FMCG major Emami founders share tips for wellness retailers to improve partnership

Apart from sharing their first names, founding partners of Emami Group- Radheshyam Goenka and Radheshyam Agarwal has together formed Rs 8,000 crore conglomerate. The Kolkata-based company has interests in FMCG, retail, pharmacy and healthcare, infrastructure and development, art, cement, edible oils, biodiesel and ball-pen tips manufacturing.

Their sixty year old friendship has built a business that has set a new benchmark in partnership business.

Sharing the tit-bits of a smooth partnership, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Emami Group, Radheshyam Agarwal said, “It is important to know and understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses to make a partnership work. The partners can then compliment and supplement each other to emerge as a strong force to be successful in business.”

Further, the founding duo has shared six secrets to a healthy, long-term, profitable partnership:

The power of tolerance: This perhaps is one of the most important ingredients for a successful partnership. Not only is it important to praise the other person, when we succeed, you also need to be tolerant of each other and accept each other’s mistakes and weaknesses.

Give, and not take: We are firm believers of the ‘Give and not take’ philosophy and practice it in our lives on a daily basis. By agreeing to give more, one reduces the conflict to almost zero -be it in life or in business. When you don’t keep an account of how much you gave and what you got in return, working together becomes a joy.

Harnessing your ego: This may be the most difficult target to achieve, but makes all the difference to your partnership. Ego should not become a deciding factor in a partnership, since it comes in the way of being logical and sensitive to people and situations – all essential ingredients for a successful business.

Keeping the faith: Faith can move mountains, they say. And keeping the faith in each other intact is essential for the success of a partnership venture. It’s not just about business partnerships, faith is equally important for all relationships. Without faith, mutual admiration and respect, partnership tends to be shallow and short-term.

Stand by each other: It’s easy to be together when things are smooth. But what about when there’s a crisis? Worse, what if it was because of your partner? You still stand by your partner, no matter what. You need to make it work in both good and bad times. A tip: Look at the positives of a relationship during a crisis situation, instead of engaging in a fault-finding mission.

Teach them young: For a partnership to continue successfully for generations, it is essential to imbibe family values and the importance of bonding in future generations as well. Once the families also start to truly value the relationship, the business partnership can continue even in the absence of the original partners.

as told to Prerna Raturi