There’s nothing new in this phrase. We’ve all heard it and seen it happening around us. Even then today I decided to write my thoughts on this since I believe that it has far more depth in it than what it communicates on the surface. It is not the time alone but the ‘timing’ that holds the key.

Many years ago Kabir had written, ‘Dheere Dheere re mana, Dheere sab kuch hoye, Mali seenche sau ghara, Ritu aaye phal hoye’. What a profound statement, which is equally valid hundreds of years after it was written and probably will retain its essence for as long as the mankind exists. What it effectively means is that things happen in due course, when they should. However much we water the plants we will get fruits only when the season is right. Once again we talk about the importance of time and more importantly, ‘timing’.

We are today in the ‘fast forward’ world. Society is becoming more and more impatient. We want all the results at the press of a button. Indeed, in many cases we are able to achieve it also. I remember that in my father’s generation building own house was something people used to plan around the time of their retirement. Buying a car was a dream which had no time frame to be bought and first car had to be a second hand car (that’s what it was called then, not the used car as it is called now). Today by the time we are two years in our job we are already thinking of buying a car and a house. But the context of my discussion today is not this. It is about the time and timing.

In early nineties credit cards were a luxury. Only few people had them, it was difficult to get the cards and even more difficult to get a substantial credit limit. We used to pay joining and annual fee and there were regular debates about the ills of using plastic money. Often people worried that we will spend more than what we can afford, get into a debt trap and will be open to various kinds of frauds. The industry was barely surviving and was just trudging along. There was a one big benefit of getting interest free credit days and facility of making payment once in a month. Then suddenly one company launched a product called ‘e-cash card’. It was something like today’s debit card where you deposited money in your account in advance and spent it through the card. It was not successful and failed in the initial period only, partly due to regulatory issues also. But the biggest reason it failed was because people could not agree to deposit the money in their account first and then spend. First there was a resistance to the card purchases itself and after removing the free credit period from the scheme of things there was no charm left. If we are to spend our own money, then why the card, was a simple question people asked? The product flopped miserably. But look at today’s scenario where debit cards are being used by people so willingly. And the biggest selling point is that we are spending our own money and there’s no risk of getting into a debt trap. Something that was a weakness then has become strength today. At that time people were not prepared for this product. In the world of business there are many such examples where the pioneers who saw the future themselves or tried to import the concepts that were very successful in the west, launched the products too soon only to realize the importance of timing. These were the ideas whose time had not come when they were launched.

I’ll give some examples here just to connect with the thoughts that I’m having. One of the first departmental stores in India to sell groceries in the organized corporate sector was Nanz in Delhi. It folded within, I guess, 24 months of its launch. Among other reasons for its failure were why should people travel few kilometres away from their houses to buy something that could be bought from the neighbourhood store, or why should we pay even a slight premium to buy quality product. The concept of large grocery stores died, only to re-emerge a decade later in a successful way with the launch of Big Bazaar, Spencers, Nilgiris, D’Mart, Reliance Fresh etc. Though some of them lost out to the competition, the concept has flourished. Nanz was probably launched a decade sooner than when its time had arrived. Timing was not right. Most people would remember the dot com bubble burst of late nineties. Many people invested in the upcoming field and lost out miserably. None of these ‘portals’ could prove to be viable, though they got substantial investments due to the ‘eye-balls’ they received. In fact this terminology was invented at that time only. Everybody who invested in these ventures lost. We still remember the names of these portals and some of the people who launched them, but they don’t do business today. This is when e-commerce has become such a hot business today. Once again, time and timing were not correct.

Question is, is this true for business only? In my view it is not the case. This is equally applicable to almost every walk of life. During hey days of Sharmila Tagore as an actress she once posed for a magazine in a bikini. It became a sensation then. It was a really a bold move for her. But if any actress did that today would it cause any flutter? Nobody would even glance twice at the picture. Times have changed now. Sharmila Tagore did it much before the time had arrived for the idea. There is this famous story about Field Marshall Manekshaw that when Indira Gandhi asked him to attack Pakistan on the eastern front he told her that Madam you can give the order to attack, but when to launch the attack will be decided by me. He chose the timing, after monsoons were over and when he had no fear of his tanks getting stuck in the riverine areas of Bangladesh. We all know the outcome. The best example would be of India getting independence. We’ve all read about the long freedom struggle, both violent and non-violent variety. But when we got independence in 1947, there was no large scale freedom movement going on. Last such movement was the Quit India movement of 1942. In fact the second world war had just got over in 1945, Britain had started emerging out of the destructive effects of the war, Allies had won, Britain was a strong nation and world was preparing for United Nations with five permanent members, including Great Britain. Despite this, India got its freedom. Because the time for its freedom had come now. Mr. Ratan Tata transformed the Tata Group as the Chairman. But before he became the Chairman in his fifties he had been a CEO of couple of companies. He was an utter failure there. Some companies in fact closed down. But a failed CEO became the most celebrated Chairman of the most respected business house in India later. His time had come then. In late eighties I was living in Colaba of Bombay in an apartment provided by the government to my father. One of my friends from Delhi visited me and after a while asked me a very innocent question – Sanjay, where do rich people in Bombay stay? I was quite taken aback at this and asked him why did he ask this question. He said that all he saw were flats there and no bunglows. He expected the rich to be living in Bunglows and not flats. I could barely control my smile. We then set out on the scooter towards Colaba and Cuffe Parade. One by one I showed him the building where Mr. Tata lived, Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani lived, where the actress Nutan lived and many other big names. For my friend it was quite a revelation that moneyed class can also live in flats, which are meant for the hoi polloi. But today there’s a movement towards apartments, luxury apartments with people getting away from the stand alone bunglows, even in the B & C class towns of the country. This was an idea whose time hadn’t come then. When after completing my B.Tech. I got an admission in MBA I was criticized by almost everybody by saying things like – you will join private sector and become somebody’s servant, what is the need of spending so much money of your parents when they have already educated you up to engineering, someone even said that as an engineer you can earn much more under the table but in private sector nothing of this sort will ever happen etc. But look at the scenario today. If an engineering student doesn’t join MBA he is questioned. Probably when I was a student I was ahead of the curve of the society.

I can go on and on to give such examples from many walks of life where certain things have happened only when they had to happen, when the time was ripe and not whether they were good or not or brilliant or not. An idea is successful only when the ‘timing’ is right, when the situation is ‘ripe’. For each of the examples that I’ve given here I can also tell the reasons why they succeeded when they did. But probably it is not required since most of my friends and readers can make out the same themselves. What is important for us to understand that for any idea to succeed, for any event to happen, there is an environment that is required to facilitate the event. Just to connect, when we won in 1971 war, apart from the military preparations what was also created was the public opinion inside the country as well as globally to support the initiative, to make people believe that this was the only solution left for India failing which we will get into bigger problems. It was a set of circumstances of Bengalis being unhappy with West Pakistan, their having a charismatic leader, atrocities by the Pakistani army, committed cadre in form of Mukti Bahini and Indian intervention that resulted in creation of a new state.

My Little Thought Of Life in this context is that when we take some important decisions in life we need to be extremely conscious of the timing. In doing this there are no formulae to help, there’s no arithmetic. The only thing available to us is our intelligence to analyse the situation, look at the surrounding environment, see if more factors are supportive or not, analyse own strengths if they also support the decision or not and then make a move. A premature step forward may not only result in failure but also our getting out of the race with even future possibilities getting over for us. An idea will be successful only when it’s time has come, not before. Challenge is in identifying the right time by analysing the situation around us and then making a move.

To my friends and readers I wish a greater ability to analyse the situation to implement an idea when it’s time has come.