AGENTS OF CHANGE: KISHORE BIYANI

Kishore started his entrepreneurial career with a small trouser-making unit, Manz Wear Private Ltd. A venture which he started with an investment of Rs. 700,000 (about $15,000 at current conversion rates) in 1987.

Kishore renamed the company to Pantaloon Fashions (India) Ltd in 1992 and in the same year brought its successful initial public offering. Today it commands a market value of $925 million (Rs. 4300 crore).

He is often referred to as India’s own Sam Walton, the legendary promoter of Walmart, world’s largest retail network. He not only made fortunes for himself, but also changed the shopping experience for urban middle class of India. He conceived and implemented organised retailing at a time when retailing in India was limited to mom-and-pop retail shop market.

Till 1997, Kishore Biyani was just a manufacturer of branded garments. The high distribution costs, however, pushed him towards retailing where he devised new formulas of success. In fact, he started experimenting with retail business in 1993, when he chose Panjim, a small town in India’s western coastal state of Goa, as a test market to open his first small store called Pantaloon Shoppe. In 1994, he spread the exclusive menswear store in franchisee format across the nation.

Later Kishore started his first Pantaloons store in Kolkata in August 1997 with an advertising budget of Rs. 4 million ($0.86 million at current conversion rates), which was unheard of for a retail store that time. But that first department store generated revenue of $2.1 million (Rs. 10 crore) compared to Biyani’s expectation of $1.5 million (Rs. 7 crore). He never looked back since then.