New Media, Marketing and Entrepreneurship

This post is by far one of the difficult most that Iv written. Never really that I have had a heavy heart before conjuring up my thoughts on what really to write and how to put it across.

And why am I giving it such a lot of thought?

Because this post is not about any thought leadership or any thoughts that I am sharing. This is certainly not about any gyaan and definitely not about what to do and how to do it?

I am sure by so many ‘Not’s’ you must have understood that the author must have gone through an experience in life, where he has surely learnt ‘what not to do’.

Bang on! That’s the learning. Today as I sit with myself remembering of the days when I was sitting with a friend in a small lone room in Delhi’s cold winters, with the window of the room still half broken, on a small desk. We were discussing start-ups and ventures. She was running a start-up while I was thinking about doing mine and we were discussing all of this over a cuppa tea!

That was the day when I told her what I want to do, what my strengths are and we sat about thinking of names, so many of them came by. It was like naming your own child. There was so much love, passion, thought around the name.

Finally the name came!

Until ROI!! Yes! That’s the company, I said. I had nothing in hand, nothing at all and armed with only a name and zillions of dreams which powered my guts at that time, I said this is a company I launch today and that company will be called: Until ROI. And that was the starting of a venture.

The first thing many of my seniors told me was dude, 98% of the start-ups don’t make it over 6 months in India and making it over 1 year for you will be almost impossible, as you don’t even have a penny to start with. You are cash-less in every sense of the word. And yes they were not wrong. I was cash-less in every sense of the word.

I anyway said, if this be it, let it be, I will anyway start. And I borrowed a laptop from one of my friends for a few days, sat in another friends’ office who was also running a start-up and I said, let me announce to the world that Until ROI has arrived!

And I created a website

To build a website you need cash! But well, I said, I can build a website with my dreams and so I did. Even till date, the official Until ROI website remains the same of what I did. Using the free wordpress platform, I learnt a bit of php myself and coded the site, thanks to WP

Thanks to Google, the official Email was set-up in a jiffy and did not cost anything at all. Well, this is what kicked in life into the dream called Until ROI.

But now we needed to do the real thing, business!

And it was time to contact customers and sales calls began

Well, yes it was now time to do business. Just having a website won’t suffice you as an entrepreneur. Leaving your job is one part of it, running a successful enterprise is another. I must thank, Rahul, Pooja, Aashita who lent me their support during the initial stages, coupled with my own brand that I had created in my previous role as a Social Media Evangelist in the market, Until ROI got its first break and we were in business. The first cheque we ever got was for INR 40,000.

And I was on top of the world! 40k was like wow!! It was a feeling which I celebrated by paying off for the laptop I had bought on an EMI for myself.

Scaling up: well, we invested into an Airtel Boardband connection for ourselves

The company had its second asset in the form of a broadband connection. Armed with a laptop, broadband, a chair and a table inside a store room, Until ROI started operations formally.

I never had the time to go ahead and register the company. Hence I went ahead with business while keeping it as a proprietary business. Yes it was difficult to make our first set of clients understand, why we are proprietary, but the clients kept faith in this one man and they said okay we will go ahead with you.

Did they test me, well yes they did. Why?

Social Media is something which is very new for the world even today, so thinking about doing it with a proprietary company 1.5 years back was sure a big thing.

And more clients started coming

We started getting more clients through referrals and I must thank many people here. Digbijoy, Avinash, Chandan, Rahul, Pooja, Aashita and others.

Strategically we also found some very amazing partners in Virtue Insight, some of the best people in business I know. Both Fen and Sarika have been great help!!

And we started growing

Slowly and steadily we started growing. And as we did, we shifted to a new office (3rd floor of my house) a fantastic looking room large enough to have 5 people sitting with ease, with a 5.1 music surround system, and a whole stack of books (library) we started operations from there. I remember how I used to see the open sky through the huge glass (which also acted as the glass board for planning and strategizing) and be inspired!

This inspiration took us to the next stage where we got the 1st actual on rolls employee on board. I remember the feeling even today when I told my parents, Im paying a guy 18k in my “2″ member company and everyone still used to say, its just another few months, josh thanda ho jayega!

I am thankful to Piyush and Vikas at this stage, along with Aseem, thanks guys, you all rocked!

Business Development was the next challenge: but how?

Before I come to the next level, I woke up one of the days to find a sweet LinkedIn message sent to me by someone at the world’s largest social network facebook, asking me to join fb India. We did have a telephonic conversation, but then I dropped my plans, as the entrepreneurial bug was biting hard.

Anyway, BD was our next challenge and I said, obviously being a 2 member team with 3 clients, probably we would not be able to scale up, so lets partner with events and so we did. We started LIVE blogging some of the largest corporate events in India and I must thank Avinash, Fen and Sarika for all their support in this case!

We were rolling and then something happened

At one of the largest events in the history of corporate India in Mumbai, I met the VP of Corporate Strategy of an emerging Indian IT company and we hit it off! He invited me to his office in Delhi and we had this company as a client! And I was on top of the world. What followed it was a strong relationship which brought in capital into Until ROI in the form of HNI investment into the venture and I said, nothing better could happen, money coming in, more experienced brains on board, this venture is a sure fire hit now!

Before accepting the offer I did speak to many people, took advice but my gut said its okay to go ahead with it and you are going to make it a success and we went ahead!

And a team of 2, we raised some amount!

Things started rolling for us. I was so happy seeing my ’2′ other team members (I hate using the word employee) sitting in a plush office ‘Until ROI’s’ office. We had RFID badges given to us and I always used to chuckle to my friends, come visit my office and remember to take your badge from the guard (all in fun)!

The dreams started getting bigger and well, we sure felt lucky to have some real experienced brains from the industry backing us.

With the backing of an investor we started seeing desi and videsi dreams.

And our learning began

My first brush with writing excel sheets, numbers, create Bplans and many other things happened. We rose from being a ’2′ member to a ’3′ member team. Clients started trickling in. The guards in my building never got to know my name, but they got to know me as, ‘woh sir jo raat ko 12 baje se pehle office se nikalte nahi’, jinke karan hamie bhi jaagna padta hai’

I used to love it all, all the action, passion, there was no sense of time, food, weather, security, it was all work and that’s what I loved doing.

And we made a Pvt. Ltd. company

Thanks to Vishwa and Ashwani, the moment I saw a legal paper saying Until ROI Consulting Pvt. Ltd. I was overjoyed. There were joys all around. Infact pretty much during this time, I worked with one of my close designer friends, to re-brand Until ROI and we designed the new logo, which was well appreciated!

We had our own share of success and failures

But this time around there were the investors to both support us and be reported to. I quickly realized that this is someone else’s money I am working on and I need to be very very careful with it. This is where I really thank my parents and they have always taught the lesson of being intelligent with money. Coming from an absolute non-business background, I was always jittery about working on someone else’s money.

We added Karun, Nidhi and Abhimanyu to the team quickly. These sure are cool people to work with. They took on Until ROI.

And this is where I learnt the biggest lesson of my life!

Choose your team members, not because they have a title well worth, but because they love doing what you do and with probably the same passion. because they are in the skin because they want to be. This has been one of my top learning’s till date. Today I just know why not to recruit someone and when to just draw the line.

I must thank Nidhi, who sure did help me learn a couple of tricks here.

Somehow it all started up great, everything was well formed, but somewhere down the line, there sure was that little feeling in the heart that we need to be stronger, need to be closer, need to be in each other’s hearts. Need to feel each other’s pain and be there for each other at all times.

And finally here I am

And finally here I am, no more with Until ROI Consulting Pvt. Ltd., today remembering all those times, some of the most exciting times of my life, which have taught me immensely. There have been some really amazing relationships that I have created with many people.

The company moves forward and I always wish the entire team all the luck and the best ever in life!!

And going forward

Before I step ahead, I must thank some very crucial people in my life who have given me everything. Mom, Aditi, Sarika, Dimpy, Anurag bhai, Digbijoy, Avinash and I must mention people who I have always looked upto and have met at least once in life: Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Deep Kalra, Vijay Shekhar Sharma. They are all some of the best people Iv always looked upto and will always keep doing it!

Going forward I will be working as an enabler to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India while consulting brands into their Digital Media strategy.

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YES!! YOU GOT IT RIGHT. The title of the post says: Warning: The Air You Breathe Here is Charged Up With Entrepreneurial Particles!!

I am talking about nothing other than The TiE Entrepreneurial Summit 2010, undoubtedly one of the largest extravaganza, year 2010 witnesses. A perfect setting for the end of a decade.

TES marks the Enterprising India’s largest gathering of some of the most exciting souls on earth, a class, a breed called: entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship is not just a word, its a way of living, its a common passion which binds enterprising minds together who come on board with a common aim of creating and delivering value. People who dream of a future not just for themselves but create opportunities for many others, who become a part of success stories.

And without a doubt, India as a country is blessed with great minds. We have had some of the best enterprising ideas right from the bottom of the pyramid, from the rural parts of the country of over a billion people to the well networked metros. Starting from a global success story of a man who did not have food for 5 days and traveled on a goods train after being left by the security saying that he is from a friendly country India, this man decided to build an institution we know as Infosys today. There are many such inspiring stories of grit, determination, hard-work, hanging on and creating dreams.

At TES we are going to bring forth such stories while creating an opportunity and a strong ecosystem for many more to flourish. December is going to bring with it a whole new wave of energy which is going to create many new directions for many more achievers to come.

Be a proud part of the largest entrepreneurial extravaganza while the decade ends.

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Well, yes yesterday was the day which comes once in everyone’s life. Its shows you growing up, maturing over  period of time, creating new possibilities in life and what not!

The Pages of Life: Something about Turning 25

There is something about turning 25 and stepping into your 26th year. There is something about life taking a new turn, its like a new page opening in life, which calls out to you saying, im again blank and then you start scribbling many new chapters of times and life on the pages. The pages of life.

A Little Kid, Growing Up

When we were kids, we never used to think twice about something. Whether it was climbing trees while playing hide n seek or just gong berserk in rains and soaking in every drop of happiness that there is. We were fearless.

And that’s what Iv always liked about being a kid. And that’s how I operate in life, makes one, fearless. Makes you do things which are not so normal according to the real world. According to the world of grown ups.

And What Did I Learn, Turning 25?

Well, I am so sure my life has been put through such a major sudden change. Now I must admit, I was looking for this change to happen since a long time and I think its finally arrived. But as they say you never know what it is like, till the time it hits you, well, Yes, it’s hit me and Im happily just going with the flow, learning.

What Change?

Even before I talk about the change, its about the fact that I learnt a lesson, which is, that being a little kid makes you fearless, but what it also does is puts you into a whole new space which is full of so many grown ups that you feel that there is something that we grown ups talk about, a communication gap.

For Me Life Changed While Answering a Question: Who am I?

Yes! Life actually did answer me a question which is one of the most crucial questions for anyone! Who am I? Just like every normal person, I am playing many different roles in life, that of a Son, of a brother, of a friend and professionally as the CEO.

And Iv always been operating from just one take in all these spheres of life, which is being just the way I am.

And How did it happen?

Interestingly, God has plans which unfold in front of us, while we don’t even realize there are things happening. Things had started to change around me and were calling for a change to be accepted by me, within me, which I was aware of, but probably was too reluctant to be accepting and being present to it.

And then it happened, it started on 27th August and went on and on endlessly and effortlessly. While going out for a meeting on 27th I bumped into someone who is changing life, who is making me realize that there is not just me to myself.

I see smiles everywhere, everything is smiling around it seems and well that’s the way I am

The above line is not mine, but that’s what Iv come to realize.

What Iv come to realize and really really incorporate in my life is, the real meaning and the truth behind the word ‘stability’. Everyone talks about it. Everyone says you must have it. But there are a few in your life who actually understand you and make you realize that you know it, but you have been missing it, by just a small mark, but that small mark, you were not able to see clearly, as you were happy with what you are!

One of the biggest lessons of my life which this one person taught me over like a few days and many many hours is how to detached and still be as much attached to something. Until ROI, of which I am the Founding CEO, obviously when its your baby, you are always cautious and concerned, but what also becomes is you get so attached to your baby, that at times you overlook many a things.

What Iv Always Been Wishing for?

Iv always been wishing for someone who can help me be detached and still be as much attached. Someone who really makes me learn, how to control my excitement at times when Im just overjoyed and literally like a to little kid the excitement takes over my senses in those moments. And at these highly charged up and very excited moments, does one loses his sense of stability. At least I used to.

At many a times in life you need a strong perspective on things. A perspective so strong that it hits your own ego and shuts you up for a few minutes and makes you realize that there are other views to the same issue than your own.

I mean, this has been the biggest learning of my life. Today I am growing towards real stability coupled with patience and the right attitude. Iv learnt to how look at the same thing, which I used to just look at from my own vision, from many other views. Its about seeing something so close to yourself, from your eyes, but from a whole new perspective.

And How Has it Helped?

Well, this whole new perspective has changed my life. Changed my life, as now I am looking at all things existing and in the future from a different perspective. Its not about just me anymore. Its about learning from many new people in life. About how they see what Im seeing or trying to see.

What Do I See Now?

As I said above, well, now when I look upto the sky, what I see are smiles, clouds forming upto be smiles, the moon smiling back..

And Obviously I am Thankful to that One Person Who’s blasted my Ego and Made me Realize the Bigger Things in life. Sure this one person is going to be a part of many new wins and many more better moments in life

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Its 2:04 A.M, as I am sitting at the Until ROI office, and looking at dreams outside the balcony on the third floor. Its the Delhi skyline, I am looking at and its a quiet time, when nothing sounds except you and your heart and those many sleepless dreams!

And as I sit here, at such a time, I am doing two things:

1. Working to make sure all the deliveries to our clients are completed on time
2. I just saw the entire 12 part series of “Inside The World Trade Center” by Discovery Channel on YouTube

“And as I just finished seeing the series, I am filled with anger and hope, death and life and many other emotions at the same time”

Well, and as they say you can never predict the future, just keeping the thought in my mind, I write this post, and to start with I want to thank everyone from my family to friends, some people who I have been really close in life, all whom I have respected more than my life and many others, who I know I remember deep down in my heart! Especially I thank my family and Suhita Poddar, who has kept the ultimate faith on me and Until ROI and being from London School of Economics still offered to join a rising start-up rather than go in for a great comfortable job!

THANKS FOR WHAT?

Well, thanks for making me the man I am. Thanks for giving me the heart to proudly say, that today I am an entrepreneur, not because I wanted to make a lot of money and be rich and famous, but actually if I share the real story in my heart, its about, how I always wanted to join the Indian Air Force and achieve the dream called INDIA.

I COULD NOT BECOME AN AIR FORCE OFFICER, I CHOSE TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR!

Due to whatever reasons that I could not become one, I found my calling in the purpose which I have deep inside my heart since I know of myself, which is, to see my country, my INDIA as one of the fastest and the biggest superpowers in the world. That no-one, and I mean no-one ever calls us the 3rd world country.

And today for the first time in my life, I want to share it with the world. I became an entrepreneur, well, to make INDIA a superpower. YES! to many it may sound weird, and this may come as a statement to just boast on, but I challenge you, to join Until ROI, I will promise you one of the fastest growing careers, though we are a very small company right now!

You know why I can confidently say this? well, because you will be joining this company with a vision of INDIA and when INDIA grows, we will anyway grow up and that too much faster!

INDIA IS MY STORY!

INDIA is my story, Iv always been passionate about this one feeling called INDIA in life. After not succeeding to become an Air Force officer, I decided to be an entrepreneur earning a meager 15k a month, living in Delhi, being responsible towards the family. I knew being an entrepreneur would be one of the best ways I can really fuel the fire. Create employment, Create New Dreams, Empower other people’s passion and get the real determination out of them!

I CAN GET A COMFY JOB

Yes, I can get a very comfy job, leading marketing for a major corporate, but well, where is the empowerment of thousands and millions of others? That’s my calling!

WHAT WILL THEY SAY WRITING MY OBITUARY?

They will write, this was that man, who showed us how to see dreams and fight till the very end, even if all hell broke lose, even then, fight it out and he empowered us to create the dream called INDIA.

WHAT AM I DOING AS OF NOW TO JUSTIFY ALL I AM SAYING?

At Until ROI we have a mandate, set by me as the Founder and CEO, that every 10 paying clients that we get at Until ROI, we sponsor the education of a poor and DESERVING child! And I will make sure that we take personal care in raising that child and chose the best out of them to hone them into leading organisations of tomorrow’s INDIA. And mind you, we are still a small company, a start-up as they call us!

I CALL YOU TODAY!

I call you today – yes, the one reading this post, if you feel there is some part of your heart, which is screaming out to achieve your dreams after reading this post, well, give me a ping and we will talk about exploring opportunities of working together to achieve this dream called “INDIA”! Write to me at careers@untilroi.com and we will live the dream we call INDIA!

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This blog post is surely one of the closest to my heart! And before going ahead with it, I must thank the people in my life who have made it possible for an ever middle class, traditional, safeguarded by Jobs background individual (which I was) to be a dreamer, an entrepreneur today!

There are many, though to name a few, My Folks, My Life , Avinash, Neha, Sarika, Rajiv Sir and a host of others who have always been a support!

Entrepreneurial life is something, which can only be read about in books and blogs, but felt the high of, only when you leave a comfortable job, to find your dreams, when you give into your eternal calling and make a way for yourself.

How I got My Wings?

I remember how I was the happiest soul on earth when I had received a good offer from a major Indian IT company to work in their testing practice at Bangalore, I was sure that now the career is set. It was a different kind of a high! BUT still, what was a bigger high for me, as I remember those moments today after a couple of years, was to sit on a plane, the first ever flight of my life. I had never been on a plane all my life and that one journey from Delhi to Bangalore on a plane, got me my first wings!

After delivering a highly successful project, I felt a void, some sort of a calling. When everyone else used to leave office at 6-7PM, I used to sit at the library, get books, loads of them, and sit through reading stories of established people. A Ratan Tata, An Ambani, they were all dreams that time. And finally I decided its time!

I Quit my First Job after 9 months

Obviously everyone in the friends and family said, you have lost it, why do you want to come back to Delhi when you have all the chances of going onsite and have a good life? I still remember, when I packed my bags from Bangalore and got onto the flight, with nothing in hand, I was a little unsure as to what will I do next after landing in Delhi.

Finally landed in Delhi, quite some humiliation and frustration, but finally when the dust settled everyone accepted the fact, that I had quit a safe haven only to do something of my own. And I started my search for something.

My Ex-boss From My Part Time Job from Class 12th Called up

I was working since class 12th. Did road shows, Joined a Start-up BPO unit which today is pretty established while I was pursuing full time college. My Ex-boss called up, when he got to know I’m in Delhi and we said lets work again.

And to everyone’s utter amaze, I became a Relationship Manager with an insurance company. The job was simple, go pick your bag each morning and come back to office with a cheque in your hands and be happy till you are performing.

The targets, the pressure of performing, the heat, dust, cold weather, abusive people in Delhi, I faced it all. Iv knocked at people’s doors, just to be shooed away under the name of insurance agent.

I was performing though, but was not satisfied. Though till today I think this was one of the most steep learning phase of my life, when I got to know how to sell! YES! I could sell… taking a cheque worth a lakh of rupees in India, from a lala sitting in a Gandhi Nagar, Kapda Market, is no less than a feat.

I moved on…

I submitted my resignation to my boss, who was against it, telling him, Boss I will come back one day with my own company. There is a bigger calling for me in life.

And I started looking again and hit upon my first idea and floated a company called: “WeYouPoint – Together we make a point” it was an idea of creating an online platform to get the industry and the academia together. I did my research and started building contacts, by going to smaller colleges and delivering lectures and talks!

I became the second youngest Indian after Ankit Fadia, to deliver a talk at Symbiosis Pune! Where it was a mixed feedback I got, but for me, it was a high of sorts. I remember, how it was hurting to invest 3500 rupees to catch a flight to Pune and reach the college, but I had in mind that this could be the turning point.

But As They Say Life Aint That Easy…

The venture could not work out, due to two simple reasons:

1. I was immature to really understand the dynamics of running a venture
2. I learnt the art of building the right team of people

And I came back to square one, jobless, again an undecided member of the family, and someone who was not right as per the people around. At an age of 20-21 when I was discovering myself and following my heart, there was a lot which put me back, also I missed not having a mentor around at that time.

Finally to sustain myself, I had to go back to being in a job and I knew selling, so went back to the wealth management industry and started performing, with my eyes and ears open to all sorts of ideas and stories and everything else.

And Now I wanted to Know, How People Earn From the Internet?

YES! Internet was catching up at that time, and I wanted to know how people could just sit at home and earn. And my quest started, which pulled me into studying the internet closely. Closely such that one fine day I stumbled upon a major industry association’s Blog.

And to be honest, I did not know what a blog meant, till I saw it and this was in 2007 end.

I knew I could write and there was a lot in me which wanted to share and learn and grow and hence I contacted the administrator of the blog, with a blog post, who actually responded back and today he is a mentor, a guide to me! He came as a stroke of opportunity and it changed the game.

I started blogging and that is how Paritosh Sharma the blogger emerged. I got my motivation from the fact that people started liking my work and this kicked in me the view of taking it to the next level, which was to take my skills LIVE. And I started going to events, while LIVE blogging them.

People till today express amaze as to how fast can you capture the thoughts of a speaker, speaking LIVE at an event? And I say, its the love of the work guys, it makes you achieve things automatically!

I became the Official Blogger for One of India’s Largest Industry Associations…

While this happened, it opened a new chapter in my life with an offer from a start-up into Social Media Marketing, to expand the Social Media operations with the Co-Founding team! Though Social Media was fresh, very fresh 2 years back, we started dabbling into the same and made a name for ourselves.

This was a good learning period for me as it opened up a whole new world of opportunities, which spelled future!

And future it was, with the New Media industry gaining ground, I found my calling. I knew this is it. This has enough scope for exploration, freedom of expression, delivering absolutely innovative solutions and creating new possibilities for clients.

Becoming a Social Media Evangelist was a turning point in life and till date Iv never looked back.

Plugging Gaps in The Industry Which I Realized Early On, I Started Until ROI

Looking at the gaps in the delivery and expectations of the market, I again set out to plug the same and started a venture called Until ROI.

Its been 7 months now and we have been growing as a company briskly, with interesting offers of acquisition and the rest. I remember how it all started from a very modest small store room, a laptop and me. Yes, that was http://untilroi.com/ when we started and today we are a growing team of passionate people who are simply winning hearts with absolute client satisfaction and innovative solutions for the market.

I want to thank every client, every one who supported us through all the rough patches, these 7 months have not been the easiest months of our lives. For me personally its been like a new birth. Like a new life, which is of learning, exploring, knowing the various dynamics of creating an organization.

And today as I sit at a good looking, though a small one room office, at 5 AM in the morning, remembering old times, and taking new decisions, making new calls, I feel blessed, to be, to choose to be an Entrepreneur! With dreams of making it big for not just myself, my team, my people, and many others who I wish to touch with the possibilities of seeing dreams and reaching out to get them, today I feel good taking strides!

May God Bless everyone and give everyone the power to change the world for the better of everyone else

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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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So here I am Live blogging the Day two of Leaders In India 2009, with the first keynote being delivered by Mr. Adi Godrej.

I am sure this is going to be a great learning session with immense value for all present.

Our group has a fairly long history, we are 112 years old, Our sales turnover is a little over a 100 billion rupees

Interestingly Adi is sharing keen information about the Godrej business and they have grown till date. In 1991 we clearly felt that we had to give a boost to our competitiveness. We partnered global companies in our existing businesses, which were GE and P&G as Joint Ventures, though they dont’ continue today.

We learnt a lot from these great International organizations, which we have implemented over the years and they have learnt a lot about India, from us

Each of our companies and businesses, has a non family managing director or president who runs the company, I am surely interested in learning this.  We have a rather strict rule which has that only professionally qualified family members can join the business.

I am the third generation in the business and the fourth has already been inducted into the business

One of the major values we believe in is, that people are our strongest assets. We go out of our way to LIVE the value that people are our strongest assets. We have a constitution of a young executive board, one’s with great future potential and their job is to look at strategy, corporate governance, HRD etc, and then advice the Group CEO’s. Hence we get a tremendous bottom up response. I am very intrigued with the learning from Mr. Godrej.

Being a family business, as a professional and entrepreneur, I am so glad to hear and learn about the functioning of the Godrej group and how it is constituted at various levels. Very interestingly the structure provides the company a very strong bottom up feedback in runnign the company and in my view provides them with a great leadership development tool, creating a very scalable structure.

We have very emphatic programs on diversity within the group

Whenever we have emphasized diversity, the talent we get is much better than the average, Eg: if you go out of the way to recruit strong women, you get great talent, in cases much better than men. We have a very strong E-MBA program within the group. People who have not yet done a management degree, are eligible and promoted to do so. We insist on a 5 day learning schedule.

I myself make sure that I at least spend 30 days a year for learning

We follow a process of forced ranking in our group, we force ranks into non-performers and extra-ordinary achievers. The bottom non-performers which we get everytime in ranking, as it is relative. What this process doe sin a country like India is to strongly improve the working of the team, as everybody does good to work to be in the top 20 per cent.

I get evaluated by my sub-ordinates on a 360 degree basis regularly, and this is only a self evaluation tool

We re-assess our portfolio on a very regular basis and in the last years we have had several strategic acquisitions. We hired a British branding partner called Interbrand to re-launch our brand and it helped us great way in re-positioning our brand and leverage the brand asset value and equity towards achieving growth!

Interestingly we have Mr. Godrej talking about the various succession plans in the company.  Talking about succession planning, Mr. Godrej talks about what if you tomorrow come down a bus, well, we are planned for it, and I remember having the similar conversation with a friend, while running an Incubation Consulting company.

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So now we have a power panel talking about recession and the current scenario and the road ahead being moderated by Steve Tappin, chair, LII 2009.

What’s happening at the Global credit Markets?

Theres’ no doubt that the US and UK are going to see slow growth and hence if you look at where the growth would really be, well, India, China are in the race. We did go through difficult times in Q1, but now we are introducing the concept of reverse integration. We are manufacturing products at price points which make sense to the masses int he country. Hence we are focusing on a whole new market segment to look at.

Corporations like us have to better how to work with the governments around the world. We as an institution have to get better at doing this as the funds today really are with the governments. We have realized that in some markets its better to partner with exsiting organizations to achieve the right and fast growth.

Now we have the Airlines industry being represented and what we are discussin are the cycles in the airlines industry. Global recession and fuel prices, have hit the industry pretyt badly. Now how do you weather a downturn like that?

I believe, what you need to do is have a very detail and deep customer focus. If you listen to your customer right, you kind of know the bad weather for which you could well be prepared. You hence start thinking on what best can be done with the customers hence delivering and creating the right value. In any industry if you do your homework and understand where the world economy is going will help you a lot.

One of the reasons the Indian airline industry is losing 1.5 billion dollars is the Me-too syndrome!

And now we are discussing the remittance industry and interesting to note that the trends in this industry are still increasing. And what we did as a company is get the slow down much faster and quickly, hence we looked at strategic growth options. We as an organization grew and looked at our corporate strategy, aligning it with the growth and then we looked at investments. We had the following two crucial pieces with us:

1. Communicating with our stakeholders
2. Being progressive and Aggressive than the industry – high level of execution

And now we have the IT Services business being represented from the panel and interesting to note that the comopany went ahead to drive growth within and external to the organization.

We went to our top 50 customers and understood their issues and problems and had our swot teams helping clients and helping them grow their businesses

We went to our partners to look at how we could get the right pricing models for our customers and finally we went to unions in the EU, and supported the cause of outsourcing which highly supported us in generating new business than cutting on any sources/ costs

And now we are in the Q&A mode in the panel discussion, which will be open to public view next. Interesting to share the notes here, we are discussing the defence industry as an opportunity in India. Tejpreet from GE remarks that the new and innovative products which will come, will be from India and China and emerging economies now rather than the west and this will drive growth of the market in the west.

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So here we are with the second session of Day 1 of The Leaders In India 2009. This is a panel discussion with a very impressive moderated panel, and the discussion will revolve around Mergers and Acquisitions which surely is an interesting discussion to be in.

We have the resident editor from Mumbai for Outlook magazine moderating the session for the gathering and he talks some very interesting numbers.

70% of acquisitions fail

Company like Cisco which has done more than 135 acquisitions till date, we have the Chief Globalization Officer from Cisco, talking about how Cisco has mastered the art of acquisitions. He says the majority of our acquisitions came from our customers. This is the Go To Market anc business strategy for Cisco. We differentiate in market enetering, expansion and acceleration. Our success rate is 70%. We are very high on retention as well.

You need a culture in a company to be able to do M and A

We also do acquisitions to enter new business models. Our learning with acquisitions is that you have to have that culture in your company and today we have an entire team to do these acquisitions. Last but not the least, its a process. Now we are talking India in specific and interestingly Cisco has so far done 6 new investments in India.

Key takeaway: M&A can be a key part of your strategy and it can become your culture

Now we have Mr. Charles from wattson wyatt, giving the Human angle to M&A. What I have learned working with clients, there is no standard template for culture. It has to be something which is central to all parts of your transaction. In terms of due diligence, if you really dont understand the culture of the organization that you are buying, you should not think of buying them.

I was very impressed with the amount of expertise and process and real hard work which went into due diligence when I was working with clients in India

But the whole diligence was on the financial part and not the cultural or Human part. One of the things you need to accept about M and A, is that you need to be better at it.

Interestingly we have an expert talking about post integration and acquisition and she says, when you are in the midst of your deal, how much attention have you paid to the fact that what would happen to the organization after merger and what would form out of it?

You need to have the systems integrated to get the right prioritization, post acquisition integration. The key thing for you is to get the right internal team together. You need to bring all the elements together with common objectives and right prioritization, as you cannot do everything in 30 days, hence you need to have the right planning which will definitely pay dividends in the long run.

By bad post acquisition realizations, and if not planned well, you could inherit losses and other issues. Hence plannign the right internal team with the right objectives is the right thing.

Bad M&A?

Sure, there is bad M&A there, but it is also the time for opportunity. Governments are going to have to raise money in the near future and taxes are the way to do it and hence this is the time to have a strategic look at your group structure and if you have your IP rights at the right places in your organization and if you are exploiting them fully.

Q&A:

Now we are in the q&A mode with the moderator of the session leading with the questions.

Very interesting discussions happening about Indian family businesses and also how Cisco does the right things by setting the right expectations, while discussing business Integration across verticals and internal employee cultures.

Money is a Motivation – setting the right financial structure post integration:

We now are discussion how compensation structures change and how they are controlled and managed over time, post integration. You need to structure the deal looking at the fact that anybody who has set up a business has a huge amount of emotional attachment with the business. What we have found is: if you can intelligently find out the right roles for people post integration, looking at what they are doing, they love, you can have a successful post integration team merger and integration.

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