‘Went to Tirupati temple to learn to manage crowd at Big Bazaar,' says Future Group’s Kishore Biyani

Future Group’s Kishore Biyani shared in a podcast recently that he went to the Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh to understand how to manage crowds. “When we used to get huge crowds in Big Bazaar stores, we went to Tirupati temple to understand how to manage crowds," he said.
 
He was speaking to Nikhil Kamath (co-founder of stock brokerage firm Zerodha), Sujeet Kumar (co-founder of B2B marketplace for MSMEs Udaan) and Vidit Aatrey (co-founder of ecommerce company Meesho) in the latest episode of Kamath’s podcast series.
 
Kamath in the trailer which was released on Wednesday morning called Biyani the ‘OG of commerce’ and the ‘Godfather of Indian Retail.’
 
Big Bazaar, started under Future Retail in 2001, was a chain of retail stores known for offering products at highly discounted prices. The business model was to directly source the products from manufacturers and give the benefit of lowered margins to the customers. The company gradually grew to reach 250 stores across 125 cities in India. 
 
While Biyani tasted success with the Big Bazaar stores, the growing ecommerce penetration within the country, lack of funds, rising debt and other factors proved to be detrimental for the business. The pandemic paid a spoilsport and further pushed the company into debt. The entrepreneur later on sold his business to the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail for Rs 24,713 crore. Thereafter, Amazon (an erstwhile partner) challenged the sale and won an interim stay.
 
The e-commerce giant and the Indian legacy business are currently locked in a courtroom battle at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC).
 
During the podcast he also said that “life is not very complicated” and profitability comes first.

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