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"Moving Beyond the Metros" – Entrepreneurship Conference by Great Lakes – 15th Dec 2008
Chennai's premier B-school, Great Lakes Institute of Management organized its first Entrepreneurship Conference to further the cause of free & private enterprises. Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan, VC and CEO of Cognizant inaugurated the one day conference. Dr. T.V. Somanathan, Secretary to the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu was also present. The conference
brought together thought leaders from academia and real entrepreneurial ecosystem providing a platform to exchange and share the knowledge among the various players like entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, academic researchers, angels, VCs &others .
Speaking at the inauguration Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan said "We can emerge much stronger by learning from each downturn and flexibly changing our policies in the right direction. He said “Be tough and competent, failure should not be an option and leverage technology and you can set any outrageous goals” .He gave the example of how Progressive insurance Inc., that reduced the cost of processing claims by introducing technology. These were the mantras that Cognizant practices
Dr. T. V. Somnathan in his address defined entrepreneurship as spotting and assessing opportunities at the right time and then taking it forward with hard work and ambition. In his opinion it is not the role of government to mass produce entrepreneurs. Govt. can only catalyze the culture of entrepreneurship by removing the blocks that obstruct smooth flow. Such as regulatory changes to facilitate setting up business like single window policies, reducing the number of approvals required etc. to encourage the process. Simultaneously, subsidies provided to industry for setting up business in T1 cities should be removed or restructured so that industry realizes the true price of input costs in T1 cities. This would leave them with no option but to explore opportunities in T2/3 cities.
Dr. Bala Balachandran founder & Dean, Great Lakes said "There is a strong need for entrepreneurial ventures to fill the gap created by the closure of several companies due to the global melt down." He stressed on the need for a focused MBA program for entrepreneurship in the SME sector and mentioned about undertaking the plan forward in India with Kellogg School of business through collaboration. Entrepreneurship is at the heart of economic growth of any nation, and India must also create and nurture entrepreneurs in large numbers to reach the global economic leadership status that it is expecting to achieve. In this endeavor Business Schools have a significant role to play, by developing and disseminating the requisite knowledge, models, methods and processes, besides training and developing Entrepreneurs.
Ms. Mridula Ramesh, Executive Director, Sundaram Textiles said that around 50 million jobs needs to be created in upcoming years for absorbing surplus agricultural labor and that needs to be done in tier II and tier III cities and not in tier I cities. She Highlighted the problems faced by entrepreneurs in these cities such as of getting senior professionals, talent and cultural differences in tier II and tier III cities which means you need to groom talent from within your organization itself.
GRK Reddy, Managing Director, MARG discussed about the role of an Entrepreneur. He said that an entrepreneur needs to lead the people, his associates and team members, customers, resource providers as a catalyst. He shall have clear objectives as to exactly what he wants to do. Once he has his objectives clear he needs to strive for it. One challenge for him is to manage change as change is constant. He needs to foresee the changes in the market, change with regard to customer aspirations, changes in financial markets, changes in technology and needs to adapt according to them. He needs to demonstrate tremendous amount of leadership quality.
Prof Munish Thakur, XLRI Jamshedpur contested that entrepreneurship is about risk taking and said it is creating customers with innovation. He gave examples of a few entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Sam Walton, Karsanbhai Patel, Bill Gates, Brin and Page, Capt. Gopinath etc. It is not the risk taking capabilities but their capabilities in particular domains which are the reasons behind their success. He further said that drive is important as it augments the capabilities. Capabilities need to be aligned with the opportunities.
He based his model of entrepreneurship basically on four factors motivation, capabilities, resources & opportunities. He said that necessary conditions already exist in these cities but we need to provide sufficient conditions. He said that entrepreneurs have been basically coming from tier II and tier III cities but they have been coming to tier I cities to establish their organizations. He ended the speech by saying that govt needs to provide such support so that these entrepreneurs do not need to come to the Tier I cities.
Prof Pranay Swain, IIM Kolkata threw light on “Role of social entrepreneurship in tier II and tier III cities.” He said that entrepreneurship is all about innovation. Also, for a commercial venture to be in place, one needs to have a market and an understanding of potential consumers. He narrated the case study of Bakul Foundation. And said that he was very much inspired by its punch line – “If not us, who? If not now, when?” He said that everything has a geographical context and what may be successful in Bangladesh and Mexico may not be successful elsewhere and we need to understand the geopolitical contexts and hygiene factors.
Mr. T.N. Seshan, former Chief Election Commissioner and permanent Faculty at Great Lakes delivered the valedictory session. He said Entrepreneurship and leadership are like swimming and wondered if it could be taught. He advised the students to create jobs Instead of going for jobs by pursuing entrepreneurship particularly in the current scenario. Between knowledge, enterprise and human demand the opportunities for entrepreneurship are abundant.
Other speakers who spoke on various topics were Mr. Ramraj R, President, TiE - EPR plunge – opportunity, biz model , Dr. Arya Kumar, Chief Entrepreneurship Development IPR Unit, BITS Pilani , Madan Padaki, Co-founder MeritTrac, Ramakrishnan K, ED, Investment Banking, SPARK Capital , Anuradha Ramachandran, Principal, VentureEast-India, Nandakumar S, Founder & CEO of Perfint Techologies , Raghu Rajagopal, Founder & CEO of Energeate, Program Co-ordinator Chennai Fund, Parthasarthy S, Chairman and CEO, Nu Street Technologies, Sameer Mehta, Founding Director, Atlas Advisory & Ventures and COO, Dr. Mehta Hospitals, V. V. Ranganathan,Chairman –Compassites, Former Partner E&Y, VC: P.N.Vasudevan, Equitas Microfinance Ltd. Etc..
Topics discussed ranging from EPR funding Options, Scaling & Growing the Venture, What makes entrepreneurs successful?, Role of social entrepreneurship in tier II and tier III cities.
Chennai's premier B-school, Great Lakes Institute of Management organized its first Entrepreneurship Conference to further the cause of free & private enterprises. Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan, VC and CEO of Cognizant inaugurated the one day conference. Dr. T.V. Somanathan, Secretary to the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu was also present. The conference
brought together thought leaders from academia and real entrepreneurial ecosystem providing a platform to exchange and share the knowledge among the various players like entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, academic researchers, angels, VCs &others .
Speaking at the inauguration Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan said "We can emerge much stronger by learning from each downturn and flexibly changing our policies in the right direction. He said “Be tough and competent, failure should not be an option and leverage technology and you can set any outrageous goals” .He gave the example of how Progressive insurance Inc., that reduced the cost of processing claims by introducing technology. These were the mantras that Cognizant practices
Dr. T. V. Somnathan in his address defined entrepreneurship as spotting and assessing opportunities at the right time and then taking it forward with hard work and ambition. In his opinion it is not the role of government to mass produce entrepreneurs. Govt. can only catalyze the culture of entrepreneurship by removing the blocks that obstruct smooth flow. Such as regulatory changes to facilitate setting up business like single window policies, reducing the number of approvals required etc. to encourage the process. Simultaneously, subsidies provided to industry for setting up business in T1 cities should be removed or restructured so that industry realizes the true price of input costs in T1 cities. This would leave them with no option but to explore opportunities in T2/3 cities.
Dr. Bala Balachandran founder & Dean, Great Lakes said "There is a strong need for entrepreneurial ventures to fill the gap created by the closure of several companies due to the global melt down." He stressed on the need for a focused MBA program for entrepreneurship in the SME sector and mentioned about undertaking the plan forward in India with Kellogg School of business through collaboration. Entrepreneurship is at the heart of economic growth of any nation, and India must also create and nurture entrepreneurs in large numbers to reach the global economic leadership status that it is expecting to achieve. In this endeavor Business Schools have a significant role to play, by developing and disseminating the requisite knowledge, models, methods and processes, besides training and developing Entrepreneurs.
Ms. Mridula Ramesh, Executive Director, Sundaram Textiles said that around 50 million jobs needs to be created in upcoming years for absorbing surplus agricultural labor and that needs to be done in tier II and tier III cities and not in tier I cities. She Highlighted the problems faced by entrepreneurs in these cities such as of getting senior professionals, talent and cultural differences in tier II and tier III cities which means you need to groom talent from within your organization itself.
GRK Reddy, Managing Director, MARG discussed about the role of an Entrepreneur. He said that an entrepreneur needs to lead the people, his associates and team members, customers, resource providers as a catalyst. He shall have clear objectives as to exactly what he wants to do. Once he has his objectives clear he needs to strive for it. One challenge for him is to manage change as change is constant. He needs to foresee the changes in the market, change with regard to customer aspirations, changes in financial markets, changes in technology and needs to adapt according to them. He needs to demonstrate tremendous amount of leadership quality.
Prof Munish Thakur, XLRI Jamshedpur contested that entrepreneurship is about risk taking and said it is creating customers with innovation. He gave examples of a few entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Sam Walton, Karsanbhai Patel, Bill Gates, Brin and Page, Capt. Gopinath etc. It is not the risk taking capabilities but their capabilities in particular domains which are the reasons behind their success. He further said that drive is important as it augments the capabilities. Capabilities need to be aligned with the opportunities.
He based his model of entrepreneurship basically on four factors motivation, capabilities, resources & opportunities. He said that necessary conditions already exist in these cities but we need to provide sufficient conditions. He said that entrepreneurs have been basically coming from tier II and tier III cities but they have been coming to tier I cities to establish their organizations. He ended the speech by saying that govt needs to provide such support so that these entrepreneurs do not need to come to the Tier I cities.
Prof Pranay Swain, IIM Kolkata threw light on “Role of social entrepreneurship in tier II and tier III cities.” He said that entrepreneurship is all about innovation. Also, for a commercial venture to be in place, one needs to have a market and an understanding of potential consumers. He narrated the case study of Bakul Foundation. And said that he was very much inspired by its punch line – “If not us, who? If not now, when?” He said that everything has a geographical context and what may be successful in Bangladesh and Mexico may not be successful elsewhere and we need to understand the geopolitical contexts and hygiene factors.
Mr. T.N. Seshan, former Chief Election Commissioner and permanent Faculty at Great Lakes delivered the valedictory session. He said Entrepreneurship and leadership are like swimming and wondered if it could be taught. He advised the students to create jobs Instead of going for jobs by pursuing entrepreneurship particularly in the current scenario. Between knowledge, enterprise and human demand the opportunities for entrepreneurship are abundant.
Other speakers who spoke on various topics were Mr. Ramraj R, President, TiE - EPR plunge – opportunity, biz model , Dr. Arya Kumar, Chief Entrepreneurship Development IPR Unit, BITS Pilani , Madan Padaki, Co-founder MeritTrac, Ramakrishnan K, ED, Investment Banking, SPARK Capital , Anuradha Ramachandran, Principal, VentureEast-India, Nandakumar S, Founder & CEO of Perfint Techologies , Raghu Rajagopal, Founder & CEO of Energeate, Program Co-ordinator Chennai Fund, Parthasarthy S, Chairman and CEO, Nu Street Technologies, Sameer Mehta, Founding Director, Atlas Advisory & Ventures and COO, Dr. Mehta Hospitals, V. V. Ranganathan,Chairman –Compassites, Former Partner E&Y, VC: P.N.Vasudevan, Equitas Microfinance Ltd. Etc..
Topics discussed ranging from EPR funding Options, Scaling & Growing the Venture, What makes entrepreneurs successful?, Role of social entrepreneurship in tier II and tier III cities.