Amazon 'SMBhav': Bezos charms sellers as Murthy cuts speech to 5 min

After weeks of riot control duty in one of the coldest  winters, Shalander Kumar was at peace on Wednesday morning. The Delhi Police constable patiently guided a large gathering at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (JNS),  but not for a concert or a sporting event. “The richest man in the world is coming today,” Kumar said, explaining the extraordinarily long queues. 

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, at $117-billion net worth, didn’t disappoint the crowd. “The goal is to ensure  more people can participate in the prosperity of India. This jacket that I’m wearing was given to me by one of the SMBs (small and medium businesses) that I visited outside,” Bezos said amidst much cheer. The Nehru or maybe the Modi jacket that he wore added to the charged atmosphere. The enchanted gathering didn’t care that Bezos arrived fashionably late. 

But keynote speaker Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy, who has business relations with Amazon, was clearly upset with the event starting late. “We are delayed by an hour and a half. I was supposed to speak for 20 minutes, but I will finish it in five minutes because I’m not used to delays,” Murthy said from the podium without mincing words.

He shut off his microphone exactly 5 minutes later. The visitors, who made it to the venue early morning for Smbhav, a mega summit of small and medium businesses (most of them partners of the American e-commerce firm), couldn’t be sure if Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was going to show up. Amazon India, hosting the event, had kept Bezos’ itinerary under wraps. It’s a different matter that while the Seattle-headquartered e-commerce giant remained tight-lipped, Bezos broke the protocol to announce his arrival on Twitter on Tuesday. The tweeted picture of Bezos paying respect to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat on a “beautiful afternoon’’ soon after landing in India had gone viral in no time.     

    

“True leaders are like this... Such a powerful person, but so humble,” middle-aged businessman Prateek Sharma said when asked about Bezos. Sharma was not alone, his euphoric reaction was echoed by most who had paid a steep ticket price to attend the event. The idea of a start-up founder-turned-global tycoon criss-crossing industries as varied as retail, media, and space exploration had indeed struck a chord with the aspiring crowd, especially in the backdrop of an economic slowdown.

Onlookers compared the Amazon event with Google India’s flagship do at the same venue last September. While the Google event was on time and had better queue management as well as WiFi for all, Amazon’s Smbhav was high on theatrics even as traders’ association CAIT stated there were protests against online deep discounting across 300 locations.  

Almost oblivious to the traders’ protest, Bezos lit the ceremonial lamp, folding his hand in obeisance, after a 25-minute fireside chat with Amazon country head Amit Agarwal. Once Bezos had spoken and realism had dawned, Rajesh, owner of a small fashion boutique in Jaipur, said, “this event gives me an opportunity to visit Delhi, nothing else. Asking more small sellers to register may not be a good idea when existing ones like us aren’t getting enough business.” Then there were other sellers who pointed out their products were not getting eyeballs in the large marketplace platform, and waited to speak to Amazon about it.     Amazonians are not ready to admit there’s a glut of sellers. They would rather repeat what Bezos said in his address: the 21st century belongs to India.