to deal with people, how to finish things in time, team work, dealing with conflicts and how to emerge as a major player in the market! There is one instance, which I still doubt whether it really happened! 6 months after the company was formed, my father told me that CNPC(Chinese National Petroleum Company) had called up and they wanted us to be their service provider!! This was a jaw opening news for me because CNPC is among the major oil companies in the world. However, I doubt whether it was really CNPC!
Though the company is not working now, but I will restart it when I will feel that the right time has come. We had to face a number of financial constraints due to which we were not able to expand as rapidly as we wanted. So, I will restart the company again when I will have a strong financial background.
Till then, we will keep meeting on this blogspace!!