New Media, Marketing and Entrepreneurship

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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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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Business Travel in Recession

I am a LIVE blogger and I get invited to many a conferences and events in the industry across India to LIVE blog the entire events.

And since quite sometime I have been hearing from many an Event organizers that due to recession, Business Travel has been restricted, thus expecting huge turnout at any conference is a challenege today!

I am sure this is one concern many a Conference organizers would agree to!

Well, so what is the solution to this problem?

Let me say I cannot monetarily give you an alternative that you should not attend any conferences, as these are some of the best grounds to network and reach out to existing and potential business partnerships. You can get new talent for your company, you get a platform to share your expertise on various agendas relevant to the community.

If there are so many benefits and still you have to see how much can you spend on your travel to attend these conferences?! What do you do then?

Social Media comes to Rescue

To the rescue is Social Media! Yes!

Now that you cannot afford to lose the chance of being in these conferences, well you can definitely work towards making sure that you can make the most of your business trip.

There are several tools on the internet which can help you arrange your travel and connect with people in the city you are visiting and also with the people who are attending the conference, so you can connect with the relevant people and break ice much before you actually meet them at the conference.

Social Media Tools to Get the most of your Business Travel

Linkedin

Explore your professional network on Linkedin to know who all in your network are attending a conference that you are and who all are there in the city at that particular moment of time and day.

Before reaching the designated city, you can connect with these people and pre-schedule meetings, to make the most of your travel. All you needd to do is add the Application (Tripit) on your Linkedin profile.

Twitter

Twitter is a tool where you can subtly announce that you are going to attend a conference and people who are there in your network who may be visiting the same would tweet back and there you go, you connect with the relevant community of people, thereby increasing your chances of creating more possibilities for yourself in your travel schedule.

Google Reader

Google Reader, well yes I know you would say Google Reader? Yes, its pretty simple! subscribe to the blog feeds of all the companies/people you are expected to meet at the conference/event you are going to. You would hence be updated with all the action points that you need to discuss and take your discussions forward in a more constructive manner.

Follow/Subscribe Events/conferences updates on dedicated Blogs like – OMShare

I confess, there is a self promotional aspect in the following note, but it would be of a higher value to you than anything else! I along with one of the people I work with, created The First from India, Online Platform for Taking Events and Conferences Global (OMShare). Its a platform where I LIVE Blog some of the best conferences and events around uptill now only in India (though open to invites Internationally as well).

We would soon be integrating RSS Feeds letting our followers know at no cost and at not much time, which events are happening where and if they would be of value to you and your business. Also we are extending the platform to include event representatives and organizers who can further help you network with the who’s who attending the event.

Based upon this information you can take an informed decision of whether to attend the event or be negative!

If you wish to connect with me, I would be attending (LIVE Blogging) the following events in the coming future:

1. The Web Usability and Design Workshop at India Habitat Center by TiE New Delhi on 7th March 9am-6pm
2. The JFPS CORPORATE COMMUNICATORS’ CONCLAVE in Mumbai on 16th and 17th April

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A good business strategy – tell your customer NOT to buy your products

I know many people would think that either I (the author of this post) do not understand business or Iv slipped my words here.

Well, let me clarify again, no I haven’t slipped on my words and well, I do understand business.

So how in this bad market conditions, can I ask my clients NOT to buy from me and still SURVIVE?

Innovation, my friend is the name of the game! Evolution is the way you play this game!

I got this idea when I visited a local market in New Delhi, for a small item I wanted to buy and there were two parallel rows of shops, which had the same stuff, each shopkeeper with some attractive discount or some other thing on offer. So competition in this market region was tough, I realized the moment I entered the small gully.

Now in this stiff competition how do the shopkeepers survive? Selling pretty much the same stuff, how do they really fetch business? Do they eat into each other’s I pondered! And then I went to one of the shops, who had the stuff I was looking for, but I thought I could get something better and I asked the shopkeeper, and he smilingly suggested me the parallel shop. I was pretty amazed at the gesture, because well, the basic business understanding says: market is competitive, conditions are tough, should’nt I look at covering the maximum?

I took this question home with me and started searching for examples on the internet, and I chanced upon Xerox. Yes, I know you know this name. The same company which is a second to none brand in the printer and copier industry. Every big installation, there are chances that you would see a Xerox printer in action! Now in this fiercely competitive market, what other than building the best printing tools for the print ecosystem should Xerox do to stay put and forge long term relationships, which probably may restrict the sales/revenue in the short term, but is a sure shot methodology of making it right in the longer run.

Ever heard of End to end solutions strategy to your existing printing infrastructure?

YES! That’s what Xerox has done! From selling printing products Xerox has diversified into selling printing solutions. There is such a lot of wastage that happens in your print infrastructure, which Xerox can help you save! I searched the Xerox India website (for their consulting services) and well, my understanding got confirmed. The client’s testimonials on the site, clearly state how just by consulting a client on an end to end basis on the existing infrastructure, Xerox helped the client not by asking him to replace all his existing printing infrastructure to its own, but Xerox consulted the client in increasing the basic efficiency of the overall system!

And the clients’ love Xerox for this! What’s Xerox earning from this game?

Well, though Xerox as a company, may not really be able to achieve its business targets in the short term, but the successful consulting assignments, which are increasing the overall efficiency of the client, reducing costs at the same time, are helping it forge new relationships. Bonds that would fetch Xerox, connected and trusting business.

So, sometimes its good to NOT tell your customers to buy your products!

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