Hyderabad has had great market for centuries, from having businesses in pearls, diamonds to food items. Due to the modernization of the Nizam’s army, presence of railways and technology trade, it has provided opportunities for businessmen not only locally but from almost entire India – Gujaratis, Marwaris, Jains from northwest, Mudaliars from south, the native Telugu, Kannada and Maharashtrian population of Hyderabad state and not to forget the Arab tradesmen and Muslim businessmen.
It is a sad reality that despite centuries of affluence and exposure to business. The local businessmen have remained small time and unprofessional retailers. They have been happy to serve the existing local/regional market rather than be national players.
Behaving like erstwhile “Seths” will not inspire professionals and skilled labours to join their organization for a long period. Nor good consultants will associate with them meaningfully. They should change their mindset on the unorganized retail sector and should undergo a transformation to keep the economy growing.
Today, it is not capital but capability, it is professionalism not exploitation, that determines a business’s success. It is following the rules and paying the taxes that allows to scale a business. Many business groups in Hyderabad are making significant investments in the retail sector to modernize Hyderabad and facilitate rapid economic growth.
While first generation entrepreneurs like Sunil Bharti Mittal and Nirma’s Karsanbhai Patel made their presence felt nationally, Big Bazaar’s Kishore Biyani has advocated professionalism, broke away from families traditional business methods and took scale of businesses to national prominence. But, Hyderabadi businessmen have been lazy and not risen to the occasion. They are content to be 2nd grade players or local players doing business with medieval methods.
Local businessmen are happy to construct building and lease out. While national and international players are minting money by using local real estate with their business management capabilities.
It is time for the younger generation to take inspiration and be ready to do something meaningful and big leveraging the financial wealth, experience and acumen in their families and some aspects of their methods/values. So that they can do business in a more transparent, professional and modern way.
May be it is not easy; but, if people like Karsanbhai Patel and Narayana Murthy could take their business to such a scale with neither financial wealth nor business family background, we are sure our local businessmen are capable of a lot more.
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