New Media, Marketing and Entrepreneurship

Before I start this post, I must confess, that since childhood, like many others, @billgates has been a hero. I always dreamt of seeing him and had my brush with him, when I LIVE blogged a session which he chaired, while being felicitated by NASSCOM, in New Delhi.

When I was pursuing my bachelors, Microsoft was a name which resounded like a dream coming true and a company to work with.

A couple of days back when @billgates joined twitter, I was looking at what comments have people to make and it was interesting to see how someone who may not stand even an inch to where @billgates does (whatever it may be, I respect the man, a self made achiever). There were all sorts of comments starting from welcoming him, to people talking about their Apple iPODs and the downfall of the Microsoft era.

At a recent conference which I blogged, one of the highly placed speakers, Founder of a Cloud based business application services company from India, had a bold statement to make, that MS is going to be history soon. At that time, I may not have had the understanding of the real dynamics of his statement, but today as I get to know more about the deep mess, I realize how things have shaped up and being a person I am, I still think, MS has all the chances in the world to fight back.

While reading an interesting post by a previous MS employee at the New York Times as to how MS lead to creative destruction, I was not much shocked at the story, as it was something, I knew from my interaction with many similar others.

In multiple minds, while writing this post, I am an entrepreneur and run a startup and I understand how the leadership of a company truly affects the entire structure and hierarchy. The mindset, the culture. Almost each one of us today has grown up, seeing the Office, Windows OS, though today the quality has gone down, there is no innovation and we have stopped expecting the days when Microsoft was supposed to be telling the future.

Though being an optimist, I again want the company to bounce back, fight the clutter. There is nothing really impossible. Its a shift required at a large scale, but that is what is required, otherwise this would make for the saddest story in business.

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I landed back from Mumbai just yesterday and surely it was great LIVE Blogging the biggest Leadership event ever in India. Out of my many experiences in the financial capital of India and the city of dreams. Bollywood stars and the rest, I found this very amazing example of simple yet striking innovation by an entrepreneur.

This is what I found:

What you see in the picture above, no its not a Google van! Its the freshest and the best Gola (ice candy) made of fresh mineral water and fruit juices called Gogola India.

I bumped across this van while I was going for a meeting on the Hill street near the Globus mall in Mumbai and just for the fun of it and to interact with the van guys, I did buy two Golas from the van. The van looked pretty okay (a second hand maruti van) with all the electrical machines inside to make a good gola in seconds.

Interestingly, the menu is like an IE page, which gives you all the options of the various flavors available simple, yet unique!

The Revenue figures of a single van which stands since 12pm till late in the night and keeps rotating in between two streets in Mumbai are:

• Daily sale (golas): 300 (in good times) 150-200 (in normal business days)
• Price per gola : INR 30
• Positioning of van is changed on weekdays and weekends
• There are more than 10 vans in the city, doing the rounds

My Feedback and Comments as an Incubation Consultant:

• Good to see that the logo has been duly trade-marked (good asset)
• Good revenue model (taking in consideration, all operational costs, costs of building the supply chain, maintenance of vehicle etc.)
• Simple and effective!

The Gola I had, was pretty good and was surely packed in a healthy manner, with properly kept juice/ color bottles.

I very strongly feel, the kind of Innovation we have in India, is amazing! Its simplistically brilliant and a concept which can surely become into an auto-generating proposition, and once your brand is recognizable, and you have a size, you can diversify.

Kudos to the entrepreneur

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So, we have Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw post lunch at The Leaders In India 2009. I have always admired Kiran as a woman entrepreneur. She has proven words with actions! My respects Mam

Talkign about the Global Biotech sector Kiran says that it is a business size of over 90 billion dollars globally. Each of the past decades have triggered a new growth of innovation. Interesting to know how the entire Biotech industry has evolved over time. Though Ihave not really understood the Biotech industry much, but sure, I am intrigued!

My own journey of Biocon has been that of experimenting and learning! I call myself an accidental entrepreneur!

I was always interested in brewing. I have had to overcome countless challenges over decades. We started small with simple technologies we built and also partnering has helped me build my own entrepreneurial vision. I started my entrepreneurial journey when I had the provilige of starting India’s first Biotech company, which had its own large number of challenges. People were very skeptical of success and at my time, India was still a developing company and we had sub-optimal structure that we have today and it was the time of the license raj than today. I was a 25 yearold first generation woman entrepreneur!

All I had was foolish courage!

There was no access to VC all I could avail of was very expensive debt based funding which I accepted. I was very driven by green technology at that time. But there were very few takers at that time and one of the BIG challenges I had was, the space I was getting into, was based on one very important need, which is: high quality uniterrupted power supply which India does not have even today.

I started my business from scratch opting for less evolved technology. We focused on a niche opportunity, as I had to be very real about the infrastructure and the environment I was working in. I always knew that India was a very small market for me and hence I had to operate in a niche which gave me some kind of advantage. Also in my starting years, what helped me was, I started this as a JV with a small Irish partner, and they provided me with assistance to market, my product to Global markets and this is what helped my business started.

Up until 1980′s we were still loners in Biotech in India

It was really abotu building this company step by painful step and slowly the Biotech sector started gaining acceptance in India when the govt realized the importance. Creating the skill based that we need to drive this industry has paid us fairly well in time. Thankfully because of the success of the IT and software sector, the VC had taken root in India. Since this happened, we started looking towards VC funding, when we tried to scale up. It also allowed to develop sophisticated products and I was able to compete due to our cost base.

By late 1990′s I had a fermentation unit which could handle all sorts of enzymes

The cluster effect that had started in Bangalore really helped us. the boom in Bangalore had many innovative start-ups in the space which also helped the entire industry as such and hence we were benefited. We had international players coming into India setting up operations which helped gain confidence and many are now building scale into what they were doing. Biocon had started gaining market leadership in the niche segment we were looking at.

As an entrepreneur I felt that enzyme segment was going to be limiting to our growth and we had to take some hard decisions

We hence applied our technology to develop into bio-pharmaceuticals. We were the first to cut across the IP barriers hence defining new opportunities.

“We are the world’s first and only company i manufacturing Insulin and Insulin analogs and I am proud to say that”

Overtime we have become bolder in saying that lets innovate in the Bio-pharmaceuticals now. We can today afford to innovate, we can afford to build programs around new products. Innovation in the field of Bio-tech is something we must surely take very seriously. We tend to opt for low risk services and generic versions of drugs and vaccines.

In India the cost of risk is very affordable and hence we must back innovation

What is happening to companies in the western world, is an opportunity for us. I think India really has a good opportunity to cash on in what is happening in the western world. There is a whole new emerging opportunity in Bio-generics. We will pursue Innovation led mantra to grow and that is really my goal as a company and myself as an entrepreneur! All along e have constantly challeneged ourselves and tracked new technologies.

An important learning that I have learned as an entrepreneur is challenging the status quo and moving ahead

We are trying to develop world’s first Oral insulin and its going to be a game changer for us, if it happens

We have really made a lot of conscious effort in partnering with companies, which has actually helped us leapfrog, and it has been a great business tactic for us. In our journey there is one inflection point, I had a tough and emotional call to make! Enzyme was going no where as we were not really investing enough in it, the reason being we had limited resources. And hence we finally said, we must dis-invest and divested into our competition and they have invested and grown this business fr more than we were doing it at that stage. But we surely benefited out of the IP and knowledge we had built over time. We bought a company in Germanhy which will help us start our operations in Europe.

We have started building global scale in our businesses

Our strategy has been always to develop products, leveraging India’s cost base and using affordability as our competitive edge and we are determined to do it at an affordable rate.

My message to other companies from developing world(s) is, who are stretching hard to fight against odds, we have:

• Dont hesitate to partner when you want to pursue certain business opportunities, it allows you to grow faster
• Its important to start simple and start local, be realistic about matching your skill sets w.r.t technologies you are trying to develop

I started my life as a brewmaster looking to brew beer, your journey can take you anywhere, but your life should be an inspiring hope

It was great to listen to you Ms. Mazumdar Shaw as usual! The fire of entrepreneurship has surely gotten a needed kick from you!

Now we have the session int he Q&A mode!

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Praveen Rajpaul, talks about Innovation and how FICCI is helping organizations to improve their productivity and how innovation is changing the riles of the game.

Innovation distinguishes between a LEADER and a follower says Mr. Rajpaul

What do you need for innovation? Its an Idea!

1. Incremental
2. Revolutionary
3. Disruptive
4. Game changer

Unless we have all these sorts if ideas, we wont’ further. But how do you generate such ideas? Is there a process? Can we make it simple? How can we simplify the process of generating the ideas? Puts forth Mr. Rajpaul to the gathering!

Golden Principles of Innovation:

1. COMBINE
   1. products
   2. proceesses
   3. technologies
   4. disciplines
   5. capabilities
   6. arts and science
2. REVERSE
   1. conventions
   2. business models
   3. products
   4. processes
   5. Orthodoxing
3. ELIMINATE
4. ADJUST
   1. Cost
   2. Time
   3. Space
5. DIVIDE
   1. Handling
   2. Transportation
   3. Space
6. SUBSTITUTE
   1. Greener
   2. Lighter
   3. Faster
   4. Better
   5. Stronger
   6. Smarter
7. UTILIZE
   1. Talent
   2. Brand
   3. Networks
   4. Waste
   5. Harmful effects
8. MODIFY
   1. Designs
   2. Eco friendly
   3. Energy efficient
9. UNLOCK CREATIVITY
   1. Passion

Well, there have been some real fantastic principles, that we have seen over time and some real fantastic concepts, which may be workable and may be just vague at the same time. But good to see innovatoin in my lifetime!

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The PanIIT 2009 Global Conference to be held form October 9-11 at Chicago, IL is one of the biggest and the most extravagant events of this year with delegates expected in thousands.

Theme of the PanIIT 2009 Global Conference

With the theme of the event touching the chords of one of the most important and the most emerging section of the society, that of Entrepreneurs. The PanIIT 2009 will be discussing ‘entrepreneurship and innovation in the global economy’. With India poised to be a reckoning power in the global stage and with the Indian economy slated as one of the biggest and the most emerging economy in the global stage, Indian entrepreneurs are defining and re-defining the global economic scene.

Share space with global thought leaders

Some of the confirmed speakers at the PanIIT 2009 Global Conference who shall share their experiences and provide enough motivation and inspiration towards cretion of new possibilities with the emerging global entrepreneurs are:

• Jim Owens – Caterpillar – Chairman & CEO, Head of US Business Council
• Subodh Bhargava – Tata Communications – Chairman
• Aneesh Chopra – US Government – Chief Technology Officer
• Raghu Rajan – University of Chicago – Eric Gleacher Professor of Finance /Former Chief Economist, IMF
• Sonal  Shah – US Government – Director of Social Innovation
• Duvvuri Subbarao – Reserve Bank of India – Governor
• Meera Shankar – Embassy of India – Ambassador to the United States
• Desh Deshpande – Sycamore Networks
• Madhu Pandit Das
• Akshaya Patra
• Carl Schraam – Kauffman Foundation -  President
• Sam Pitroda – Knowledge Commission – Chairman

Sharing space with such eminent personalities is a once in a lifetime opportunity surely not to give a miss to, PanIIT invites the entrepreneurial and business community to join in and be the possibility of taking India to the next level.

Register For PanIIT NOW

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Nikhil Sarup from Solutions Digitas – shares on Web 2.0 means business, and he shares a concrete iron clad framework for implementing web 2.0 in your company, as Nikhil puts it for the audience.

I particulary like Nikhil’s initiation to the session. Its interesting to see a real guy out of the crowd! Sharing his point of view on how social trends are happening in B2b space! Generally when I have interacted with people, the implementation of Social Media in the B2b space has always been a greater concern as compared to the B2c space.

Nikhil has come as a breath of fresh air for the audience here. After listening to some very interesting thoughts by Kiruba and others on Social Media’s impact and how can we classify consumers and look at their behavior, having Nikhil open the session with some very thought provoking 1.5 joke(s) makes an impact which I can sense and see in the audience. The ease with which Nikhil puts across his point and clarifies the clutter around Social Media for a business is worth your and your businesses’ while

Showing the audience the need for being there where your consumers are, Nikhil not only is forcing out of people the urge to know, how they can best leverage Social Media for their business and how can they really create a successful strategy around it, but he is also sharing some real practical insights, which can be modeled and shaped to suit your business requirements and create a successful Social Media presence.

Since much emphasis has already been given to the traditional methods of Social Media and how and why’s of its importance to business, giving a practical outlook to the entire game makes the entire talk a much intriguing affair. Now we have Nikhil giving a practical display of a dummy site and how his company makes Social Media, accessible to their cleints on their web sites, and hence the clients’ client does not have to really go anywhere else on the internet to talk his heart out.

The first engagement touchpoint happens on the web site itself

I am personally much interested to know, how Nikhil and his team decide upon the information flow and how dealing with different business verticals, they decide upon the site design? Is there a standard template, which proves that the visitor to your site would interact in this manner, if the content is made accessible right at the web site?

Proving his point to the audience, who is listening with much interest, Nikhil’s demonstration of the site is surely giving many a ideas to the audience present. I am sure we are going to see some really interactive sites coming up in the near future! Talking about Web 2.0, I am quite amazed with the way Nikhil has made content accessible to the client where he lands up on your web site. With all what I want present to me in different sorts of content, white papers, Videos etc, I would surely be able to hold onto my visitor onto the right section of my web site, for a good time, hence the probability of conversion increases!

I personally am very much on the similar page as Nikhil, and surely appraise of the ideas that he has shared, in the manner that he has! Way to go Nikhil!

The session is now wrapped up, within time and we are open to QandA offline.

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