• Inspiration

At the country’s largest retail company, Future Group, Devdutt Pattanaik holds the unusual post of Chief Belief Officer (CBO). He left Ernst & Young to join Kishore Biyani three years ago when Biyani was looking for someone who understands the Indian viewpoint. “We were introduced and he instantly developed a liking for my ideas. Biyani’s job is to do business. He is a master at doing it. But he did not really possess the art of articulating to people what he does. Biyani was looking for someone who could make people understand what he was doing and I was the chosen one,” Pattanaik reminisces.

Sharing his trade secrets, Pattanaik says there are two ways of looking at the world—one is to think all humans are the same and, therefore, they will practice business in the same way and the other is to know that there are different cultures across the globe and everyone has a unique way of looking at life and doing business. If one has to do business in India, one has to understand the Indian mindset. This way, Pattanaik gets to grow the business enormously and gets investment funding easily. He celebrates ‘Indianness’ and states this as the reason for his success.

But, a Chief Belief Officer? Well, this is how Pattanaik answers this one: “No one questions the designation of a CEO or as to where the term CEO came from. Any wisdom which has come from the west is often not questioned. I am generally asked what belief systems are. The term Chief Belief Officer itself gets anyone to ask very fundamental questions. Most people do not realize how much belief systems impact a business.”

An uncommon understanding of life is what creates business, Pattanaik believes. Talking to people and generating new ideas is what his job is about. “We all know who we are, how we want to live and what we should engage ourselves in. This shapes our decision making. My job is to make people ask these questions,” he adds with pride.

Talking on how values can affect balance sheets Pattanaik says that as per belief systems, if you always look for safe-cushion jobs, you can never be an entrepreneur. “If I have a company that is growing fast, I would want people to believe in the entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, it is always good to find people who have the entrepreneurial trait and the risk appetite.”

It’s here that the dichotomy lies. On one hand you want people to have an entrepreneurial mindset and on the other hand you want them to work for you. “This is where the beliefs and value systems come into play—to determine and understand who suits the company best,” he explains.

“Future Group is a fast-growing company. We look for entrepreneurs and we need them. People who look for stability will be very uncomfortable in Future Group because systems and processes change every day,” he adds.Today, the Future Group is a Rs.10,000-crore entity which stood at Rs.100 crore 10 years back. Pattanaik attributes the huge leap to value systems. “The rapid growth was possible because we have entrepreneurs who think differently, take challenges and do things in the way in which those were never done before,” he says.

Talking about Biyani’s success Pattanaik claims that Biyani does not come from a business background but today he has more shops than the Tatas, Birlas or Reliance. “He succeeded in retail because his thought process was different. After the liberalization of the economy, one has to think unique to attain success, to rise as an entrepreneur,” Pattanaik explains.

Hailing Indian entrepreneurs for being comfortable with change, ambiguity and uncertainty Pattanaik says, “We are not obsessed with planning. We do not seek stability. We are not so structured and we are fine with that.”

Endorsing the fact that Indian businesses can make 10 times more money than what they are actually making, Pattanaik insists on having clarity of thought. “If I were to guide people in business, I would like to tell them to have clarity of thought. Unless one is clear about who he or she really is, one can never be clear about the market. Indian businesses tend to struggle because they follow fully developed western models of business.”

The CBO also believes that the methods and techniques applied to any Indian business have to be home-grown, and not adopted from the West.

“Indians have lost faith in their own country. All Indian managers pass out from business schools which follow western curriculum. This means that we Indians do not believe that our country has any value to offer,” laments Pattanaik.
The realization dawned on Pattanaik when he saw Indians being embarrassed of their own way of doing business—by adopting western methods.

“Indian management principles are primitive, these are oral and not in the written form. Hence, people do not have access to them. This is where my job role comes in. I make these principles available to our people,” he signs off.

©Entrepreneur August 2011

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business, CBO, chief belief officer, Devdutt Pattanaik, entrepreneur, Future, Kishore Biyani, planning