Reliance a name of success led by Mukesh Ambani has a great blend of strategies.

                                              Mukesh Ambani,
Visionary Leader & Industrialist

Reliance a name of success led by Mukesh Ambani
has a great blend of strategies. We have seen how JIO had created an eco in the
telecom valley. I must say empowered the users by giving a free and fast
Internet. They always want to create something big, innovative, and
disruptive. 

No doubt
Reliance has such great appetite and that's why doing in these streams. Retail
was always an envoy for Mukesh Ambani and an interesting subject for Ms Neeta
Ambani. 

I remember when
reliance fresh started. It was a piece of big news that Reliance is going to
explore and exploit farmers through monopoly in buying. Hectares of
land were taken on lease or contract farming had been done. Yes, somehow it
could not leave an impact that time but the straw was in the eyes and
propelling Mukesh Ambani to enter Retail some big way. Ambition to achieve
something big is the ultimate power of our subconscious mind but very few
people realize the fact that we have the power to dream about it.  Mukesh
Ambani got his fortune only by doing things smartly. 

The idea and
its Journey :

Jio platform is
the brainchild of Mukesh Ambani which always propels him to place it somewhere
on top of any competitors. While launching Jio in telecom they made it bigger
than their existing competitors.  With this great ambition, he started Jio
platform in 2019. It was founded with a clear vision that a scalable business
model should be started where the investor will have trust and they can see a
bigger future in the ecosystem. Moreover, reliance has its own offline stores
presence in more than 200 cities so leveraging them a kind of security and
surety about its launch and pilot run across the channel. Idea was to rule
the Indian eCommerce.

 Pivot

All strategies
were built during 2017 and 2018 that how Jiomart should rule the Indian e-commerce
business and for that Mr Manoj Modi, one of his old fellow and retail veteran
started giving shape to this idea. Applying certain logics and putting together
the strength of existing offline retail stores, a blend of passion and vision
made it clear that Jiomart will have a big consumer base which will drive it to
a great helm of retail, so a scalable business model is built in a very short
period.

 Investible :

Since the beginning,
moto was to make it investible as huge money is needed for customer acquisition
and retaining them loyal for a longer period.  Mukesh Ambani wants to run
a debt-free venture so this idea was taken care during the whole journey. This
was also an important decision for them to think for this kind of business
model where a strong player like Amazon and Flipkart has already dig a deep
penetration in the retail landscape and doing great at service side.  It
was clear to convince Gulf based funds to invest in Jio mart, it was somewhere
strategic in petroleum business dealings which reliance do not want to carry
for longer so they want it to partner with Gulf Petro dealers. On the
other side, social media Giant Facebook leads the stream first time in Jio
platform.  It was the web that started by Facebook, since then 13
investors had invested more than $20.5bn which is almost INR 153000 Crores (33%
Stake ). Somewhere it is hard to predict the mindset of investor that why they
invested so heavily in  JIO platform but as per my personal views and some
inherent powers of judging and predicting about someone is that Mukesh Ambani's
majestical power made investors convinced to invest. Then Google made it clear
that millions of consumers are going to use Jiomart for their shopping needs
will make a strong data bank for them. AI will be the strong upcoming
experience for tech-based companies so Google made it clear about their
business agenda. 

Apart
from Facebook & Alphabet (Google),  11 other influential investors
believe in the idea: Major one is: Vista Equity Partners,
KKR, Silver Lake, General Atlantic, TPG, L Catterton, Mubadala and Abu Dhabi
Investment Authority  

 Leadership is
something about creating confidence and trust among the stakeholders. I always
believe that Mukesh Ambani has that capability and capacity which is helping
him to convince people to believe in him for a great cause.  13 heavyweight
investors were convinced to invest in his platform in 11 weeks short time. Remarkable
history in the Startup ecosystem in India. This is the magical power of
leadership. 

Acquire Capabilities & Pace up Growth in big way 

Another power
punch strategy was to acquire various retail activators/technology companies
who were working in the retail ecosystem in bits and pieces. Here they acquired
the capabilities for faster growth and pacing speed in execution.  Few of them are from data minings and fintech
aggregators.

Association with Local Retailers :  "Sab ka Sath Sab ka Vikas" 

No one
understands retail the way Reliance understands, that Indian Grocery retail
ecosystem is so complex and so fragmented which can not be made organize in one
shot, and if someone  try to test this,
they have to burn billions of dollar for getting a pinch of it.  In Past many big players tried to replace
Kirana retailers by way of creating competition for them but they become a successful failure and soon realized
that Kirana retail is the lifeline of Indian retail which can not be completed or eliminated
so why so fight with them.  They started the
Kirana development program and blend thought to make them partner in their
Jiomart journey.  A pilot run was started
mid of 2018 in Gujarat and Mumbai by introducing POS system in the retail
stores but again it was a different segment so could not come across but idea
was to bring Kirana store under their forte for facilitating hyper-local
delivery points. In my personal views working with Kirana wala need a different
kind of capability which as a company Reliance can not do or it will remain a challenge with two mindsets. Rather going
directly with them they need a proxy name to work with Kirana stores.  This will give them good mileage and a good
market in GT network for offloading their private label. So Reliance needs to either acquire companies
working in the ecosystem or associate them for their staples range in GT
market.

Challenge from part of ecosystem & Way Forward: 

The way competition
is coming in this segment, it will create a disturbance among existing Kirana
retails. Thousands of retailers are going to lose their business because of
online penetration and diversion and cession of footfall day by day, so more agitation will be somewhere harmful to companies like Amazon and Flipkart and
so some extend Reliance. Being Reliance Jio an Indian company has many benefits
which foreign retail players can’t avail, so many things are  easing the growth
but challenge is there.  In my view
Reliance need a strategy to drive Kirana Retails differently and should acquire company who are empowering Kirana Retails for growth side of Retailers. 

My this write
up is dedicated to Mr Mukesh Ambani for his Vision and Passion and I always
respect him for his innovative ideas. I believe Jiomart will be the largest E-commerce
player in days to come.  

Writer: Balwant Singh Rana

As a Writer my independent Thoughts