Who Blunders And How
Nine out of ten startups fail in India and 70 per cent of mergers and acquisitions do not work out, shares Robin Banerjee at the Indian Business Literature Festival, Pune Chapter. "Most books are written on success, most of us don't write on business failures," feels Banerjee when introducing his book, 'Who Blunders and How'.
Banerjee delves into large corporations and the failure stories that have shaken Indian society. Beginning with an anecdote, Banerjee shares the story of how Kotak and Yes Bank both started "the same business, at the same time in the same market by first-time entrepreneurs. However, "in 2018, Yes Bank declares bankruptcy, and Kotak Mahindra Bank declares the best financial results ever," Banerjee says, raising the big question: what went wrong?
In the retail market, Big Bazaar and DMart both started at the same time by first-time entrepreneurs in the same market. Yet, once again, in 2018, Big Bazaar went bankrupt while DMart continued to perform well.
Through these cases and many more Banerjee finds the three mistakes companies make:
1. Failing to understand what the customers want
2. Taking on too much debt
3. Compromising on ethics by not abiding by good corporate governance
In his conversation with Dr. Annurag Batra, Editor-in-Chief & Chairman of BW Businessworld Group and Founder of exchange4media, Banerjee goes on to discuss startup mistakes.
"The starting point is an idea that can be implemented," explains Banerjee, a good idea that cannot be implemented cannot be turned into a business. Next, he says that startups need to ensure they have money for the initial loss they will incur, "you need money for the gestation period" and finally, "you need the right people."
Through his book, Robin Banerjee weaves through the different types of businesses and the reasons why they do not succeed, whether they are startups, big corporations or family businesses.
Concluding the conversation Banerjee's advice is "don't touch the business" to investors - banks and individuals for businesses that are in debt and companies whose ideas cannot be implemented or whose products are not usable (i.e crypto which cannot be used everywhere).
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