Kishore Biyani
Kishore Biyani is an Indian businessman who is the Founder & CEO of Future Group, one of India's biggest brick-and-mortar retailers. He is also the founder of retail businesses such as Pantaloon Retail and Big Bazaar. According to Forbes magazine, he had a net worth of billion in 2019. Retail career Rise Known for a thrifty approach to running his businesses, with precepts such as modest corporate travel and hospitality arrangements, Biyani has acknowledged the role of luck in his business success at this time, which he says was the coincidence of his ambitious ideas and the growth of an Indian middle-class with disposable income to spend. His success continued with the opening of a series of stores under the Big Bazaar brand name from 2001. These stores were designed deliberately to appear somewhat chaotic, like the traditional bazaars with which his customers were familiar. By 2009, and despite the worldwide economic downturn of 2008, there were over 100 of these stores across the country, serving over two million customers each week, while Pantaloon Retail employed over 30,000 people and had over of retail space across 1000 stores in 71 cities. Turnover in 2008 was 47 billion rupees. Biyani, who has admitted to making "whimsical decisions", had ignored the prevailing opinion of modelling retail businesses on those in the West and had instead concentrated on concepts that were familiar to India. His method of communication with both the media and financiers had been perceived as poor, as were his staff recruitment choices. Considered at first to be an extravagant risk-taker lacking in worthy business connections, and shunned by his peers for all of these reasons, Biyani's success with Big Bazaar had turned him into a revered figure in the Indian retail sector and a magnet for media attention. He was running the largest retailer in the country and was named as retailer of the year by the National Retail Federation, which at one earlier point had refused even to admit him. He was, however, facing a threat from the much larger resources of conglomerates such as Aditya Birla Group and Reliance Industries, both of whom had signalled an intention to move into the retail sector. Decline In addition to the threat posed by the conglomerates, the 2008 economic downturn affected Biyani's business and his methods. There were postponements in planned expansion and downsizing in some areas. Unlike other Indian retail chains, such as Shoppers Stop, that used a small amount of short-term borrowing and then financed growth through cash generated internally from sales, he had relied heavily on short-term borrowing for expansion and also diversification into numerous retail areas, including book-selling and salons. Pantaloons Retail had a debt-to-equity ratio of 3:1. Business journalist Samar Srivastava said of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 that Biyani reacted to the crisis with measures such as a considerable reduction in the numbers of his mid-level management staff and a restructuring of his corporate interests. He appointed a cousin, Rakesh Biyani, more