Book Review: The Inheritors by Sonu Bhasin

Book Name: The Inheritors

Author: Sonu Bhasin

Publisher: Penguin Random House India

Rating: 4.5/5

Book Blurb: Why did Harsh Mariwala leave his family business? What made the entire Dabur management to quit one day?

How did Dhingra brothers turn a suffering business in to India’s second largest paints company?
This is a fascinating behind the scenes look into what goes behind brands like Marico, Dabar, Keventers, Berger Paints, Select Group, Max Group and many others. The book focuses on the culture, family politics, business rivalries between and within families, ego battles and a lot more. Plus there are the inheritors themselves who sometimes take the business to great heights and during others, lead to its doom.

Review: Sonu Bhasin provides a sneak peek inside some of the brilliant minds behind some well-known firms in India. She covers Amit Burman behind Dabur and Lite Bite foods, Harsh Mariwala of Marico, Berger Paints stalwarts- the Dhingras, Motilal Oswal Group’s Ramdeo Agrawal, Keventers group’s Dalmia, Max Group and many others.

The book provides keen insight into the running of such successful businesses and how the people managed to run a business even when the going was not all rosy.

The building of Motilal Oswal group is the fascinating account of all corporate honchos covered here. The group is now well known in India and Ramdeo Agrawal needs no introduction. The book provides a lot of backgrounds and little-known information about the people is brought into the limelight with the help of this book.

 “Ramdeo and Motilal worked as sub-brokers of Sunder Iyer for a period of three years. During these years they operated from that small office in Kalbadevi.” 

Running a business and building it from scratch requires a lot of sweat and struggle. While inheriting a business provides a head start, it is foolish to think that the people mentioned here in this book have not had their share of struggles. Perhaps the degree and nature of struggle may be different, but all of these people did not quit in the face of adversity which is why they tasted success.

This is a must-read book for every aspiring entrepreneur and there is a lot to learn from these pages. It is like a lesson in business management told through interviews and anecdotes. A well-compiled book!

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