Developing Enterprising Individuals Student id: 7690930

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Developing Enterprising Individuals Student id: 7690930

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENT 4

Acknowledgment

I would like to show my gratitude firstly by thank MrKamlesh

Agarwal, for allowing me
to write about his life. He took out time to discuss about his life
and how everything shaped up for him. He spent about an hour
giving me an interview.

I would also like to thank MrKamleshAgarwal’s staff members

namely MrS. Sharma, Mr H. Dubey, Mr A. Nath, Mr. T. Ghosh, Mr
S.Banerjee, Mr S. Dubey, Mr. A. Agarwal and Mr.P. Jha who
helped me in my analysis to judge the entrepreneurial capacity
of Kamlesh Agarwal.

I will also take this opportunity to thank MrKamleshAgarwal’s

family who discussed with me about his leisure activities and
also filled in a questionnaire to analyze him as a family man.

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Developing Enterprising Individuals Student id: 7690930

Last but not the least, I would like to thank Prof. Jonathan Styles
who allowed me to write this report and helped me whenever I
needed. He was a great help and always eager to help.

Introduction
“Person who exercisesinitiative by organizing a venture to take
of an opportunity and, as the decisionmaker, decides what, how,
and how much of a good or service will be produced. He or she
suppliesrisk capital as a risktaker, and monitors and controls the
business' activities as a manager. The entrepreneur is usually a
sole-proprietor, a partner, or the one who owns the majority of
shares in an incorporated venture. According to the Czech-US
economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950), entrepreneurs
are not necessarily motivated by profit but regard it as a
standard for measuring achievement or success. He discovered
that they (1) greatly value self-reliance, (2) strive for distinction
through excellence, (3) are highlyoptimistic (otherwise nothing
would be undertaken), and (4) always favor challenges of
medium risk (neither too easy, nor ruinous).”
(http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/success.html)
Believe it or not millionaires do not grow on trees. They are
actually quite hard to come by. However, they do exist.
Millionaires are not a myth. They make their millions in various
ways. Some inherit it from their family. Others make it the hard

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way they earn it. Some earn it by being famous movie actors.
Some are famous entertainers. Some sign million dollar sports
contracts and yet others are simply outstanding entrepreneurs
who followed a dream. Kamlesh Agarwal is one of the latter. He
has come a long way since working in his uncle’s small
sariprinting workshop he know owns around ten furnishing stores
across India and is involved with various other business activities
as is discussed in the case study below.

Case Study

History and Background

Kamlesh Agarwal was born in a small village in Haryana in a

Marwari family. He moved to Kolkata from the village with his
uncle at the age of five. He stayed with his uncle, aunt and
cousins in a small rented flat. His uncle worked as a salesman in
Sari shop and ran a huge family. Through this it can be expected
that Kamlesh had a really difficult childhood. He went to a Hindi-
medium school for primary education, came back from school
and helped in the houselhold chores. He used to study at night
after everyone had slept off. He was very focused as well as
dedicated since his childhood. He then manage to get admission
in an English medium school for his secondary education and
passed out with flying colors, enabling him to get admission in
one of the most reputed colleges in India, St. Xaviers’ college,
Kolkata. He was a very down to earth boy and was really loved
by everyone in the family because of his commitment in
everything he did.

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Helives in a joint family but his immediate family of five consists

of his mother, wife and two sons. Although he is very focused in
his professional life he never neglects his family. He makes it a
point to spend time with his family everyday if he is in town. He
also plays golf with his younger son as a leisure activity. Both his
sons are now adults and are involved in helping him to expand
the business activities. He is also in regular touch with his six
sisters and two brothers and helps them whenever required.
Even though he is the youngest in the family he is looked onto
for advice relating to any matter be it business or personal. He
has been a pillar of strength and an idol to look up at. He has a
friend group consisting of his business associates mainly interiors
that are regular customers for his furnishing store. They along
with their families make it a point to take at least a leisure trip in
a year. This allows him to build a better relation with his
customer as well as enjoy his holiday. He is also an avid
newspaper reader and follows politics, business activities and
sports. He has an excellent knowledge of the current affairs as
well as history. He, like every Indian loves watching Cricket and
follows it with utmost interest.

KamleshAgarwal, is the proud owner of India’s biggest chain of

furnishing stores. He has undertaken several other successful as
well as unsuccessful business ventures but the one that brought
him laurels is that of Skipper Furnishings. The firm has also been
awarded as India’s best retail furnishing house from Shri Syed
ShahnawazHussain, the then Honorable minister for Textiles,
Govt. of India. Making a humble start in 1986 with a store in
Kolkata it now has a chain of 11 stores and many more to come.
He has recently started up with a Real Estate firm promoting
residential as well as commercial properties.

Making of an entrepreneur

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At an early age of 17 when he was still in stnd. 11 he joined his

uncle’s business, of printing Sari(an Indian traditional dress) in a
work shop. Then he moved to wholesaling of these Saris’ along
with a few cousins. It was his and enthusiasm that brought him
an offer to work as a working partner in one of his uncles friends
Sari shop. Among all his cousins who were much older to him he
was offered the position of a working partner this shows his
devotion and passion to work and be successful in life. When
asked what inspired him to take up self-employment rather than
being employed in some firm he says, ‘ I am Banyaand business
is in my blood’. This shows that from an early age he was clear
about what he wanted to do in life and how he would achieve it.

He left his graduation midway to pursue the job as a working

partner in the Sari shop. But even that was not to hold him for
too long. Once he got hang of running a retail store he wanted to
own his own store. With the help of the profits he has obtained
from the partnership and family funds he leased an existing
furnishing store to renovate it into a Sari store. Since he had
even bought all the stock of the furnishing fabric that was left he
had to dispose them. In order to dispose them he put up a
clearance sale. Fortunately for him the sale took off and gave
him profits. He then got inclined towards furnishing fabrics and
dropped the idea of selling Saris rather he started up a furnishing
store. Because of this change of destiny now we have a big
successful chain of stores being the largest in India.

He started of his career as an entrepreneur in 1986, got married

in 1987 and had a son in 1989. He was doing well in his life and
business and so he decided to diversify in other areas as the
store was doing well and was pretty much settled. In 1991, he
opened a firm to export tea, medicines and garments to Russia.
Since the relations between India and Russia were good and tax
norms were lenient during those days, it was an extremely
profitable venture. Initially this venture turned out to be a huge
success and extremely profitable. He also bought huge land area
to set up a timber plantation, planting teak, shishu, lamboo and

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akashmaniplants inKalyani, a small town near the city of

Kolkata. He bought this plantation from the additional profits he
had from the previous two ventures. It was more of a secure
investment as the investment is low and yield high but the
gestation period in such investments is generally about twenty
years.

Major expansions and diversifications

In 1995, he obtained bank finances in order to set up a

disposable plastic glass unit. He had to sell his product from the
unit at a real low price because of existence of tough competition
in the market. It was difficult to capture the market because of
the prevalent bigger players in the market. He also set up a
carpet-manufacturing unit. Skipper furnishings had a very good
market for carpets and they had to buy it from other
manufacturers, he realized the profitability of going into revers
integration and manufacturing the product on his own rather
than purchasing from others and selling it. The unit was a huge
success as he already had an existence market for the product.
He mostly sold to huge offices in and around the state of West
Bengal through his existent store, Skipper Furnishings.

Due to severe competition and unreliable employees he had to

shut down the exports. The import and export norms had also
become more rigid and the business did not seem as profitable
anymore. He now concentrated back on his furnishing store and
opened up another store in the same city aiming at the middle-
income group, thereby keeping cheaper products in this store.
This store also turned out to be a huge success and immediately
hit higher sales. Because of the existent brand name of Skipper
Furnishings it was easier to attract customers to the store.
During this time his purchasing power also increased as he would
be purchasing for two stores rather than just one this enabled
him to purchase directly form the manufacturers saving the

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middle man costs. Since he purchased directly he was able to

sell at a lower price thereby wading away the competitors that
stood in his way of success. During the coming years he
concentrated more on his furnishings stores and went on an
expansion spree. By 2002 he had seven stores four of which
were in the same city and the other three in Visakhapatnam,
Bangalore and Hyderabad. He would appoint working partners in
each store offering them 15-20% of the profits thereby initiating
them to work for the benefit and profitability of the firm.

Since most of his furnishing stores were settled and more or less
organized he again tried to try his hand in other ventures. He
opened up a franchise of Sony, the electronic giant. He also
partnered with a garment manufacturer to open up three
garment stores in Kolkata. He launched all the three stores on
the same day housing garments for men, women and children
along with other accessories. The stores did not do well since the
very beginning and the partnership went on for a few years
Kamlesh incurred heavy losses. Eventually in 2005 he sold the
two manufacturing units he had set up, the franchise as well as
the departmental stores to enter the real estate market. In his
first project itself he promoted 200 flats. He also bought a few
lands and is involved in a number of projects.

In 2008 he allied with a few furnishing houses to start up

wholesale of furnishing fabrics. Due to the wholesale unit that he
set up in Delhi all the allied furnishing houses got monopoly over
there items purchased and even got it at a lower prices than
their competitors. This gave them an edge over there
competitors. In 2009-10 he opened up a store in Jamshedpur,
Nagpur as well as Bhubaneswar.
He also invests additional funds in stocks as well as money
markets. He lends out money on interest to individuals as a side
income. He invests in stocks as a long-term investment to keep
them more as assets.

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Analysis

Methodology

I had visited India a couple of weeks back. During my stay in

India I met Kamlesh Agarwal and he fortunately had time to give
me an interview for my report. Generally he is not comfortable
talking about himself but due to my persistence he told me about
his education qualification, family history and professional
career. I also got an opportunity to meet a few of his staff
members and discuss about his approach to his professional
career. I prepared a questionnaire on the basis on
Hornaday(1982) to analyze his entrepreneurial talent by taking
up ten main characteristics of an entrepreneur and rated them
on a scale of 1-5. Some of his staff members have been with him
throughout his career and would know him the best; therefore
this was the best way to analyze his qualities. His staff was very
co-operative and helped me by filling in the questionnaire with
seriousness. I also was keen to know about the family orientation
of such a busy and focused entrepreneur. So I prepared a
questionnaire for his family members. I know most of his family
members so it was not difficult to get them to fill in the
questionnaire. In this questionnaire also I picked up five main
characteristics of family orientation of a businessman and rated
on a scale of 1-5.

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How Entrepreneurial is Kamlesh Agarwal?

It can be seen in the above analysis that the staff members have
a very high opinion of Kamlesh. They look up to him as a mentor
and a guide. We can see that Kamlesh seems to be highly
entrepreneurial, as he has obtained a very high average in
almost all entrepreneurial traits. Out of a maximum rating of five
he has scored above four in all the qualities that must be present
in an entrepreneur. With his life history it can be seen that he
has been highly entrepreneurial all through taking risks. He is not
someone who would sit back and be satisfied with a working
business. He is in quest for more all the time. According to
various theories an entrepreneur is one who is always in quest
for something more. Kamlesh’s passion to excel is unmatchable.
He has a high self- belief, which enables him to take risks to
undertake newer ventures. It can also be seen that he is not
someone to sit back and crib over his losses rather he learns
from his mistakes and strives to do better each time. His
leadership quality comes from his personality which commands
respect automatically. All his staff immensely respect him and
believe in him.

It can be seen by the above analysis and past history that

Kamlesh Agarwal tries too many ventures. Instead of focusing of
a single line of activities he keeps trying new things, which cause
him to distribute his focus. It is not humanly possible to be able
to manage all activities of multiple firms individually. He could
have performed much better than he already has if he would
have had stuck to a single line.

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Kamlesh Agarwal: A Family Man

It is often seen that professionally successful men have a hard

time in managing a family. Thus, it is important to understand
the relation an entrepreneur shares with his family and how It
affects his professional career. I prepared a questionnaire based
on four main characteristics needed to be a family man and a
negative trait of ego that could ruin ones family relation. The
family members took this questionnaire rating Kamlesh on a
scale of 1-5 based on the respective trait. The response of the
questionnaire is depicted in the above chart. It shows that his
family too as his staff has a very highopinion of him. The analysis
from the questionnaire resulted in proving him as a very helpful,
caring family man who is a prominent figure in his family
celebrations. He also helps in solving family issues and does not
run away from them. He loves spending time with his wife and
kids and makes it a point to see them for a while everyday. He
also takes up at least one vacation every year. This man seems
to be an iconic figure managing his professional career as well as
a harmonious family life. Being so successful and busy he is not
egoistic and does get involved in family issues. Being such a
strong professional figure it is unimaginable that he would be so
highly rated on being emotional. This shows his attachment
towards his family and how they make a difference in his life.
When asked about his family he looks onto them as his strength
and support. He says all the training he got in the earlier stages
of his life was through his uncle and cousins. The family values
embedded in him make him a much more attractive gentleman
and more successful in life.

Conclusion&Reccomendations

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Kamlesh Agarwal may seem a perfect entrepreneur based on the

analyses but as all men he too has flaws. He has now been as
successful as he could have because of several reasons. He is
too involved in his family activities, which takes up a lot of his
time. Diversification in different forms of businesses without
proper knowledge He believes that his passion will make him
successful and he can gain all the expertise after starting a
business but he forgets that ground work and proper study is the
key to any successful firm.

All-in –all it can be said that MrKamlesh Agarwal is a very

enterprising human being. He is successful in life and not afraid
of taking risks. He is a dream of any entrepreneur. A calm and
composed man in the outlook but a very passionate, zealous,
focused, career-oriented man in reality.

The interviews and survey results are stated in the appendixes.

References

1. Entrepreneur
definition
;http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/success.html

2. Tanay Agarwal (2011) ; Interview of Mr. Kamlesh Agarwal

3. Survey: Kamlesh Agarwal a family man;

http://www.surveymonkey.com//MySurvey_Responses.aspx?
sm=FKPMNAl9Y
%2fb6eTxvJfRgQIGILlD6nBk3muNNw0ZV7R4%3d
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4. Survey; How entrepreneurial is Kamlesh

Agarwal?;http://www.surveymonkey.com//MySurvey_Respon
ses.aspx?
sm=16n7l1%2bPg0AyXCWyyUKMRW7%2b24shPxtgpVzzNs
VQF

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Appendix

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Interview of Mr. Kamlesh Agarwal

1. What is your definition of an entrepreneur?

– An individual who is self-employed and has the passion to take risks and be
successful.

1. Why did you chose to be an entrepreneur?

– I am a banya(Indian Families belonging to a business) and entrepreneurship is in
my blood and that’s all I know.

1. why did you chose the business you are in?

– it was destiny more than choice I went to buy a place to open a sari shop but
ended up setting up a furnishing store….(narrates the whole story)

1. What kind of business have you been other than your main line business?
– Many. I have tried to do everything that I thought I was capable of and would
fetch me profits………(narrates the various businesses)

1. Tell me something about your education qualifications.

– Well…I am not highly qualified. I have a diploma degree in Bachelors of
Commerce as I had to drop out to start up a partnership firm I could not really
complete my education.

1. Where were you born and what brought you to the city of Kolkata?

– I was born in Nakipur a small town in Rajasthan. I came to the city with my uncle
at the age of 5 and lived here ever since.

1. Could you tell me more about your family

– I was born in a huge joint family in India and have 6 sisters and 2 brothers. My
fathers brothers also used to live with us. In fact we still live together in the
same house running different businesses. I have a wife and 2 sons. My mother
also lives with me…………..

1. What kind of lifestyle did you have prior to starting your business.?
– I belonged to a not so well to do family so lifestyle consisted of living from hand
to mouth.

1. How did you spot opportunities?

– I started working with my uncle then got a partnership offer then opened my
own stores and in the same way good things kept happening.

1. What do you see as a strength in you as an entrepreneur?

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Developing Enterprising Individuals Student id: 7690930

– my strength is my passion to work and strive and do better. Currently my sons

are my strengths as they have done well in their education and have joined my
businesses. I would not say this to be a strength as an entrepreneur but it surely
is a strength as a father.

1. Looking back on your experience, among skills, attitude and knowledge which is the
key to success.

– according to me it’s the attitude of a person which makes him successful I got
the knowledge and skills from the experience but it was my attitude that helped
me move on.

1. Finally, what are your future plans..

- keep enterprising…..keep growing…..keep working.

2. Survey: Kamlesh Agarwal a family man;

http://www.surveymonkey.com//MySurvey_Responses.aspx?
sm=FKPMNAl9Y
%2fb6eTxvJfRgQIGILlD6nBk3muNNw0ZV7R4%3d

3. Survey; How entrepreneurial is Kamlesh Agarwal?;

http://www.surveymonkey.com//MySurvey_Responses.aspx?
sm=16n7l1%2bPg0AyXCWyyUKMRW7%2b24shPxtgpVzzNs
VQF

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