Mr. B.R Patel
Mr. Patel, a middle aged man from Rajasthan is the owner of a small shop in Yelahanka New Town called Mahalaxmi Metal House. He repairs gas stoves, gas lamps and almost everything related to gas. Also, he sells products like cutlery, steel containers and other household items. A man of his own opinions and principles, he started to work at the age of ten and travelled through the country until he reached Bangalore to get a job in a company where he used to sell and repair home appliances. He pursued this job for fifteen years after which he gained inspiration from his boss to start his own business.
This two year old shop is not centrally located due to lack of funds. In spite of this Mr. Patel doesn’t seem to get bothered and believes in taking life as it comes. He has a son who is doing second year B. Com and he doesn’t want his son to live the same life that he has lived. He doesn’t seem to have a planned strategy for his business, but his skill and years of experience make up for lack of strategy. Being so good at what he does has earned him a lot of regular customers which is what is keeping the business alive. He thinks that his journey from Rajasthan to Bangalore was his biggest “project” in life which taught him whatever it takes to make a living.
Looking at his shop it looked as if the sales were not very high because his stock looked old and untouched. Mr. Patel’s tools were not outdated but since he could not afford latest ones he works with cheaper tools. Initially, Mr. Patel was very hostile to the fact that we as students wanted to know how he established himself, but as the conversation progressed we he became more comfortable and it was clear that he enjoyed the attention.
Before we left he said, “If I wanted I could have spoken in kannada to avoid you.” This sentence clearly showed that he wanted us to learn about from him. His tip to us was that we should learn Kannada and he agreed that talking to people about their life experiences helps to gain a wider perspective.
Raj Shree Sweets halwai
Mr. Raj, a man of many talents has owned this shop for six years. Before this he was in the clothing line for twelve years, before which he dealt with electronics. He claims to have learnt everything himself by purely observing others. Raj Shree Sweets is a shop which sells Rajasthani sweets and chats and is known for its jalebis. He gets his staff from Rajasthan so that he can have authentic Rajasthani taste which ensures that his shop is different. He is so adamant on having authentic Rajasthani food that he even makes living arrangements for his Rajasthani staff. When the staff is away his business runs mainly on chats.
After getting into so many fields he finally thinks that he has come into a line where he wants to spend rest of his life. You can always see a smile on his face and you can say that he gets immense pleasure in feeding people.
Besides his shop he is also into catering business and provides his catering services in parties as well as weddings. Due to the nature of his work his business has its own highs and lows. In the wedding season and festival season like Diwali his business does very well and on the other hand there are times when he can just meet his costs.
He has two sons out of whom the elder one works in the city and the younger one still studies. He doesn’t plan to get his children into the same business probably because he has better future plans for them.
On asking him about his income consumption we came to know that around 50% of his income goes into buying all the material for the shop. Some 20-30% he spends on maintenance and staff. And remaining is his profit which includes school fees of one of his children as well.
On the whole he looked quite content with what he had and his life.
Mrs. Pampha (Manisha Beauty Parlour)
After staying a housewife for most of her life Mrs. Pampha now owns a tiny beauty parlour in Yelahanka New Town. Being a wife of someone who worked in the Air Force, she has travelled a lot and finally did a beauty course at Delhi and then opened her own parlour after her husband’s retirement in Bangalore.
She had problems for the first two years after which she found regular customers to stabilise her business. What started as a hobby course is now a means of livelihood. She has a diploma and probably would have studied more if her husband wouldn’t have transferred. Her life is a perfect balance of professional life and personal life. She is originally from Assam and is a mother of two children who are presently studying in Yelahanka.
She runs the parlour herself and occasionally is helped by her sister. Recently she has also started selling readymade clothes as she has also done a course on tailoring.But talking to her we realised that she is not very ambitious. She has no further plans of expanding her business because she is quite satisfied with the way her business is going. She firmly believes that patience is the key to run any successful business.
Mau pasha (fruit seller)
Doddabellapur
When we began conversing with maupasha, initially all he said was mangoes, Bangalore for everything we asked. We thought he was probably trying to ignore us but later we realised that he could not understand us. We had to buy a few mangoes at a bargained price to instigate a conversation. He did not want to be photographed either.Coming from Andhra Pradesh, maupasha has two children and 3 brothers. Two of them sell fruits and the third one works in a factory.
His strategy is to buy fruits from Andhra Pradesh since it’s not very far from Karnataka and also to sell fruits where there are no other fruit sellers. Banana’s and papaya’s were the other fruits that he sold during mango off season, which also he gets from Andhra Pradesh. Earning enough for his family made him quite happy. Selling mangoes for 25 bucks got him a satisfactory number of customers.
B.K. Glass and Wood
The owner of an established garment shop took the courage of stepping into a completely new business of raw wood and glass. 10 years ago he felt the need to change his business because he thought that a garment shop demanded too much labor and gave less returns.
He sent his brothers to work with a furniture company for 15 days to see if they could successfully handle that business. Getting a positive response from them he wrapped up his garment shop and came to Bangalore. His reason for choosing yelahanka for setting up his business was that it was not a very developed area, so that they get time to establish their business. But within six months their business picked up and they decided to have branches in all four corners of Bangalore-Banergetta, Banaswadi, Yashwantpur and Yelahanka.
His strategy is honesty, variety, choice and quality.
His products come from different suppliers from Gujarat, Bombay and Bangalore. Also his keen interest in customers feedbacks and his will to help them made him very popular amongst all customers. His understanding of the technicalities of every product that he has ensures that the customer’s needs our met. He personally chooses the range of products that he keeps in the shop.
We realised a lot of thinking goes into whatever goes around in the shop, because he said that whenever a car leaves for anywhere they make sure that everything needed for the shop is bought.
“RESEARCH IS THE FIRST STEP TO BUSINESS”
“BUSINESS TEACHES YOU BUSINESS”
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