SUMIT DAYAL FOR FORBES
NOVEMBER 2016 FORBES ASIA | 23The duo represent a contradiction between a self-pre-
scribed ascetic life and one demanding modern-day business
savvy. Balkrishna doesn’t take any salary, nor do some others
in the top management, he says, but he and Ramdev each trav-
el in white Range Rovers. They’re globetrotters for their en-
deavors (Balkrishna’s favorite place is Scotland, where Patan-
jali has an ashram on an island that was donated). They live
simply—Balkrishna in a bungalow in the ashram where the
duo registered their charitable trust back in the 1990s, Ram-
dev across the street from the charitable hospital they run.
But they are keen on social media: Ramdev has 7.3 million
likes on his Facebook page and 6 million followers on Twitter;
Balkrishna has 4.4 million on Facebook and 330,000 followers
on Instagram. As Balkrishna took FORBES ASIA on a tour of
Patanjali’s factory buildings and his special concern, its nurs-
ery, his security detail was taking pictures with his iPhone—a
gift from a follower—that Balkrishna would quickly upload to
social media and then monitor for comments, likes and shares.
Back to business: Balkrishna talks of the company’s goals
to open factories within two fiscal years in seven states
across India, totaling at least 1,200 acres, including one plant
meant only to make products for export. The company plans
to borrow $600 million from its original Punjab bank as well
as other Indian majors.
By expanding into new products and countries, isn’t Pa-
tanjali on track to become a typical Indian conglomerate?
Balkrishna smiles once more: “We want to use this wealth to
serve others and not ourselves. But at the same time we don’t
believe in giving things for free because, if we did that, with-
in a year we’d be back to going around with a begging bowl.
We need the wealth to serve the people.”we’d have been finished, but
because we’re still standing
that shows we weren’t wrong
and our products were good.”
Sure enough, oicially re-
ported net profit has swol-
len from $11 million in March
2012, at the peak of the com-
pany’s troubles, to $105 mil-
lion in March 2016. The com-
pany employs nearly 20,000
people and sells products in
11,000 of its own stores. It re-
cently tied up with one of the
largest retailers in the coun-
try—entrepreneur Kishore Bi-
yani’s Big Bazaar.
“Patanjali has shaken up
the Indian FMCG [fast-mov-
ing consumer goods] sector by
growing at an unprecedented
pace, transforming from the
sidelines to dominating boardroom discussions of FMCG
companies,” Credit Suisse analysts said in a June report.
But this can give rise to complications, warns Arvind
Singhal, chairman of Technopak Advisors, consumer prod-
ucts and retail consultants. “When you have such an ex-
traordinary growth, you need to build your supply chain
for sourcing and procurement, and your vendors need to be
compliant,” he said. “Patanjali is not fully cognizant of the
challenges of this. There’s no way that you can grow at this
pace and have your supply chain grow with you.” The com-
pany says it is focused on its supply chain, but on the recent
tour this reporter spotted several cartons of Patanjali com-
petitor Amul’s ghee. (Balkrishna said his operation had run
out, so it had bought these to mix in its products.)
Ramdev, now a fixture in Indian media, learned early the
power of using the media to send a message. “Journalists ask
questions, and you get time and space to say what you want,”
he says. (Sure enough, he video-recorded the FORBES ASIA
interview and will run it on one of the five Patanjali TV
channels.) He has a new message for foreign investors, who
he assumes are regular FORBES readers: Patanjali is plan-
ning to launch within the year a line of fashion and workout
wear, including gym and yoga attire. “Brands like Lee, Adi-
das, Puma, Reebok—I don’t have good news for them as we
will soon give them a run for their money.”
As brand ambassador for Patanjali, Ramdev has urged
his followers to show their patriotism by buying only prod-
ucts made by companies that are fully Indian-owned. Goods
made in India by foreign companies don’t qualify. “Why
should these companies take the profits out of the country,”
he says, likening them to the colonialist East India Company.Baba Ramdev’s yoga camps begat clinics, a chain of which is a key outlet of Patanjali’s medicines.F