My Science School

           Within twenty five years of its establishment, Baggit has become one of the most sought-after brands in women’s handbags. Though Baggit entered into the world of big business, none of it was planned. It all happened because Nina Lekhi, the woman behind Baggit failed in the first year University exam!

           A depressed Nina started taking a course in designing to keep herself occupied. Meanwhile, she also worked as a part-time sales assistant in Mumbai. During this period, she started designing canvas bags with colourful patterns. Nina herself had different bags for different purposes. Though it was tough convincing the shop owner to display her products, she made it happen eventually and her products began to gain popularity. Like one of her friends, Nina began exhibiting her bags for exhibitions.

           She was quick to realize the demand for trendy, yet functional bags and was not late to bring out her brand-Baggit. She retailed her bags to established stores before she opened an exclusive store. That’s when she faced her second grand failure; Nina’s first store was a flop and she lost all the money she invested. She started over again and now, her bags are sold in more than 90 cities.

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           When Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal met for the first time, little did they know that they would create one of the biggest Indian e-commerce platforms. Both were alumni of IIT Delhi and worked for Amazon. In 2007, Sachin and Binny quit their jobs to begin their start-up.

           Sitting in their tiny apartment in Bangalore, they launched Flipkart. It started as an online bookstore that promised to deliver books upon orders, much like Amazon. Days later, their first order was placed from Mahbubnagar.

           Twenty orders followed the first one, which put them in business. By 2009, Flipkart started gaining reputation. The company expanded, introducing innovations, hiring more employees, delivering more orders and expanding across India.

           Gradually, their shipping categories expanded to include cameras, computers, laptops, large appliances, health and personal care products, and stationery. Within twelve years of its establishment, Flipkart became one of the biggest companies in India. 77 per cent of its shares are now held by Walmart.

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           Naraayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, N S Raghavan, S Gopalakrishnan, S D Shibulal, K Dinesh and Ashok Arora were all former employees of Patni Computer Systems. It was in 1981 that they decided to start a company of their own. The result was Infosys Consultants that started in the front room of Murthy’s house in Pune.

           Funding was a huge issue when Infosys began. Narayana Murthy borrowed money from his wife. From its humble beginning, Infosys grew to be the first Indian company to be listed on NASDAQ, an American Stock Exchange. Infosys worked to provide services that included software, business consulting, information technology and outsourcing.

           The client base grew and the headquarters was shifted to Bangalore in 1983 and by 1992, the company went public. By the mid-1990s, the company went global. They later developed software products for business operations, customer service, and commerce network domains. Today, Infosys is a very big name in Information Technology.

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