Dhirubhai
Ambani
When
you hear the term
"Rags to Riches", the name that springs to mind is
"Reliance", and the man who created it, Dhirubhai Ambani. From near
nothing to one of the largest companies in the world in a span of 50
years.
This is the story of a hard-working man who refused to allow life to
control
him, and always preferred to control life.
Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani
was
born in a village on 28th December 1932, in Gujarat. In the
pre-independence
era, and a background of poverty, young Dhirajlal knew he would not
have a fair
chance to make it big in his life, unless he did something radical, and
something fast. With this vision in his mind, he sailed to Aden (in
Yemen) to
learn business and earn money. He was just 16 years old. At that time,
Aden was
a trading port for the British Empire. Slowly his savings grew and
his
dream of starting his own business was about to come true.
Ten
years later, Dhirajlal
returned back to India, and set up a small business trading in yarn and
spices.
He named it "Reliance Commercial Corporation." He used to go around
the Bombay Textile Bazaars himself, trading his imported polyester
textiles. It
wasn't easy as there were established firms, which dominated the
markets. But
Dhirajlal with his phenomenal energy and passion to win slowly began to
make
headway.
Within
a few years, he set
up
his own factory manufacturing textiles in Ahmadabad. He gained
prominence
steadily in the textile markets, more so because of his fair dealings
and
excellent product quality. He began to be called "Dhirubhai"
affectionately by all. His personal life progressed, too. Dhirubhai
married
Kokilaben, and they had four children Mukesh and Anil, and daughters
Dipti and
Nina. The family of 6 lived in a one-room apartment in the Jai Hind
Society in
Mumbai, a tenement building that housed 500 families. Those were
the
difficult days, and often, Anil and Mukesh used to share each other's
clothes.
In
1966, Dhirubhai set up
a
textile mill in Naroda, Gujarat to manufacture fabrics for suits and
saris.
This was a big move for him, which paid off. Within one year, the
net
profit from this venture was Rs.13 lakhs. Dhirubhai knew he was on the
right
track and wanted to expand. He plowed money back into the mill to
buy more
machines, and the business grew by leaps end bounds. At that time,
Dhirubhai
was marketing fabric under the "Vimal” brand, named after the son
of his
older brother, Ramniklal Ambani. In 1968, the Ambani family moved
out of
their one-room home in the Jai Hind Society building to a more spacious
apartment in a better locality. Dhirubhai started driving a Cadillac
and later
a Mercedes-Benz.
In
less than 12 years,
Reliance
had become a name to reckon with. In 1977, Reliance made a net profit
of Rs.
1.28 crores on total revenue of Rs.68.7 crores. The potential was huge
and
Dhirubhai wanted to capitalize on it. But he realised that he could not
do it
without a large inflow of capital. That was when he decided to come up
with a
public issue. The company was re-named as Reliance Textile Industries
Ltd and
their maiden public issue garnered Rs.2.8 crores. Dhirubhai Ambani's
dream of
creating a corporation had come true. But he knew that there was a long
way to
go, and the prospect for growth was enormous.
Slowly,
Dhirubhai started
to
focus on manufacture of chemicals and synthetic fibers. This would
diversify
his business interests and also provide the raw materials required for
his
textile business. From 1979 to 1982, Reliance raised a total of
Rs. 91.8
crores rupees from small investors. In 1982, Dhirubhai moved from
making
polyester fabric at his mills to manufacturing the polyester filament
yarn that
goes into the fabric. He pulled Mukesh out of Stanford University in
California,
where he was studying for an MBA, to help build new plants. They bought
the
latest machines, which could produce 10,000 tons of polyester yarn a
year at a
time when total Indian consumption was 6,000 tons a year.
Industry experts termed it
as a
bold decision, but knew that the demand for this product was growing
tremendously, and Dhirubhai had foreseen this potential. In 1985,
Reliance had
over 1.2 million stock and bond holders. Dhirubhai held the company's
annual
general meeting at a Mumbai football stadium. This was lauded as a
"never
before" event. About 12,000 shareholders attended this meeting with
awe,
each of them proud to be part of the Reliance realm. In this meeting,
Dhirubhai
announced that he was dropping the word "Textile" from the company's
name, reflective of the great diversification that was taking place in
the
group. The company came to be known as "Reliance Industries Limited".
In
February 1986, a stroke
left
Dhirubhai’s right side partially paralyzed, but this did not
diminish his
involvement in Reliance. By then both his sons Mukesh and Anil were
totally
involved in the company's affairs. In 1996, Reliance invested the $6
billion to
build a 27-million-ton-a-year oil refinery at Jamnagar. This plant was
Dhirubhai's vision. Reliance completed the refinery in less than three
years.
The plant required the amount of steel equivalent to 16 Eiffel Towers.
On
June 24, 2002, Dhirubhai suffered a second
stroke and slipped into a coma. He died 12 days later in a Mumbai
hospital. He
was mourned all over the world by millions of people. Dhirubhai's
legacy and
vision lives on in every inch of the mammoth business empire that he
built.