This is one post which I have been forced to write. Not by someone, but my own personal experience(S). I have this habit of spending my ‘driving time’ (when I am driving back from work) quietly, to think about what I did the whole day and how have things evolved in life. I try and re-inforce the learning’s from mistakes committed and look at new directions.
Though I don’t really have decades of experience, but in whatever I do, I have seen a particular trait in the Indian worker. We fail at implementing processes. There is a lot of technology as well out there, but somehow we fail at adapting it as well. Interestingly I have always worked in smaller set-ups in my life, which has always helped me to be critically involved in either setting up something and scaling it up OR evolving an existing set-up by challenging the usual ways of doing things.
Processes and Execution
When you work in smaller set-ups what you are able to critically learn are processes. I have mostly seen the Indian worker being a little off the mark when it comes to setting result oriented processes. Especially when it comes to setting a process from the scratch and building a system of result oriented numbers around the same, which enables the process handler to understand the success of the process and better the same if required.
The approach I follow
Almost everytime, I have faced the challenge of doing something new, I have always stepped back and looked at the situation/ task in hand from the ‘customer’s point of view, as to what does the customer really want and then assess, if the delivered value is the same.
Once set, I generally break down the objective into smaller steps and do a match the steps with the customer needs/ requirements. At each step, I create a forcible intervention with statistics around. This essentially is to ensure that if the process has a leakage/ break-down somewhere, the numbers will suggest the same and it can be improved.
The Planner and the Doer
But its not simply about setting the process. Its also about how simple can you make it for other team members (who will be working with you to action the whole thing). I am certainly not trying to make things robotic here, which restricts innovation and free thinking by the people involved. What I am suggesting is, to set easily executable strong processes, backed by numbers at every critical stage. At times these numbers have to in the form of forcible interventions, which give you critical data to suggest what works and what does not.
Why this post now?
Well, in my current role, I am working on something which obviously excites me. The way I am approaching it is simple, to understand the customer first, to understand their requirements and expectations. Then I am excavating deep knowledge from the right people within my organisation. This is essentially a forcible intervention which has been created with some initial statistics around. The next step is to create smaller executable steps for the members of the team who should not find it difficult to work it all out. While all this is happening, there obviously is a bigger vision around the entire activity.
A part of this post has also been inspired by the need of the young entrepreneur. There are several young folks who approach our organisation to look for mentoring. What I critically see missing in them is a process oriented approach which can provide critical data overtime enabling stronger and more focused, decision making.
If you are a start-up and need strategic help in processes and execution, drop me a mail:
paritosh@tienewdelhi.org
The TiE Delhi – NCR team and powerful team of mentors (top industry pros) will surely be guiding help!!
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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!
- Incremental
- Revolutionary
- Disruptive
- 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:
- COMBINE
- products
- proceesses
- technologies
- disciplines
- capabilities
- arts and science
- REVERSE
- conventions
- business models
- products
- processes
- Orthodoxing
- ELIMINATE
- ADJUST
- Cost
- Time
- Space
- DIVIDE
- Handling
- Transportation
- Space
- SUBSTITUTE
- Greener
- Lighter
- Faster
- Better
- Stronger
- Smarter
- UTILIZE
- Talent
- Brand
- Networks
- Waste
- Harmful effects
- MODIFY
- Designs
- Eco friendly
- Energy efficient
- UNLOCK CREATIVITY
- 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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