Six life lessons

Self-made billionaire and philanthropist Dr Bhupendra Kumar Modi is a maverick businessman. Born into a business family, the man has had a rapid and legendary ascent from the early 1980s, when he became famous for putting photocopy machines on every street corner in India. From the eponymous Modi Xerox partnership, he quickly became the go-to person for foreign companies looking to make an entry into India. An early champion of technology, he has augmented his wealth with forays into mobile and internet technology. As Chairman of the $2-billion (Dh7.34 billion) Spice Group, Modi, 63, now has his sights on conquering the mobile internet  market from Indonesia to the Ivory Coast. Since 2008, his company has been headquartered in Singapore and he recently accepted Singaporean citizenship. Fresh from a major three-year acquisition spree across South East Asia, Modi was in Dubai earlier this year to announce the market entry of S i2i Mobility, his mobile internet company. The company, formerly Spice Mobility, has  opened its first store at the Arabian Centre mall. GN Focus was among the first guests at his multimillion-dirham home in the Burj Khalifa, where he served tea and farsan, a Gujarati snack that he ate in traditional style. Comfortably seated on a suede couch in the understated apartment, he holds court effortlessly, with eager journalists and the proverbial billionaire’s entourage hanging on to his every word. “Mobile internet is the future,” he says simply. “The Middle East is just a slice of our go-to market strategy which includes Africa, India and the Asean nations.” Besides two Indonesian islands worth $200 million, Modi owns (at the time of writing this) 14 homes across the globe, just so that he can feel at home wherever he goes. Here, he shares the secret of his success through six life lessons.

Become a futurepreneur
“When I decided to bring Xerox to India, my father said I was crazy. But I knew it was worth pursuing. I still remember my father telling me, ‘Over my dead body!’ Being a futurepreneur means being able to see past what everyone else sees, and sometimes believing in something others don’t have the courage or vision to believe in,” he says. After the success of Modi Xerox, he launched Spice Communications in the nineties to tap into the nascent telecommunications sector, eventually selling the business to Idea Cellular for $600 million.

Grab every opportunity
“Every meeting, every trip and every conversation is an opportunity,” says Modi. He made his first million on a trip to Russia, where an order for $100 million worth of copiers was in a deadlock. The reason? “Rubles were not accepted by the US at the time.” Not only did he source the copiers for Russia, but the deal led him to open a factory in India, and allowed him to make a huge profit in the process. “I got a letter of credit opened in India, paid the US [company] in dollars and took a payment in Rubles, simple.” That was the start of Modi Xerox.

Become number one
Spice Group’s vision is to develop products and brands that can compete with the best in the business. S i2i Mobility plans to introduce cutting edge handsets that combine mobile functionality with smart device capabilities for high-speed voice and data capacity. Modi’s product development teams in Singapore work on products that can leverage mobile internet for both lifestyle and work by simultaneously working on hardware and software solutions that can merge easily with existing frameworks. “If you want to be at the top, invest in and work with the best.”

Climb every mountain
Modi raised eyebrows when he took an early sabbatical at the age of 50 — renounced his business interests, adopted Buddhism and chose to live in an ashram. But he soon returned with a new outlook. “Never be bound by boundaries either inherited or self-imposed. I became a Singaporean citizen because I am not bound by where I’m from, but where I can be. The decision to relocate was because the place aligns with my thinking and my goals, it’s secular, technologically advanced, and provides ample opportunities for growth; why would I say no to that?” 

Travel to learn

“Travel whenever and wherever you can, it’s good for the soul, mind and business. When you travel, you expand your knowledge base and your ability to cash in on opportunities. Planning and expanding S i2i Mobility has been really gruelling. However, what really makes up for it is that I’m travelling every two days, and whether I am in a place that I’ve been to before or am visiting for the first time, it teaches me something new. Did you know beach houses always cost more? I learnt that in LA and struck a great deal in Mumbai with that insight.”

Give back

Modi deliberately chose the emerging markets of Asia to provide equal opportunities to disadvantaged youth. In 2008, when he restructured the business, he set aside $5 million to fund and run the Spice Foundation, which actively supports programmes in health, education and the arts. “I enjoy changing people’s lives,” he says. “Giving back is not the same as giving opportunities. The youth in developing markets are victimised by colonisation, caste, gender, and racial discrimination; my aim is to remove this by providing opportunities to grow beyond these stereotypes.