‘Take the best from your culture but challenge what hinders you’
ENTREPRENEURS DEBATE VALUES AND SUCCESS STRATEGIES DURING PANEL DISCUSSION
A BRITISH ASIAN businessman has explained how his generation inherited values from their parents but adapted them to the present-day market to grow and expand the companies they run.
Simon Arora, the CEO of retail giant B&M, described his journey as a “classic, second-generational immigrant story”.
He was speaking during a panel discussion with industrialist Anil Agrawal and Bestway Group head Dawood Pervez during the Asian Business Awards last Friday (19).
Arora told the gathering, “As I reflect on the modest success we’ve had, we’ve taken what I think of the best parts of our parents’ values, but we’ve dismissed those that we see as being a hindrance.
“What I rejected, and what I think works for us, was a willingness to delegate, not to have a value that said, ‘our business has to be 100 per cent owned by us’.”
“I’ve run B&M as a family business. I’ve owned it 50:50 with private equity, and I now run it on behalf of institutional shareholders,” he added.
Arora, along with his brothers Bobby and Robin, is ranked sixth in the Asian Rich List, with an estimated net worth of £2.4 billion.
He added, “If I had stayed true to my parents’ values, I would probably be running a smaller business because there was some risk aversion, there was some reluctance to invest in the talent that was around you.
“So, I think you take the best from your culture, but then you push back and challenge what you think doesn’t necessarily work for you.”
BBC presenter Nihal Arthanayake asked the panelists their views on how their businesses coped during the pandemic, and what advice they would have for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Arora stressed that those who wanted to become business leaders should aim high so they could achieve good results.
Agrawal, founder and chairman of Vedanta Resources, recalled how a conversation he overheard while on a train from London to Manchester proved instrumental in building his company.
He had arrived in the UK from Delhi in the 1980s and stayed in Southall, west London, where he worked for a small metals company.
“I was travelling from here [London] to Manchester, and on the way [on the train], I heard – I was always keen to start something on my own – I heard somebody talking. They said a company near Southall, a cable manufacturer, had gone into liquidation.”
Sensing an opportunity, Agrawal abandoned his plans to travel to Manchester. Instead, he got off at the next stop and made a few calls to see how he could acquire the company in question.
He recounted the lengths he went to buy a company that had failed and how he turned it around.
“The only words I knew were ‘yes’ and ‘no’. I worked with the bank, got the £2 million, acquired the company, ran it for two years, [then] sold it for £8m.”
He added: “Never give up. My experience of London and UK is tremendous.”
The industrialist, who is ranked third in the Asian Rich List with a net worth of £7.5bn, recalled how he raised $35bn (£26.19bn) in the city, but told the audience to invest in India, too.
Many businesses in the UK were hit hard by the pandemic.
But for Pervez, son of Sir Anwar Pervez, the co-founder and chairman of Bestway Group, revenues spiked during the peak of the pandemic when the nation was stockpiling toilet paper, dry food and other items.
“We saw an enormous uptick in sales, because obviously what happened is the supermarket supply chains fell over first, and then everyone started shopping locally. We were seeing a 180 per cent increase in sales year on year for a prolonged period of time. Buffer stock was being worn through. We were asking our colleagues to carry on going to work, so we had to make them safe.”
Pervez added: “What you saw happen in that first lockdown is communities reconnecting with their local retailers, local retailers stepping up to the plate serving other communities, and actually putting themselves on the line.”
Although his company was not immune to prevailing supply chain issues, Pervez said Bestway was agile and could adapt quickly. Sir Anwar and his son are ranked eighth in the Asian Rich List with a net worth of £1.9bn.
Pervez said his motto was to ‘love your work (and work is love), treat everyone equally and fortune favours the brave’.
He concluded: “Make money, but also add value to society”.