Wednesday, November 16, 2011

ON AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ROUTE


It's a known fact that the entrepreneurship culture in India is gaining momentum at a rapid pace. In the light of the same, is the Indian market is conducive for budding entrepreneurs ?

Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice. - Peter Drucker


A Mckinsey & Company-Nasscom report estimated that India needed at least 8,000 new businesses to achieve its target of building a USD 87 billion IT sector by 2008. Similarly, in the next 10 years, 110-130 million Indian citizens will be searching for jobs, including 80-100 million looking for their first jobs. This does not include disguised unemployment of over 50 per cent among the 230 million employed in rural India.


Since traditional large employers including the government and old economy players may find it difficult to sustain this level of employment in the future, it is entrepreneurship that will create these new jobs and opportunities.


INSEAD's 'Building Businesses in India' course is designed for those who want to understand the kind of companies that will come out of India's entrepreneurial explosion and how the Indian context will shape the enterprises founded in India over the next 10 to 20 years. Says Patrick Turner, affiliate professor of entrepreneurship at INSEAD, "This course is primarily designed to help acclimatise a diverse group of participants to the realities of doing business in India. The key message is that India is an important global business destination and that an MBA student today must learn about the opportunities here and understand the ground realities. There are essentially two kinds of individuals who take this course - the first are Indian expats who have earned a significant part of their educational or professional experience outside India and the second are individuals from varied nationalities who recognise that learning about India and what it really takes to do business here will be critical for their careers."


Speaking of whether the Indian market is conducive for budding entrepreneurs, K Vaitheeswaran, founder and chief operating officer, India Plaza, an online shopping site says, "The Indian economy is one amongst the very few in the world, which is still quite optimistic. With the pessimism globally, investors are willing to invest money in entrepreneurs who have ideas and passion to build new businesses. But the best thing that has happened in India in the past few years is that the stigma associated with the word 'failure' has lessened considerably. Freed from this stigma, entrepreneurs are now willing to start on their own."


According to Rajagopalan Babu, founder and CEO of Enteg, a SAP services company, "In developed countries, entrepreneurs find it difficult to attract manpower to join them to actualise an innovative idea. Indian customers are always looking for new ways to reduce costs and are willing to try new ideas proposed by young companies. The western way of structured business seems to be not working. India has its own way of running the business and creating value. Our conservative policies provide a relatively stable economic environment for budding entrepreneurs." So how does the future landscape of entrepreneurship in India look like? "Several young professionals are venturing into businesses now. Thanks to the stable job market, if something goes wrong, they can go back to their jobs again. As the developed world is becoming cost-conscious, it is a great opportunity to start a new business in India," adds Babu. "I expect more business to get started in India in the next five years. Passionate people armed with capital and ideas will surely create many new business models. I also expect some of them to become globally successful brands. In my opinion, the best way to create more jobs and reduce unemployment would be to encourage entrepreneurship," notes Vaitheeswaran. The entrepreneurship culture in India - from family owned businesses to modernday ventures - has evolved and how! An increasingly large number of young people today are willing to abstain from the "safe" path in favour of the road less travelled, but one that provides greater learning.
(Sheetal Srivastava ET1NOV11)

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