Story of Dhirubhai Ambani Behind Reliance

Childhood Time

• Dhirubhai Ambani was born in a Modh baniya family to Hirachand Govardhandas Ambani and Jamanaben in the village of Chorwad in the district of Junagarh.

• He was raised in simple living conditions Family.

• While at school at Junagarh, he was elected as the General Secretary of the Junagarh State Union.

Career

• At Aden, he took up a clerical job at A. Besse & Co, the largest transcontinental trading firm east of Suez. The company dealt with trading all sorts of goods to European, American, African and Asian companies.

• He was Curious to learn the tricks of the trade, At the same time, he started working for a Gujarati trading firm. It was there that he learned accounting, book keeping and preparing shipping papers and documents. He also acquired the skill of dealing with banks and insurance companies.

• He settled a spice trader under the name Reliance Commercial Corporations. He soon started trading spices, sugar, jaggery, betel nuts and such to the Gulf Emirates. He focused on low profits, high volumes and rich quality.

• In the weekend, he travels from Bombay to Ahmedabad to check the progress of the establishment of the factory and troubleshoot any problems faced by the workers. His main aim was to produce the best quality nylon in the quickest way possible and in largest quantities.

• By August 1966, the construction work had finished and the equipment and machineries were being installed to meet the September 1 deadline of starting off with the productions. Meanwhile, he accumulated a workforce of 35 men from Calcutta, Indore, and Bombay to work in the factory. Production started as planned on September 1, 1966, but took a couple of months to stabilize.

• By January 1967, his dreams started to realize as the Naroda factory began producing the finest quality of Nylon; but the new company had no buyers in the market as the wholesalers refused to buy fabric from Reliance at the instance of established big mill owners.

• Not the one to accept defeat, he soon stepped out on the road and started selling his stock directly to retailers. His daring attitude and gutsy behavior impressed all and soon the market for ‘Vimal’, the name of his fabric, grew and started expanding. In no time, it became the finest, best-selling fashion fabric of its times

• In 1981, his elder son Mukesh joined the business and he initiated Reliance's backward integration journey from textiles into polyester fibers and further into petrochemicals, petroleum refining and going up-stream into oil and gas exploration and production

• In 1983, his younger son, Anil Ambani joined the business and took over as the chief executive officer at Naroda.

• Between 1984 and 1996, the mill experienced a grand makeover as computerized and high-tech machines replaced the old traditional ones making Reliance the grandest composite mill in the country.

Personal life

• He married Kokilaben in 1954.

• The couple was blessed with four children, Anil Ambani, Mukesh Ambani, Nina Kothari and Deepti Salgaonkar.

Achievements

• Reliance was the first Indian company to feature in Forbes 500 list.

• He was honored with Dean’s Medal, Lifetime Achievement Award for Corporate Excellence and Man of the Century award.

• He was named ‘Man of 20th Century’ by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).