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A story of 7 books

As part of preparing for an assignment, I decided to read a set of books across diverse businesses. The logic being, reading just one set of business or industry or country or timeframe gives a skewed perspective. But, if one has to get a larger perspective, it is better to look at it from an even larger perspective.

My initial idea was to pick a set of historical industries - the industries which were set up in India during independence. While I did read these books in the library, I found it difficult to get these books.

 I settled for a range of books across Indias traditional business community - Baniyas, Haldirams, Honda, Indias retail boom, Chinas ecom boom, Indias cooperative sector and a US company that made a name in sports. Many of them were start ups, while there were a couple which were far more established. Some stuck to their core competency, some had no core competency. Some found their core competence.

What was interesting that it all had common factors - quite obvious, one may think. But to think that across time, across culture, across countries, industry and business, there were such distinct common factors was an a-ha moment for me. I suppose we know this instinctively...

Maybe I will soon read a set of companies that failed and find answers exactly the opposite to this.

More on this soon...
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