Entrepreneurship: An Ode To Entrepreneurship [Pg. 2]

[Contn.]
An Ode To Entrepreneurship

Moving On

Ashish Bagga (left), Business Today's publisher, with Euro-RSCG's Ishan Raina (middle) and a guest

Uday Kotak (centre) seems to be moderating a tete-a-tete between Mittal (left) and Ambani

GVK scion G.V. Sanjay Reddy (left) mingling with the guests at the event

Kinetic Engineering's Jt. MD Sulajja Motwani (left) receiving a memento to mark the occasion

A section of the audience--the questions flew fast and hard

Each of the four entrepreneurs who had accepted Business Today's invitation to talk at the event, spoke about their own take on entrepreneurism and their own tenets for success. Sulajja Firodia-Motwani began by recounting her eventful years at Kinetic Engineering. ''By the time I was 12, I had my life-plan worked out,'' said Firodia-Motwani. ''It was always to be back home in Pune and working for Kinetic.'' When she took over as managing director of Kinetic in 1996, she added, she inherited a strong company with a great brand. However, she also inherited some trouble with joint venture partner Honda. ''We found the joint venture stifling and were one of the first Indian companies to buy out their foreign partner.'' Her lesson for the evening: when you have to transform something, incremental steps wont work. You need to be radical.

Uday Kotak was the next to go. He spoke about his seven entrepreneurial mantras. One, facing reality as it is. Two, understanding the importance of implementation. Three, realising that there is no room for error today. Four, the willingness to go ahead and do something you believe in. Five, acknowledging that things take longer than expected. Six, recognising that opportunities exist in shrinking markets. And seven, keeping one's nose above water and waiting for consolidation to happen through mortality.

Cellular Czar Sunil Mittal went next with his story of how a bicycle-parts manufacturer became India's second largest cellular company. Mittal spoke of his early days when he dreamt of achieving a monthly turnover of a crore of rupees. His key insights: traditional thinking doesn't work; one needs to learn how to follow one's gut; and the right partners are necessary. ''After some time, entrepreneurs need to hand over the day to day management to professional managers and involve them with issues related to strategic governance.''

The last to speak was the GVK Group's G.V. Sanjay Reddy who started with a definition of the compulsive entrepreneur: someone who repeatedly entered new areas without the requisite domain knowledge. ''Capital and experience are not so important,'' he said. ''You can get both these. What is most important is ideas-man's greatest asset.''

Earlier, Accenture's Country Head Sanjay Jain made a presentation on entrepreneurship. ''The key to success lies in liberating the entrepreneurial spirit in employees,'' he said. ''A single heroic figure of entrepreneur is a myth.'' With the end of the formal part of the evening everyone moved to the serious business of networking. Watch out for the second part of the series and an event to match next quarter.

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