What Makes Virgin Group Different From Others
Virgin has grown to be one of the most successful conglomerate companies, how did a boy with dyslexia, who dropped out of high school, develop one of the most popular brands in the world? Under his leadership Virgin has expanded into sectors such as travel, telecommunications, health, banking, music, airlines, employing over 71,000 people in 35 countries.
Young Richard dropped out of school at 15 because of dyslexia. As a young man, Richard was interested in worldly issues, he noticed an uprise of students against the Vietnam War. So at seventeen, he launched, a student magazine to campaign against the Vietnam War.
Sir Richard’s youth was hard, his mom once said
‘The fact that we never had any money was a very good thing’-Eve Branson
Having no money made young Richard work hard. He also had a love for sports and competition, which allowed him to start hundreds of companies.
A few years into the magazine, Branson started a mail-order record business, selling cheap records than anyone else at the time. But then there was a mail-order strike for 6 weeks, during which he heard a music track “Tubular Bells” by Mike Oldfield’s, the track was good but because they were no vocals, no company would publish it. Frustrated from not being to find finding a company, young Richard started a record company with the name, Virgin Records. And so the Virgin Brand was born in 1970. In 1971, the first Virgin Record shop opens on Oxford Street, London. The record became one of the biggest selling albums of the decade by selling five million copies. Virgin Record created credibility by signing bands such as SEX PISTOLS and the Rolling Stones.
At 28 Sir Richard was scheduled to take American airlines from Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands. As the flight got canceled, he rented a plane and sold the remaining seats to other passengers that were scheduled for the same flight. After landing a passenger told Sir Richard to:
“Sharpen up your service”
This gave him an idea, the next day sir Richard rang up Boeing and asked if they had a second hand 747 for sale, but instead of buying the plane completely, he leased it for a year. Virgin Atlantic was going in business with competitors such as British Airways, PanAm, TWA. Seeing a new competitor, British Airways did everything to stop Virgin Atlantic. As the story goes, British Airways called Virgin customers, pretending to be calling from Virgin Atlantic, telling travelers their flights were canceled and offered to rebook them on British Airways. Virgin ended up taking British Airways to court, this turned out to be one of the most painful trials: “And that in order to keep all the jobs protected at Virgin Records and the airline, I needed to sell something.” — Sir Richard. That something was Virgin Records, in 1992, with tears rolling down at the buyout meeting, Sir Richard sold Virgin Records. “It is a very hard decision. I mean, it’s a very necessary decision in order to protect everything else you have” — Sir Richard. Courts found British Airways guilty and fined them $945,000. Sir Richard distribute the money equally among employees.
As successful as Virgin group has been, they also have had to come over failures. In 1994 Virgin launched a beverage, Virgin Cola, which caught the attention of Coca-Cola. Virgin Cola was outselling coke in Britain, in an attempt to downplay coke, Sir Richards arrived in Times Square with a tank and crushed Coca-Cola cans, as the cans were flying around; the tank then pointed at a sign of Coke. This publicity stunt was not taken kindly by Coca-Cola. The next day, Virgin Cola disappeared from retailers across Britain, getting replaced, with coke products. In 1995 Virgin cinemas opened in Britain but they were discontinued in 2002. In 1996 Virgin group opened doors to Virgin Brides, selling 1,000 bridal and 4,000 bridesmaid dresses a year, but as it turned out, the cost of business was misjudged and they discontinue Virgin Brides.
These failures did not stop Sir Richard from getting involved in other sectors, some of Virgin successful ventures include the Virgin Cosmetics Company, Virgin Limobike, Virgin Active Health club, Virgin Trains, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Media, Virgin Money, Virgin Holidays, Virgin Books, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Rail. In 1987 Sir Richard successfully flew a balloon across the Atlantic. The balloon traveled 2,900 miles in a record-breaking time of 33 hours and reaches speeds of 130 miles per hour. This stunt helped him start, Virgin Balloon Flight. They currently have 148 launch sites in the UK and 3 in Italy.
Eight of Virgin branded companies have become billion-dollar enterprises operating across five sectors and three continents. In total, Sir Richard is known to have started five hundred companies, out of those 500, 200 had to shut down. Virgin group success is Sir Richard's big thinking
“The best bit of advice I think I can give to any manager of a company is find somebody better than yourself to do the day-to-day running, And then free yourself up to think about the bigger picture. By freeing myself up, I’ve been able to dream big and move Virgin forward into lots of different areas”— Sir Richard
By encouraging employees to innovate and take risks without fear of failure, performing wild stunts, looking out for opportunities that could be improved, relentless efforts, learning from mistakes, constantly discovering, Virgin group has established confidence in their customers. The man behind Virgin is still going strong and continues to expand his more than fifty-year-old legacy. His incredible journey isn’t just about creating wealth, but also to put it to good use. Sir Richard has pledged 3 billion dollars in the coming 10 years to reduce the effects of global warming. He had helped deliver 40,000 blankets for refugees in Jordan. He has been a regular philanthropist to educational charities working in Africa. If anything Virgin’s story teaches us to learn from mistakes and move on, never allow mistakes in your life to stop you.
