Entrepreneurship: going beyond ideas

With young Indian entrepreneurs rewriting the rules of the business game and startups ruling the roost, an entrepreneurship revolution is sweeping India. Putting a new business idea into action is no longer the preserve of a select few business families. With an expanding economy opening different avenues, there has been a greater democratisation of entrepreneurial space.

Leading the bandwagon of change are some of India’s best know startups. Be it Flipkart, Snapdeal, Zomato, Paytm, Ola or OYO rooms, the common underlying factor behind them is that they have been started by the first generation of businessmen in their families.

This radical shift has also made entrepreneurship a lucrative career option, with many young minds hoping to create their own successful business story one day. However, we need to ensure that the real meaning of entrepreneurship is not lost amid the ambitious din of making money and generating wealth for oneself.

Entrepreneurship is much more than nurturing an idea and putting it into practice; it is a process, rather a journey of breaking the inertia, gaining momentum, and institutionalising the process to make it self-sustaining so that it does not end with the founder or initiator of the idea but keeps moving ahead no matter who is at the helm of affairs.

Accomplishing this successfully needs a lot of mental acumen, sagaciousness and vision. Moreover, a successful entrepreneurship should be the best opportunity to generate equity for the entrepreneurs as well for the other people involved in the venture.

Much like a pyramid that starts with a strong foundation and scales up strategically, the journey of entrepreneurship also comprises multiple layers and steps that take the process to its vortex.

To be able to establish a stable pyramid, you need a strong innovative idea to lay a foundation on and then move up cautiously in synchronisation with the industry to establish a brand that lasts much longer than the founder.

The foundation or base comes from a strong idea that is innovative enough to make a difference in the society and economy and sustainable enough to overcome subsequent technological and social changes. Before starting an institution, what is important is conducting a comprehensive market research to analyse the viability of the idea, and initiate the process of establishment.

A scalable model

Any enterprise should not only be viable in the short-term but also sustainable in the long-term, with enough potential of scaling up the pyramid. In doing so, it becomes imperative to offer something that is not only innovative in the current scenario but also has enough potential to improvise in the face of changing social and economic needs.

Here, it becomes important to look around and study the industry, learn from its experiences and start the enterprise in such a way that it leaves enough scope for further development and expansion.

Models that are established without vision and comprehensive research tend to adhere to short-term growth objectives, and fail to keep the momentum in the long run. They might continue to grow, even make profits but they might not retain respect in the long term.

Co-opting right people: As discussed above, an idea should be sustainable enough to last beyond the lifetime of its founder. And to achieve this kind of sustainability, it is absolutely crucial to bring on board people who can drive the mission with zeal and vision.

The people should not only be deft enough to drive the institution towards business success, but also have the vision to institute the processes of research, discussion and debate and constant interactions with the industry so as to establish thinking mechanisms.  

An original idea might be enough to drive an organisation for a few years into success, but any institution needs regular ideation and conceptual pushes to keep it moving into the next generation.

New services have to be added to banks every now and then, and institutions selling through brick and mortar stores need to open online selling ventures to keep themselves viable.

Similarly, educational institutions, too, need to improvise and value add regularly to remain viable and relevant. The syllabi need to be constantly revised, new courses added and new partnerships forged to ensure that the most relevant education is provided to them.

(The writer is Executive Director, IMS Noida, and Fellow, IIM-Ahmedabad)