Month: December
Year: 2007
Place: Hearty Mart,
Ahmedabad
Sabir had just
arrived at Hearty Mart, a super market at Vishala Circle near Juhapura,
Ahmedabad. After having a thorough look at the store, he made himself
comfortable in his chair, ordered a cup of morning tea and booted his computer
screen. It was a signal to rest of the store employees that the boss is around
and he means business.
It
was December 2007. After three consecutive years of losses, the attractive
figures on the balance sheet which Sabir – the Operations Head at Hearty Mart,
had just opened on his computer screen gave his otherwise serious face, a very
happy and satisfied look. In the early 2007 the first franchise of Hearty Mart
was launched at Ilol, a small village in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat, with
the idea of bringing Hearty Mart into the profit making mode. Every strategy
from the books of marketing had been employed but the top-bottom lines of
Hearty Mart had never changed so far.
“The
store has gained lots of ground now and for the first time we would be seeing a
healthy profit. At the end all the hardwork is paying rich results.” Thought
Sabir.
But
fate had something else to offer as when the final accounts were getting
matched under the guidance of a Chartered Accountant in the early 2008, the store
behaved as it was habituated to. Apparently there was some error in the
accounting which Sabir had followed and the store was still in losses and the
situation was déjà vu. This sudden development shook the entire management of
Hearty Mart. It was difficult for me to bear this news as I had planned many
things for the coming year for Hearty Mart.
Being
a qualified MBA and a successful advertising professional before turning into
an entrepreneur it was a matter of shame that I could not change the fortune of
my business. How would I face my partners? What reason would I put forward for these
continuous losses? All these thoughts rattled me further.
Sabir
was even more devastated as he was responsible for the day to day operations
and he somehow could not come to terms with one more year of loss. He was my
man Friday and I had seen him working dedicatedly with me since Hearty Mart’s
inception. I could not afford to lose him now. I quickly made a decision. In
the evening at the time of closing my store I called him and casually said “We
need to renovate our store with more vibrant colours.” There was a look of amusement
in his eyes as he must have thought that I was out of mind to think of an
expense when the store was still in losses. But I stuck to my idea. I wanted to
remove the gloomy looking old colour on the walls and wanted to breathe in a
fresh perspective to the store. My logic was that with the new environment the
team would feel more energetic.
Within
a week the store had a new look. The pillars were coloured in brick red while the
walls were shining white. This colour combination worked, as our loyal
customers had great words of appreciation which encouraged Sabir and his team.
One
of the customers said “You are ready for a Valentine’s Day party it seems.”
Needless
to say that the initial gloom was removed from the walls of the store and the
hearts of my employees. With renewed enthusiasm we started working on the ideas
to turnaround the fortune of the store now. We pulled in some amount from our
retail operations and started a new sister company ‘Hearty Mart Enterprise’
with the idea of foraying into bulk hotel supplies of food-grocery. This
diversification paid off and it became a good support to our retail operations
as we started getting food-grocery items at a lower purchase rate due to the
economies of scale involved, which meant that we increased our profit margins
on most of the food-grocery products at the store.
March
2009 eventually took Hearty Mart to new shores of healthy top-bottom lines and
our efforts got recognized by IIMA a case study on Hearty Mart was published in
29th FDP programme titled ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’ in
their journal ‘Cases on Business Venturing and Sustenance.’
Every
failure is a stepping stone for a bigger success. If we remain calm and
focussed during the testing time and see the situation as a jigsaw puzzle we
can come out with innovative ideas that would solve the problems and make our
business grow beyond imagination.
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