The Paanwallah MBA: And My Experiments with Tooth

By J. Jeyes

Management wisdom need not be learnt from books and lectures alone – one can pick up the basics of running a business even from the local paanwallah.

Learning is a personal process, and it happens more outside the classrooms than inside. Life skills gathered from experience stand one in good stead.

This book explores the new EQ (not Emotional Quotient, but ‘Employability Quotient’) while touching upon the factors that drive us to learn and excel at the workplace.

The second part of the book has something for every reader – be it an employee, senior manager in an organisation, homemaker, elderly or retired. Packed with a liberal dose of humour, it is an armchair view of everyday life situations.

Take a plunge and enjoy the fun ride!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Jul 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9789352061211

Book preview

Mosquito

PART-1

THE PAANWALLAH

1

Business Lessons from the Paan Shop

Going by the title, if you thought I am a regular paan-chewer – nope. Neither am I chain smoker who needs a daily visit to the street-corner paan beedi shop. In fact, I eschew both habits. After all, the quality of any habit is to cling. Just break it down and see:

‘H’ ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘I’ ‘T’

Once acquired, even after sustained effort, if we take the Heady ‘H’ out of the habit, ‘A BIT’ remains with us. And dropping the ‘A’ (Addiction), the ‘BIT’ (or the ‘butt’?) is still there. Struggle to erase the ‘B’ (Binding obsession), and, alas, ‘IT’ is here with you for life. And, only when ‘I’ (Ego) surrenders and tries over ‘T’ (Time) that I can fully erase the habit from my life.

Wordplay apart, this is another habit with Indian managers – chewing paan, smoking cigarettes, or both, and gossiping at street-corner shops. You would not have missed the ubiquitous Paanwallah in the vicinity of offices. If there is an area with a lot of business houses around, a paan shop is there. You also see a host of office people hanging out here, chewing the blood-red stuff or puffing on the cancer-stick. Earlier, it was during lunch hour. Now it is 24x7, at any time of the day. After all, it is now ‘flexi time’.

The Paanwallah is blessed with a lot of management wisdom that flows from these managers. He usually finds them venting out not only smoke and spitting out not only paan juice, but spewing venom or suppressed anger towards their colleagues and doling out a lot of abuse.

If you catch a group of them with their bosses, the ‘butt’ of their jokes is usually the super boss, who is not present. After all, according to them, he’s ‘always on tour’. If the shop is near a large organisation, the community will reveal a lot of business secrets nonchalantly. Some smart ones play it safe and hold the entire company responsible for the ‘mess they are in’. The despondency of the organisation is palpable.

Earlier, we had juicy grapevine gossip flowing in the office near the water cooler. Now, they bug you everywhere. Hence, it is the Paanwallah who can record ALL the actual feedback (unadulterated and sometimes adult-rated) and pass it on to HR for necessary action. However, if you thought this is about the Paanwallah’s daily lessons on organisational management, learnt from such broadcasting managers who throng his shop – sorry.

This is a sincere effort to simplify Business Management, taught painstakingly in B-schools, by using the analogy of a paan shop and tuning it to the requirement of MBA and engineering graduates. Managers can also have a fun ride with their quota of flashes of wisdom or ‘aha moments’ relating to their work experience.

Come, let’s go out of office and see the paan-India phenomenon (better still, paan-South Asia, because it is ONLY here that paan is consumed). Just in case you notice the highlighted and/or italicised words sprinkled along as business lingo, it is NOT co-incidental, but intentional.

‘Paan’ctilious in Business Planning

ALL businesses need start-up capital and the paan shop is no exception. The Paanwallah manages this by borrowing from the ‘pawnshop’ by mortgaging his wife’s gold ornaments. The share-holding pattern is 50:50 between him and his wife, and, sometimes, the fully paid-up capital comes from his in-laws.

If he needs more investment, he dips into all his resources, by disposing off some movable or immovable assets that he has in his village. To manage cash flow, sometimes he pushes his borrowing limit to the hilt by bringing his relatives or neighbours on Board.

At other times, he lends money to other small-time businessmen and charges high rates of interest. Thus, he becomes a merchant banker. He has no Company Secretary, but manages Corporate Affairs by outsourcing and complies with all Statutory Requirements of the land.

The Business ‘Paan’orama

Think of his raw material – the paan. He may source it from the wholesale market or tie up with betel leaf farms in nearby villages, thus optimising his input cost. Smarter ones may even buy out and own a farm to ensure continuous supply, thus beating the vagaries of the market – just like tyre manufacturers buying rubber estates or steel manufacturers trying to own ore mines, rather than buying/importing them.

The ubiquitous Paanwallah may have his own manufacturing unit at home, in his backyard, for preparing supari or flavored areca nut pieces to increase profitability. He may tie up with a supplier for Just-In-Time (JIT) delivery of supari, thus saving valuable warehouse space and achieving unlocking of capital. Or decide to add domestic staff for de-bottlenecking his manufacturing process of betel nut.

Moving his raw material and finished products in a scheduled manner, from farm village yard to shop, makes the Paanwallah an effective Logistics Manager or Supply-Chain Specialist. He may also take on franchises for products that can gainfully fill his available retail shelf-space.

He is aware of his competitors and, sometimes, positions his shop in collaboration with them. The Paanwallah also may position his brothers or sons in neighbouring areas to outdo competition.

It’s ‘Paan’demic

He has captive customers from the nearby offices; people come here to vent their tension (and smoke, of course). He also knows that it is a high-volume-low-margin business and, hence, needs brisk hands to meet his customer demands quickly. Also, customers come in groups (chelas all around), and the ‘others’ are tempted or prompted to chew a paan or nut. Another market segment is made up of fleeting customers who stop en route to pick up a thing or two.

Smarter Paanwallahs position their business in front of famous restaurants, as they understand consumer behaviour. After a sumptuous meal, many diners feel like having a paan or cigarette. He may have an unwritten Memorandum of Understanding or bilateral agreement with the hotelier or cashier to direct customers to eat paan after paying the bill, thus improving the footfall of his shop.

Extending this idea further, the Paanwallah can enter into a Joint Venture with the restaurant for delivered supply of beeda (ready-made paan), kept enticingly on the casher’s table, thus enhancing customer delight.

Adventurous Paanwallahs source business information and may grow in their reach whenever the famous Udipi restaurant expands its chain in other suburbs/towns. He may go in for network expansion by putting up a shop in front of the new restaurants with the purpose of improved turnover or top line growth.

It’s ‘Paan’demonium out there in the market!

Never wondering as to why these managers in his forecourt are animatedly discussing office politics or acrimoniously attacking or accusing ‘others’, the Paanwallah is busy engaging them with a variety of juicy paan, as an impeccable business routine. He never does ‘paan’chayat to resolve their disputes. After all, the longer they stay, the better for him as, repeat orders flow in. Makes a lot of business sense.

Even in the melee of demanding customers, he knows whom to serve first and whom later, due to his uncanny ability to understand the pecking order or corporate pyramid by watching their body language.

He knows the peak business cycle and downtime of his machinery (hands!). During lean time, he has other business routines such as bargaining with his suppliers or checking for re-order levels.

Paanwallahs also seek market intelligence by talking to the customers to find out about possible new markets (or new services) in their work or residential areas, through innocuous dialogue.

They also offer discounts to regular customers. Some offer long-term credit and know the salary dates, so as to clear the outstanding in time so as to maintain their cash flow. Or, they schedule payments for the salary day, to ensure their credit worthiness with their suppliers. This way, they operate as Key Account Managers for elite customers, who they know are easy to retain, thus ensuring their bottom line.

‘Paan’mper Yourself with Products & Services

Besides the 62 varieties of paan in his product portfolio, the Paanwallah knows the next thing that is not seasonal is the cigarette. You will see them selling paan as well as panatela (long thin cigar), or even pancakes for that matter. In fact, the cigarette sells more in winter and monsoon and, accordingly, he brings in newer brands. He also brands his shop and products by identifying himself as ‘Moochad Paanwallah’ or ‘Sugandh Paan Beedi Shop’.

Occupying less shelf space but bringing maximum revenue, the paan-beedi shop owner also understands the consumption pattern of his chain-smokers and keeps only those brands that fly thick and fast. Literally vanishing like ‘smoke’ in thin air – and prompts them to keep a box as ready stock.

In his product line, sitting next to the cigarettes is the beedi for the autowallas, matchboxes and a lighter. To add to his turnover, he keeps mouth-fresheners or peppermints that help him to push sales by giving them out instead of small change. After all, some of the junior officers would like to camouflage the cigar smell with mint or fresheners. He may even include packaged drinking water to his product offering or a teashop as an extension, moving to non-core business.

Further on, he may have some confectionary, stationary items (such as glue sticks, scissors, combs or soft drinks) based on his market research, as these petty things assume greater significance in times of emergency, such as when applying for a job or while seeking citizen services from the nearby government offices.

Others may do business expansion by bringing in newspapers, magazines or even mobile recharging. An established Paanwallah may want to be in charge of group companies by starting an unrelated business, such as the sale of peanuts. After all, he is aware that not every customer is non-veg (buying only paan and cigar) and the health-conscious vegans may like to lubricate their alimentary canal after lunch by eating a banana or two. A new business avenue, you see. He adds a few fruits to his range of product menu, thus increasing his customer base.

Adventurous Paanwallahs do out-of-box thinking in business; I have seen one engaging a shoe-polish boy next to his shop for added customer service. There are managers who would like to get their shoes shined during their lunch break. It massages their ego to stand there in style and get a polish. The boy was a school dropout in his village, and the Paanwallah saw in him employability as well as additional business opportunity.

He’s a HR ‘Paan’dit!

By employing a helping hand or two to sell nuts or bananas, or shoe-polish service, he has opened a proverbial ‘Paan’dora’s Box. Managing people is the most challenging task, but the Paanwallah does this with ease and becomes an expert HR Manager.

He does manpower planning, interviewing, recruitment, wage negotiation, positioning and job design, job definition, job description, induction training, work allocation, hand-holding, employee discipline, employee relations, employee welfare including farewell after retrenchment and a host of HR functions, with the one or two boys he has employed. He does ALL this using experiential methodology or learning by doing.

Employee engagement is always uppermost in his mind as he looks for new ways to do business. He may tie up with a newspaper agent to distribute morning newspapers in his area. He may also connect with the milk supplier for door-delivery of milk packets in the residences, utilising the same manpower available in related business and ensuring his business sustainability. This creates a win-win situation for both the boy and himself by sharing the profit. He may offer flexi-time working to the boys during forenoon or afternoon hours when his core business is thin.

The Paanwallah is also a Security Expert, as he assigns the job of locking and opening his paan shop at appointed hours by his employee. He also engages the watchmen of neighbouring offices to ‘keep an eye’ on his business assets at night (for a fee, of course).

He is the cashier as the money flows through his hands daily, and a Finance Manager when he goes to bank to manage his finances, though he may leave the humdrum of accounting at the year-end to a