A scene in 2030 !!

Operator: Hello Domino’s!

Customer: Hello, can you please take my order?

Operator: Can I have your multi purpose Aadhar card number first, Sir?

Customer: Yeah! Hold on….. My number is 889861356102049998-45-54610

Operator: OK… you’re… Mr Singh and you’re calling from 17 Jalan Kayu. Your home number is 40942366, your office 76452302 and your mobile is 0142662566. You are calling from you home number now.

Customer: (Astonished) How did you get all my phone numbers?

Operator: We are connected to the system, Sir.

Customer: I wish to order your Seafood Pizza…

Operator: That’s not a good idea Sir.

Customer: How come?

Operator: According to your medical records, you have high blood pressure and even higher cholesterol level, sir.

Customer: What?… What do you recommend then?

Operator: Try our Low Fat Hokkien Mee Pizza. You’ll like it.

Customer: How do you know for sure?

Operator: You borrowed a book titled ‘Popular Hokkien Dishes’ from the National Library last week, sir.

Customer: OK I give up… Give me three family size ones then.

Operator: That should be enough for your family of 10, Sir. The total is Rs. 2,450.

Customer: Can I pay by credit card?

Operator: I’m afraid you have to pay us cash, Sir. Your credit card is over the limit and you owe your bank Rs. 1,51,758 since October last year. That’s not including the late payment charges on your housing loan, Sir.

Customer: I guess I have to run to the neighbourhood ATM and withdraw some cash before your guy arrives.

Operator: You can’t Sir. Based on the records, you’ve exhausted even your overdraft limit.

Customer: Never mind just send the pizzas, I’ll have the cash ready. How long is it gonna take anyway?

Operator: About 45 minutes Sir, but if you can’t wait you can always come and collect it on your motorcycle.

Customer: What?

Operator: According to the details in the system , you own a motorcycle registration number 1123.

Customer: “????” (hmmm.. these guys know my motorcyle number too!)

Operator: Is there anything else, sir?

Customer: Nothing.! .. by the way… aren’t you giving me that 3 free bottles of cola as advertised?

Operator: We normally would sir, but based on your records, you’re also diabetic… In the best interest of your health, we are holding this offer for you.

Customer: (now pissed) ***%&$%%### You $##$%%@!)))

Operator: Better mind your language sir. Remember on 15th July 2007 you were imprisoned for 2 months and fined Rs.5,000 for using abusive language against a policeman…?

Customer faints…

Take time to Stretch

Sitting at a computer for a long time often causes neck and shoulder stiffness and occasionally lower back pain. Do these stretches frequently throughout the day or whenever you feel stiff. Also make sure you get up and walk around the office whenever you think of it.

Be Fit, Be Healthy !!!

The making of India’s retail king

Kishore Biyani could have stayed in his father's firm, continuing the family's safe way of doing business, but the risk-taker dreamt of other ventures. In less than three decades, he has gone from family employee to head of India's largest retail conglomerate.  His company, Pantaloon Retail, has roughly 1,000 stores across the country and had 47 billion rupees (Dh3.75bn) in sales last year. That success made Mr Biyani the main attraction. His peers at the National Retail Federation crowned him retailer of the year. The Indian press has called him the king of retail. When Mr Biyani went into business, few thought his venture would survive, he says. He wasn't backed by a family corporation, and peers dismissed him as a compulsive risk-taker.

 

Mr Biyani who grew up in Mumbai's Malabar Hill area, was not born into old money. But his middle-class family was anchored by a line of businessmen, starting with his grandfather, who moved to Mumbai from Nimbi, a village in Rajasthan, to open a wholesale shop selling dhotis and saris. When Mr Biyani visited Mumbai's Century Bazaar as a teenager, he saw retailing being conducted on an immense scale. He decided then that he would create something similar - but better, he says.

 

Mr Biyani's first venture on his own came about by a fluke. It was the early 1980s, and he noticed that his friends were wearing trousers made of "stonewashed" fabric, a popular material at the time. In the next six months, he found a local mill that made the fabric and sold a few hundred thousand rupees worth of the material to a few garment manufacturers and shops in the city - giving him his first profit and his first taste of entrepreneurial success.

 

He then launched his own brand of fabric for men's trousers. He called it WBB - white, brown and blue. When demand for the fabric was at its peak, In 1987, Mr Biyani started a new company, a garment manufacturer called Menz Wear Private Ltd. The garments were sold under the brand Pantaloon, which Mr Biyani chose because it had the trendy feel of an Italian fashion house but was close to the Urdu word for trousers, patloon. The first Big Bazaar was opened in Kolkata in 2001. Within 22 days, he opened two more. Now there are 100 throughout India serving about 2 million customers a week. Part of Mr Biyani's success, he wrote in his book, is attributable to luck - being in the right business at the right time, in the right country.

 

Today the Future Group Chairman Kishore Biyani is determined to prove to the world that life goes on even without foreign direct investment (FDI). The retail pioneer has announced his newest business initiative, Big Bazaar Direct, with a teaser campaign that says, "1 Lakh Outlets, Zero FDI. The Future of FDI is Coming Soon".