When the crisis hit, Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani hunkered down and trimmed costs. He learned to unlearn many of his own rules of retailing. Now, as shoppers are back with a vengeance, he is in far better shape to tap that growth
My Mentors: Sam Walton and Dhirubhai Ambani. I have followed them since my late teens. I have never met them, but I would read about them, their books and follow them pretty closely
How they have helped me hone my leadership skills: There was a lot to learn from them on how to dream big, how to build a business and how to create an organisation that is able to scale up
Their advice that has stayed with me: Two of my favourite quotes from Sam Walton are, “Capital isn’t scarce; vision is.” And “There is only one boss, the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”
(This story appears in the 31 December, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)