Entrepreneurship Learnings

Asst. Prof. Anoop Sharma on EDP Interventions

What is Entrepreneurship?

The Process of Bearing Risk of ‘Running a Business’

Who is an Entrepreneur?

A person who takes the risk of converting a new idea into reality.

A vision-driven individual who assumes significant personal and financial risk to

start or expand a business.

Have a Look@ ‘The Builder of Indian Industry’ :The ‘Iconic Entrepreneur’, we ever had..:

Shee Jehangir Ratanji

Dadabhoy Tata

Customary Definition of ‘Entrepreneurship’

• Entrepreneurship: a way of thinking, reasoning, and acting that is:

– Opportunity obsessed– Holistic in approach– and leadership balanced

(This definition of entrepreneurship has evolved over the past two decades from research at Babson College and the Harvard Business School and has recently been enhanced by Stephen Spinelli, Jr., and John H. Muller, Jr., Term Chair at Babson College.)

Is there inborn talent required? Assume that the answer is ‘YES’:

– then we can identify the main characteristics– if we have them, fine - no others need to apply! – we could start spotting talent in kindergarten– we could "stream" these people– we could discourage people without these talents

Now Answer this.. Entrepreneurs: Born or Made?

Situational more than personality

Who is an Entrepreneur?

AgeDistribution

forStarting Company

Ability

Age

20 3025 35 4540

Flexibility

Who is an Entrepreneur? (Contd..)Manager’s Opportunities

PerceivedCapability

Future Goals

Change Status Quo

Possible

Blocked

SatisfiedmanagerEntrepreneur

Frustratedmanager

Classicbureaucrat

Requirements to be an entrepreneur

Innovation, Creativity Risk Taking Organization

An Admiring ‘Bitter-Fact’…

In India, where over 30 crores people are living below the poverty line, it is simply impossible for any government to provide means of livelihood to everyone.

Burch's Entrep.Personality Traits

1.A desire to achieve Conquer problems, create successful venture

2.Hard work Their workload is very hard to match

3.Nurturing quality

4.Acceptance of responsibility Morally, legally and mentally accountable

5.Reward orientation Want be rewarded for their efforts

Contd..6.Optimism

Anything is possible

7.Orientation to excellence Pride in something first class

8.Organization They are wholly "take charge" people

9.Profit orientation Profit primarily a gauge of performance

Dhirubhai Ambani alias Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani was born on December 28, 1932, at Chorwad, Gujarat, into a Modh family.

His father was a school teacher. Dhirubhai Ambani started his entrepreneurial career by selling "bhajias" to pilgrims in Mount Girnar over the weekends.

Another Iconic & Benchmarking Entrepreneur of the

Nation..

After doing his matriculation at the age of 16, Dhirubhai moved to Aden, Yemen. He worked there as a gas-station attendant, and as a clerk in an oil company. He returned to India in 1958 with Rs 50,000 and set up a textile trading company.

Assisted by his two sons, Mukesh and Anil, Dhiru Bhai Ambani built India's largest private sector company, Reliance India Limited, from a scratch.

Over time his business has diversified into a core specialisation in petrochemicals with additional interests in telecommunications, information technology, energy, power, retail, textiles, infrastructure services, capital markets, and logistics.

An Indian IT chief who's really made it big without dropping his ethical

precepts by the wayside is Nagawara Ramarao Narayana Murthy, Chairman of Infosys.

Born in 1946, Murthy's father was a schoolteacher in Kolar district, Karnataka, India

Another Iconic & Benchmarking Entrepreneur of the Nation..

A bright student, Murthy went on to acquire a degree in Electrical Engineering from Mysore University and later studied Computer Science at the IIT-Kanpur, India.

Narayan Murthy began his career with Patni Computer Systems in Pune.

In 1981, Narayana Murthy founded Infosys with six other software professionals.

Murthy, Sudha (Wife) & Family

The Infosys legend began in 1981 when Narayana Murthy dreamt of forming his own company, along with six friends. There was a minor hitch, though-he didn't have any seed money.

Luckly, like many Indian women who save secretly without their husband's knowledge, his wife Sudha-then an engineer with Tatas-had saved Rs 10,000. This was Murthy's first big break.

AWARDS RECEIVED by Muthy’s Umpire:

In June 2000, Asia week magazine featured him in

a list of Asia's 50 Most Powerful People.

In 2001, Narayana Murthy was named by

TIME/CNN as one of the 25 most influential global

executives.

He was the first recipient

of the Indo-French Forum

Medal (2003) and was

voted the World Entrepreneur

of the Year - 2003 by Ernst and Young.

CONTD…

The Economist ranked Narayana Murthy eighth on the list of the 15 most admired global leaders (2005) and Narayan Murthy also topped the Economic Times Corporate Dossier list of India's most powerful CEOs for two consecutive years - 2004 and 2005.

In December 2005, Narayana Murthy was voted as the 7th most admired CEO/Chairman in the world in a global study conducted by Burson-Marsteller with the Economist Intelligence Unit . The list included 14 others with distinguished names such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett.

CONTD… In 2008, he was awarded the ‘Padma Vibhushan’, a

second highest civilian award by India and Légion d'honneur, the highest civilian award awarded

by France.

Murthy also holds over 26 honorary doctorates from universities across the world.

REASONS FOR SUCCESS OF

INVEST IN WELL UNDERSTOOD , PROVEN PRODUCTS AND NOT JUST R&D.

WHEN DEALING WITH INVESTORS, ALWAYS UNDER-PROMISE AND OVER-DELIVER.

GIVE STAKEHOLDERS BAD NEWS PROACTIVELY AND EARLY.

HAS A HEALTHY SENSE OF PARANOIA AND RESPECT FOR THE COMPETITION.

SPEED, IMAGINATION AND EXCELLENCE.

LEADERS IN THE MAKING.

The Entrepreneurial Process

• It is opportunity/marketopportunity/market driven• It is driven by a lead entrepreneurlead entrepreneur

and an entrepreneurial teamentrepreneurial team• It is resource parsimoniousparsimonious and creativecreative• It depends on the fitfit and balancebalance among

these• It is integratedintegrated and holisticholistic

We Asked Murthy : What is that one moment that made you think of

starting Infosys? It was a Story long back..In 1974, when I was holed up in a small 8 x 8 ft.

room in a railway station at Nis, a border town between what was the then Yugoslavia (currently Serbia) and Bulgaria.

I realized that the best solution for countries like India to solve the problem of poverty was entrepreneurship and capitalism. I realized how communist rule punished its citizens without reason and just based on biases.

I still remember the words of the guards at the railway station who released me after 3.5 days of detention that I was from a friendly country called India and that was why they were letting me go! Then I got on to the train, a goods train, going from Nis to Istanbul. It was a 21-hour journey, and I had not eaten for 5-6 days before that.

Throughout the journey, I was mulling over this injustice, the system of communism, and the problem of poverty in India,that is when I decided to become an entrepreneur and a capitalist.

I had read a little about various economic philosophies by then and realized that the only way countries like India could overcome poverty was through the creation of jobs, which required entrepreneurship.

How did you select your co-founders? And what was each one's role in building Infosys?

Ans: My colleagues were very young with hardly a year or two of experience in software engineering. Therefore, I selected people on the basis of compatibility of values

Nandan Nilekani, N. S. Raghavan, Kris Gopalakrishnan, S. D. Shibulal, K Dinesh, and Ashok Arora had a very similar value system.

They were all from the middle class and they believed in deferred gratification. They were ready to run the business honestly and ethically; they were ready to work very hard; and they were satisfied with very low salaries in the beginning.

Even today, our salaries are the lowest in the industry. They believed in team spirit. Team spirit is about making sure the other persons in the team do not fail.

They brought complementary values. For example, Raghavan was the people's person. He looked like he understood human resources.

Nandan looked like he was a sales-oriented person, I thought I knew a bit of strategy and finance, Kris liked technology.

Shibulal and Dinesh seemed like good project managers. Ashok Arora was a fine designer.

Who selected the name Infosys and on what basis was it chosen?

Ans: When we decided to start the company on December 29, 1980, I chose Mr. NS Raghavan, Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, and Mr. Nandan Nilekani to work with me.

I asked them to think of a name. Generally, I am a very impatient person. So, I told them that they had to come back to me with a name in 48 hours else I would choose a name.

For some reason, they did not come back with a name. Therefore, I chose the name 'Infosys' because we wanted to be in the business of designing information systems. So, Infosys is an acronym for information systems.

What will be the qualities needed to succeed in

this new world? new world?at will be the qualities needed to succeed in this new world?

First and foremost, we need the entrepreneurial spirit.

Outside India, this spirit has been very evident in the IT industry.

35% of the start-ups in Silicon Valley are by Indians.

We need to have similar risk-taking ability within the country as well.

Qualities of an Entrepreneur:

1. Common Sense:

2. Specialised Knowledge of the Field:

3. Self Confidence:

4. Ability to Get Things Done:

5. Creativity:

6. Leadership:

Qualities of an Entrepreneur:

7. Communication Skill:

8. Willingness to take Risk:

9. Willingness to Accept Criticism:

10. Self Motivation and

11. Determination :

Thank-you!!