On December 28, 2009; the Birth Anniversary

Dhirubhai Ambani: the Man Who Dared to Dream =========================

-Parimal Nathwani
For those who dare to dream, there is a whole world to win. Dream and Dare ; Dhirubhai Ambani said to his executives once. This was what, in fact, Dhirubhai did throughout his life. Daring and dreaming helped Dhirubhai to rewrite the economic future of India. At a time when no one could think of comparing business performance with the world, Dhirubhai aimed at competing with the global giants. With his courage and conviction, he created bench-marks in his works and soon put himself and Reliance Industries Limited in the league of global classic business-men and business houses. Many people perceived Dhirubhai as very ambitious person. But more than ambition, challenging adversity provided my father Dhirubhai Ambani, with the adrenalin that spurred him to build a fine business enterprise in less than three decades ; Mr. Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani said this about in foreword of Dhirubhaism, a book by AG Krishnamurthy. Challenging adversities and circumvent them was his basic temperament as he came up from a village back-ground and an ordinary lower middle class family. Though he constantly endeavored to earn a name, fame and recognition through his formidable enterprising skills; he remained a typical Indian- down to earth. He was very optimistic about India and its young human resource. He used to say: My advice to young entrepreneurs is not to accept defeat in the face of odds; and challenge negative forces with hope, self confidence and conviction. I believe that ambition and initiative will ultimately triumph. The success of the young entrepreneur will be the key to India s transformation in the new millennium. It was Dhirubhai who talked of doubling the capacity on the day of commissioning its largest grass-root refinery. It was he who laid a net-work of about 1500 petroleum retail outlets through out the country to reach out to an individual customer wanting quality and quantity of fuel in return to the price paid. Regulatory forces and absence of levelplaying field proved bottlenecks to this dream is a different thing. 1/2

In fact, whatever Dhirubhai did, he did with his unusual style and in a masterly way. He would even score over his rivals in the area of advertising and marketing communication. While launching Vimal , Dhirubhai would organize mammoth events and road show with much more fan-fare than considered impressive those days. It was an era of audio-visual presentation with projectors; and any presentation with two projectors was termed the best then. But Dhirubhai used to present Vimal on six audio-visual projectors with 40,000 watts of sound and scores of models walking on three ramps simultaneously. One is still nostalgic about Only Vimal advertisement with Vivian Richards and the 1986 world cup etc. Dhirubhai would always think out of box . At a time when very few rich could afford mobile phones as telephone companies were charging @ Rs. 7 or Rs. 8 per minute per call; Dhirubhai thought of mobile phone calls @ just 40 or 50 paise per minute. He had country s common man in view who would get mobile hand-set at a damn cheap price and very affordable call charges. More turn-over thus would enhance profitability and ensure shareholders interest too. This has Dhirubhai s business acumen. Shri Mukesh Ambani laid a country wide OFC network of 60,000 kms under Dhirubhai s guidance. Dhirubhai has country s common man in view- a small time tea-vendor or vegetable vendor, shoe-shine boy, a service class man etc. Reliance mobile also put a knowledge bank in the hands of customer with its mobile phone. Kar lo duniya mutthi men...was revolutionary communication business against lots of odds created by rivals and GSM operators at that time but Mukeshbhai ensured realization of Dhirubhai s dream with courage and condition. A mobile handsets were made available at an unimaginable price of just Rs. 500; just unthinkable. One who knew Dhirubhai Ambani would say that he would have been the resoundingly successful even if he had been in the field other than the business. Whatever he had been, he would have got the same kind and amount of honor, respect and recognition in the society.

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