Book Review: Business: The Emami Way

 

The Book ‘Business-The Emami Way‘ is written by the Founders of Emami- R.S. Agarwal & R.S. Goenka

The authors have written the book not to explain about their business or the incredible success that Emami has achieved, but instead to offer ‘lessons’ to young entrepreneurs.

As such , the format of the book is peculiar…it does not follow a chronological order.Instead, the book is organized in chapters such as ‘Basis of Business’, ‘Leadership’, ‘Willpower’ etc

In each chapter, questions are asked relating to the topic and R.S Agarwal answers this question in his own way.

R.S Agarwal is a very learned and accomplished person…as such his answers are long, rambling and preachy.

This makes the Book a very tiresome read and is a struggle to complete.

The Q & A excerpt below illustrates my point:

Question: How does one prepare oneself to face crises in business?

Answer: This art can be learned by practice.As humans,we have to face many problems in life and everything can be tackled by being patient,using our experience to arrive at the best solution,by exerting our willpower and keeping the faith.Storms will come and go,but if you are strong, you will not wilt.You need to remain calm.

And so on and on.

My struggles in reading this book was rewarded by this Rajasthani proverb which came at the very end:

Bhagya re Bhagya teen jana

Poonjee kum vyapaar ghanaa

Zor kum gussa ghanaa

Amdanee kum, kharcha ghanaa

Translation:

3 kinds of people have to flee world of business

Those with less capital,but more business

Those with less drive, but more emotion

Those with less income, but more expenses

Buy this book if you have:

Kharcha Kam, Amdanee Ghanaa

Kaam Kam, Time Ghanaa