Aban Pestonjee is one of the few Sri Lankan entrepreneurs interviewed and evaluated by Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts. Aban Pestonjee, founder and president of
Abans Group, described the unusual origins of her business in Sri Lanka in 1968, when she was a young housewife and mother of three children . She was overwhelmed by the constant demands of the housekeeper. She remembered thinking at the time: "This is not the meaning of life...Here, I must do something better for the housekeeper."
This is how the Abans Group was born. In the interview, Pestonjee described his originality in overcoming Sri Lanka’s closed economy and prohibiting the import of foreign luxury goods, and how he developed his business model around customer satisfaction and product warranty, these two qualities Has become the cornerstone of today's Abangsi Group. . In the interview, Pestonjee described his struggles to raise funds in the early days of his business, when he was buying, refurbishing and reselling second-hand equipment such as washing machines and floor polishers in his garage. He also considered some strategies to differentiate himself from male competitors, including his strong awareness of the importance of big-name brand products to Sri Lankan consumers. She recalled: "I had an advantage over [the competitors]." "As a housewife (myself), I knew exactly what the housewife wanted." Pestonjee went on to explain Sri Lanka's economic development in the late 1970s. How opening affects its growing business. He outlined how to obtain franchise contracts with major British brands such as Hoover and Electrolux, and Japanese brands such as Mitsubishi. Pestonjee spoke about the challenges he overcame, overcoming manufacturers' concerns that one agent represents multiple competing brands.
He also reflected on the challenges he faced when he started to introduce Korean brands (such as LG (formerly Venus)) in Sri Lanka. By emphasizing the recognition of Abans and the after-sales service provided by the company, she gradually began to persuade skeptical consumers in Sri Lanka to try Korean brands, and revealed how the power of private brands and the company's reputation for quality have gradually grown. Since the company was founded in the late 1960s, over time, the Abans Group began to get involved in the fields of catering, hospitality, finance, advertising and development, and began to get involved in Dubai and India. In the interview, he explained that many of these new initiatives were led by his children when they joined the family business after studying abroad.
she revealed that sometimes she initially doubted some of the children's suggestions, but in the end she trusted their judgment and gave them the freedom to make decisions for the group. She attributed the children's Abans contract to the McDonald's franchise and the establishment of the group's financial department to her children's persistence. However, despite the important role played by the family, Pestonjee emphasized the role of professional managers in the company and described the deliberations and preparations for the company to go public in the next few years. Pestonjee concluded the interview by discussing the corporate culture of the Abans Group and how to maintain the same level of service and commitment to quality with more than 13,000 employees.
she explained her practice of continuing to visit Abans showrooms on the island, the strategy of relocating employees to new locations in order to avoid complacency and work stoppages, and the focus and investment in employee training. He also reviewed the group’s social and environmental responsibility initiatives and the group’s ties with Sri Lanka’s shrinking Parsi community.
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