What Family Run Businesses in India can learn from Dawood

Most Indians are synonymous with the name Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar. They have heard or read of his rise in the Mumbai Underworld and his transition from a small-time goon to a dreaded gangster, and later global terrorist. What most people might not know and is that his crime syndicate, popularly known as D-Company is not much different in its mechanism to that of a business organization. Many family run  businesses do not even come close to the way Dawood Ibrahim runs his. Indian businesses owners can definitely take a page out of Dawood Ibrahim’s book.

Let’s look at some things that can to be learned from the Big D.

Opportunities

Let’s start with how he looked at opportunities that came his way. Dawood always believed that opportunities have to be grabbed with both hands. Coming from the extremely populated, poor locality of Dongri, Dawood Ibrahim knew that the opportunities were few and the takers many. Not only did he have to act fast in grabbing the opportunities but also think the same so that the opportunity can be made best use of. Whether it was helping the police to finish of dreaded gangsters during his early days to get in their good books and obtain a clean chit for his illicit activities (during those days just petty crimes), or taking advantage of fights and scuffles between rival gangs and bolstering his own business interests. It was this mindset that helped him expand his small-time extortion business in Dongri to extortion pan India, smuggling, narcotics, film production, real estate, controlling much of the hawala system around the world and a host of other illegal as well as legal activities.

Staffing

In his line of business, it was very important to hire the right man. Each person has a different personality based on which he/she is suitable for different jobs. Dawood Ibrahim knew who to assign what and even took a great deal of care when building his gang during the time of his rise. He would be extremely picky in choosing the right people even if it meant waiting months in the search of a suitable candidate. Delay of work was not as much of an issue as was hiring the wrong people, who would ultimately botch up the everything they were assigned to do.

Even after he shifted to Dubai and took a back seat, Dawood took great care in choosing his ‘CEO’, someone who would look after the operations on his behalf. Whether it was Khaled Pehelwan, Chhota Rajan or Chhota Shakeel. All 3 proved to be competent enough to handle the now vast syndicate which is no less that a multinational company. Each of the 3 ensured that the entire organization ran smoothly across its areas of operation, mainly India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. What should also be noted is Dawood followed the policy of non – interference once he had taken a back seat. He has placed full trust in the different right hands he had had over the years, and would brush off any attempt of defamation on them by jealous onlookers, who on their part wanted the top job for themselves. This was clearly evident when the Muslim gang members ganged up against Khaled Pehelwan and again when Chotta Shakeel and his set of followers did so against Chotta Rajan. Although in both cases the two ultimately parted ways with the big D due to fear of being killed by others, not once was the trust placed in them by Dawood misplaced even for a moment.

Style of Management

Centralization and Decentralization. These are words associated with all business houses. They need to choose how much control the Head Office has over the sub branches. D-Company has also followed a similar method to handle its many businesses. Khaled Pehelwan and Chotta Rajan, both, had operated on a centralized basis. They used to keep in touch with everyone from the top to the bottom to make sure things were running smoothly. On the other hand, when Chotta Shakeel took over he decided to switch to a more decentralized style of management. Different people were assigned for handling the different ‘business interests’. The different people assigned to handle the businesses of extortion, film production, real estate, narcotics, etc. all had their own groups and were responsible for reporting to Shakeel on the happenings of their business on a regular basis.

A very important thing to note here is that Dawood Ibrahim was very accommodating to the change in style of management. He knew that the style of management has to complement the CEO. The CEO cannot be forced down to follow a set style. This is something that businesses owners and investors, especially those with large family holdings are uncomfortable with. Many choose adopt a style of high centralization even though most of their hired top executives are comfortable otherwise. Till date there has only been one large family managed business in India which has completely relinquished management control and let professionals take charge, which is Dabur.

Strategic Alliance

Dawood knew how to make strategic alliances very well. The textbook definition of a strategic alliance is, an agreement between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed upon objectives needed while remaining independent organizations. In simple terms, a quid pro quo between two organizations. It was these strategic alliances which helped Dawood Ibrahim escape Mumbai in the nick of time, by getting a tip off from certain informers, as well as obtain Dubai and Pakistani passports, and later citizenships, along with high level of security. In return for such favours the Indian police got tip offs as well as support to nab or kill various gangsters, all of whom were rivals of Dawood, while the Pakistani ISI received intelligence and logistical support to conduct militant as well as terrorist activities in India. The difference being the two alliances was that in the former, the Mumbai Police was the first beneficiary, having no idea how things would play out in the future, while in the latter Dawood Ibrahim was the first beneficiary with Pakistan getting into this alliance with a well-planned future course of action. In both set of options Dawood Ibrahim was always clear of his future course and had plans in place accordingly.

Being Indispensable

Lastly, lets talk about how Dawood Ibrahim knows how to be indispensable. We live in a world where self-interest serves primary purpose and the moment someone no longer serves any purpose that person is conveniently disposed off without care. Being indispensable has become one of the most important things for survival. How easy would it have been for Pakistan to have handed over or disposed off Dawood when the US had turned on the heat for the country? But they didn’t. That’s because over the years, by interacting with the who’s who in Pakistan including the top ISI officials, current and retired officers of the Pakistan Army, politicians, etc., Dawood has enough intel information on the Pakistan, especially the workings of the ISI, that would have brought about severe long-term implications for the country. For Pakistan it was best that Dawood stay safely in Karachi and to protect him they even went as far as providing him with the best of security including high level Rangers as escorts for all kinds of movements.

Thus, Dawood has proven how a business can be run effectively and how it is possible to not only survive comfortably in the long run but do so by taking a back seat for major part of one’s life. Indians businesses could definitely do with learning these things from Dawood Ibrahim, the owner of one of the world’s largest businesses, D-Company.

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