The Story of a Shrewd Businessman

Binod Chaudhary is arguably one of Nepal’s most successful entrepreneurs. He has recently released a book entitled Binod Chaudharyko Atmakatha. In this book, he has tried to capture his successes, failures and tactics in business. Binod Choudahry and Wai Wai are now synonymous, as it has since become one of the most sought-after brands in Nepal, and is also expanding into other parts of Asia.

His company, CG, is one of Nepal’s foremost private sector companies with investments of $ 1 billion and 40 subsidiary enterprises operating under its leadership. It has a diversified presence, with stakes in biotech, education, and electronics and white goods, energy and infrastructure, financial services, FMCG, tourism, realty and retail. 

CG is more competent in the market than its competitors due to its visionary leadership, extensive distribution channels, superior brand-building capabilities and effective total management systems.This book offers Chaudhary’s insight on how a company becomes successful and stays successful and it is apparent that his instinct to seize opportunities and compete aggressively against big brands is key to this process.

Divided into four chapters, the book starts off with his positive childhood experiences growing up in Kathmandu in a made community. Like other young people of his age, he too used to wait for hours in front of the Padma Kanya Campus just to catch a few glimpses of beautiful girls. He also explains how his family came into business; his grandfather opened his first shop close to Bishal Bazzar. After his grandfather’s death, his father took over the reins of the business at the age of 23 and took it in a new direction. After this, the rest is known to all.

The second chapter delves into the most important elements of Chaudhary’s business life including his ties with the royal family and political parties. He has credited his business accomplishments to then-prince Dhirendra for his generous support. His acquaintance with the prince also generated animosity among his rivals. After the re-emergence of democracy, he experienced much turbulence in his career including his sudden rise and subsequent resignation from various umbrella organizations of the private sector. Of all the aptitudes and attributes Binod Chaudhary likes to mention as having a proper business mindset, this one is the biggest satire to our political system. “They did politics in my business and I did business in their politics,” he said bluntly in one point in this chapter.

The third chapter describes how he succeeds in building a multinational corporation. The exciting stories about his partnerships with various multinational corporations are worth reading. Discovering his passion for branding gives real meaning to his actions. One can’t help but appreciate his strategic planning and quick decision making skills. Frustrated with the highly unstable political system, he took control of planning processes thanks to ingenious strategic planning and adopting new tools and technologies quickly. In this chapter, he also talks about how he became successful in globalizing his own first multinational product: Wai Wai.

I used to wonder how he became such a successful business magnate.  How did he get through hard times? The final chapter puts this question to rest. Chaudhary discusses the musts-have skills that are required to start, operate and grow a profit-making business. According to him, most of these skills can be mastered with practice and by developing a winning attitude. Some of these attributes include having great ambition, organizational building skills, an ability to critique oneself, as well as being up-to-date on relevant issues and most importantly, discipline. For him, discipline has two components- personal behaviour and strong time management. Having learned of his sense of striking balance, I wonder if such a balance could even exist.

While this book is quite engaging overall, there is something left to be desired. Despite trying to be candid at times, it is hard to ignore that he seems to intentionally hide details at other times.  For example, he had mentioned that then prince Gyanendra described him as a ruthless and shrewd businessman. But, there is no mention of his confrontation with the prince. Other notable weaknesses of Chaudhary include his questionable decisions with regards to human resources. Instead of valuing the strengths of skilled employees, he acted on certain assumptions and fired them instead. While not all are equally competent as individuals, sometimes an ensemble is more than the sum of its individual parts, capable of producing startling results. He seems to have neglected this fact.

A man becomes successful along with his weaknesses. Despite all his flaws, he remains a role model. There is much we can learn from his experiences. His final words are something we can all appreciate, irrespective of our careers. He says, “The dream has no boundary at all, whereas the capacity and the ability of the person have it; those who understands it and embarks towards increasing the horizon of the capability and ability one after another, will make his dream come true and ultimately he or she will have success in life.”