I picked up one of their give-away book tags recently that read "There are two types of companies - the quick and the dead!" No, this is no high-falutin' transnational company out to leave its footprint in a dozen continents/countries.

They are just a retail store, one of Chennai's most ubiquitous. Every Chennaite - well, almost - knows them. Thousands visit them every day.  Almost every out-of-towner who visits Chennai makes it a point to drop in.

They have expanded recently by acquiring adjacent space and adding a new wing, twice as big as the original one. Sales must be in lakhs. Stocks that should give their inventory manager sleepless nights. Hundreds of employees, no less. An advertising budget, perhaps in lacs - enough to make big companies blush.

Any thing to do with clothes you can buy from them. The prices start from a modest Rs 4/-($.10) for a kids  handkerchief to eye-popping silk sarees worth a lakh or two.

Yet, in spite of their growing size and revenues, they make it plain that customers are still their # 1 priority; that they are obliged to them for their business. Every customer is greeted with a smile at the entrance and made to feel special. Sorta like what Sam Walton started at Walmart, I hear.

For 3 years running, M/s Pothy's have been sending birthday cards to one of their little customers - my twins. Its nothing spectacular....just a simple birthday card, with two of their directors' signatures pre-printed. Yet this small deed, a simple act, a token of their rememberance, astonishes me. Which customer will not feel happy to be remembered on a special day? And the kids - they are delighted. They might turn out to be the store's customers for life, remembering this annual thoughtful deed. Who knows?

Perhaps the store is really giving credence to what Gandhiji said a long time ago - "A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider to our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so!"

:)