Eye2Eye - Baba Ramdev : Yogi by choice, entrepreneur by chance. Really? || Abhinav Singh & Ajay Singla || MJPRU, Bareilly & IIM Raipur || November 2015 edition

Baba Ramdev : An entrepreneur by choice

- Abhinav Singh

MJPRU Bareilly

“It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” This famous quote suits yoga guru Baba Ramdev. If you want to learn about Brand success, then Baba Ramdev is the right person. He spends nothing on advertising and marketing but has built an FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) empire in just three and half years. According to a Senior Congress leader, Baba is an entrepreneur, not a yoga guru. Today, Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali is sweeping away everything in its path. The product quality is the best in breed. For the last decade, Baba told us the evils of MNCs, the corruption of corporates, the exploitation of farmers. By doing this, he left us on our own to explore his products. This was brilliant. He created an environment where we wanted to see if the alternative to the above mentioned evils was usable. I think Patanjali Ayurveda was a startup that displayed as good a content marketing strategy as anyone ever before. According to a Times of India report, for fiscal 2014. Patanjali Ayurveda clocked a turnover of about 1200 crore, up from about Rs 850 crore a year earlier and Rs 450 crore in fiscal 2012, company filings and industry sources said. Baba Ramdev understands that building a business means hiring the best. So Ramdev’s Patanjali group of companies do not hire “Digital Ninjas” but hard core experts in the field which includes Masters in Science, Biology. Big retailers like Reliance Retail, Big Bazaar are also stocking Ramdev’s FMCG products. Now Baba has launched Patanjali Atta Noodles, contain no lead or MSG. “Jhat pat pakao, aur befikar khao” is the catchline of Patanjali Noodles. A great entrepreneur is one who embraces the latest technology for his business and Baba Ramdev has done just that. Taking advantage of the e-commerce boom, one can also buy his products online at websites. I hope to see Baba Ramdev speaking to IIM graduates at some business seminar soon. There is no denying that the man has a sharp business mind.

Baba Ramdev : An entrepreneur by chance

- Ajay Singla

IIM Raipur

After completing the study of yoga and Sanskrit, Baba Ramdev renounced all the worldly pleasures and became a saint by choice to serve the humanity. He desires to make the country healthy and disease free. So he founded the Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust where research activities are conducted to discover the healing powers of yoga and Ayurveda. The objective of Baba Ramdev is not to earn money but to help people. Aastha channel started broadcasting the yoga sessions of Baba Ramdev in morning slot. These yoga sessions became very popular among the general public and RamDev came to known as yog guru. Baba Ramdev formed Patanjali Ayurved in 1997. The first products of
Patanjali Ayurved were Aloe Vera Oil and Amla Juice. Amla juice was started to help the loss driven farmers producing amla. Baba Ramdev was quite aware of the benefits of amla for health. So he started making amla juice and promoted it among the general public. Soon Amla juice became traffic builder for Patanjali Ayurved. Thus Baba Ramdev started emerging as an entrepreneur by chance. Fortunately, it didn’t take much time to make Patanjali Ayurved reach to the heights in FMCG promoted by Baba Ramdev. To give healthy food to children, he introduced corn flakes. Recently, to provide healthy noodles, he introduced Atta noodles. He is planning to introduce power booster free from any side effects for children. The idea behind such products is not to make profits, but to provide healthy products to the people. Going by the same approach, today Patanjali product mix constitutes soaps, shampoos, dental care, balms, skin creams, biscuits, ghee, juices, honey, atta, mustard oil, masala, sugar and much more and gives tough competition to top FMCG giants. Clearly Baba Ramdev has become a successful entrepreneur without having any intention to do so.