Twelve Years, One Long Thank You

On 3 August 2026, I closed a chapter — twelve years with Miles2Go Consulting Services, ending not with a whimper but a quiet exhale. Long enough to watch an industry shift twice over and become the person junior consultants call for advice. Long enough to owe a lot of thank-yous.

To the universe — twelve years of things going sideways in ways no deck predicted: projects that should have failed and didn't, conversations that landed at exactly the right moment. I call that grace.

To my wife, who deserves more than a paragraph but is getting one anyway. She's sat through more "just one call" dinners than we can count, and absorbed my stress without ever feeling like a burden. Consulting is a two-person job where only one of us gets the recognition. This one's for you.

To my clients, who trusted a consultant with problems that never show up in the RFP. Some of you became case studies; all became education. Thank you for the trust and the patience when I got it wrong.

To my friends and associates, who put up with cancelled plans, late-night WhatsApp messages, and talk of "bandwidth" at dinner. Consulting makes worse friends of its practitioners for a while. You stayed anyway. And to that one friend who was more relentless for my success than me, thank you buddy! 

A handful of moments from these years, tagged #milestogo and #miles2go, tell the real story better than any résumé line.

Levista Coffee was a turnaround with a client who became an employer, pushing the brand into competitors' boardrooms — with Chennai Super Kings carrying it through IPL 2020 and Kamal Haasan appearing alongside it on Bigg Boss.

Thangamayil Jewellers was built on trust and shared respect for ethical practice — strong enough that the client asked to continue even after the engagement formally ended.

Specsmakers was mentorship disguised as business: ARR grew 40% in nine months with zero incremental marketing spend, a win for twenty-plus business managers — one of them, an area manager in Bangalore, later became a hospital's General Manager.

Fabelle Chocolates was deeply personal — serving the ITC Group, where my father worked as a factory worker for 33 years, by designing the kiosks that brought the brand to consumers.

TexValley, Erode was the hard lesson: a relationship where our advisory kept losing out to internal decisions, and the opportunity drained away slowly. Not every engagement ends the way you'd want.

Indian Terrain, followed by Minmini, was the moment I knew consulting was right for me — better suited to strategic work than to founder-led organisations, where authority and responsibility blur.

Twelve years compress strangely in memory. Stressful weeks blur; specific moments stay sharp — a handshake after a hard year, a 2 a.m. email answered, a friend who showed up anyway. 

Those are the moments My Retail Journey holds.

So: to the universe, my wife, my clients, my friends, and everyone who put up with me these twelve years — thank you. Miles2Go gave me not just a career, but an identity. All of you gave it meaning.

Here's to the next set of miles.

#Miles2Go

MAA: systemic failure vs. bureaucratic apathy

I happened to travel from Chennai on a work trip recently and was aghast to see literally no passengers at most of the retail outlets at the domestic terminal – outside and inside the security areas. Not even at the food outlets.

This was the airport which refused to get modernised in 2004 when the Congress Government, led by Late Manmohan Singh passed a bill to privatise airport operations in India.

Kolkata and Chennai airport staff  of AAI resisted vehemently for months together and won the battle for themselves, cheering and encouraging each other. Little did they know how they will fare in the war, 2 decades later. 

Airport operations at Mumbai and Delhi were handed over to the GVK Group and the GMR Group for redevelopment (Brownfield Airports) while swanky new facilities came up at Bangalore and Hyderabad (Greenfield facilities) led by Zurich Airport Consortium and the GMR Group, respectively.

Over the years, the top 4 airports – all managed by private operators rake in over INR 5,000 crores in Airport Retail revenues, across shopping, F&B, Lounges, hotels and hospitality, including sale of duty free products in international departures and arrivals.  

Mamta Banerjee took it on her to ensure Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose airport in Kolkata was brought up to world class standards. It was her first stint in the CM seat and she succeeded.

The state government of Tamil Nadu, back then led by Late K Karunanidhi had identified a vast tract of land in the industrial corridor of Sriperumbudur, boosting manufacturing and exports, similar to the Manesar ecosystem in NCR.

When J Jayalalitha returned to power in 2014, she turned this down and instead her government identified a suitable land in the deep south of Chennai, beyond Chengelpet. She assured metro rail connectivity, as the facility was over 70 kms from the city centre.

Later, when MK Stalin took charge in 2021, his cabinet approved Parandur, north-west of Sriperumbudur as the suitable facility keeping in mind the proximity to the industrial cluster of Sricity in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. 

It was at this location, where the present Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay began his election campaign in 2025, assuring farmers that their agricultural land shall not be compromised for air travel.

20 years since the airport revolution began in India, Chennai Airport has not just failed to have a new airport, it has lost precious cargo and passenger traffic to Bangalore and Hyderabad. 

At the moment, Chennai ranks sixth in managing passengers annually, after Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata in that order.

That the state has 3 other international airports at Madurai, Coimbatore and Trichy is not a consolation. 

Regular fares from Chennai to Singapore are cheaper than from Tiruchirapalli to Singapore! It is not the load factor that matters to airlines, rather it is the Revenue per Seat which they mostly focus on!

Just like me thousands of passengers, those flying over 12 times a year, post regularly on social media about the airport apathy. Hundreds of them tag the handles of agencies of the union government. While IRCTC takes swift action if the a/c is not cooling enough of if the rest rooms are looking dirty, AAI is in a different league altogether.

Tenders for shops were given in 2019 to an operator with ZERO experience in the field of Airport Retail – like many PSUs, AAI also relies on H1 or L1 bidders for revenue and expenses – the highest or the lowest – quality and experience are not so important. 

The present operator, who took over from the previous one is doing a great job in the maintaining the looks of the stores; but the operator does not run the business itself – so the shops add to the decorative element of the airport.

Passengers pass by the shops; but do not remember their names! Ask a regular shopper if they have seen a particular store and the answer is mostly in the negative. Kind live babus.

Bira 91 and the lesson every entrepreneur should take away

Bira 91 was once one of India’s most talked-about startup success stories. 

Founded by Ankur Jain in 2015, the brand brought a fresh, urban, craft-beer identity to a market long dominated by conventional labels. 

It looked like a perfect founder story: a distinctive product, strong consumer appeal, investor backing, and a growing presence across bars, restaurants, and retail channels.

But the latest chapter in the Bira 91 story is a sobering one. 

Jain has stepped down from the board and executive roles of B9 Beverages as on 23 July 2026, after a settlement with lenders and investors. What began as a bold brand-building journey eventually turned into a case study in how rapid growth, weak governance, and regulatory missteps can overwhelm even a celebrated consumer brand.

The early years were all about momentum. Bira 91 tapped into a young, aspirational audience and made craft beer feel cool, modern, and accessible. 

The brand’s design language, product positioning, and retail visibility helped it stand out in a crowded market. For a while, it seemed to have cracked the code on how to build a premium beverage brand in India.

However, success also brought pressure. 

Expansion demands, high operating costs, cash burn, and a complex regulatory environment began to expose the cracks. In a heavily regulated sector like alcohol, compliance is not a side issue. 

It is the business itself. Any structural or legal change, if handled poorly, can trigger serious disruption across production, distribution, and sales.

That appears to be one of the biggest lessons from Bira 91. 

A business can have strong branding, enthusiastic investors, and consumer love, but still falter if its back-end systems are not built for scale. When cash flow tightens, salaries get delayed, employees lose confidence, and vendors start stepping back, the damage spreads quickly. 

The brand story may still shine on the outside, but the operating model begins to break down inside.

For entrepreneurs, the Bira 91 episode is especially relevant because it shows the difference between growth and durability. Growth gets attention. 

Durability keeps the business alive. Founders often focus on market excitement, funding rounds, and expansion milestones. But the real test comes in discipline: governance, compliance, working capital, and execution.

There is also a people lesson here. 

Companies do not scale on branding alone. They scale on trust. When employees, lenders, and partners begin to question leadership stability, even a strong consumer brand can lose momentum fast. 

That is why transparency and internal discipline matter as much as product innovation.

Bira 91’s story is not just about a founder’s exit. 

It is about the hard truth that many entrepreneurs learn too late: a great idea can win the market, but only a well-run company can survive it. For retail and consumer businesses, that is the real takeaway. 

Build the brand, yes. But build the system stronger.