While the whole world is in awe of the enterprising spirit of the west, I can’t help but wonder how one can tribute the enterprising spirit of India. Bear with me here. There is a significant difference in the way people go about building companies in these two regions. One region has an enterprising entrepreneur and the other has an enterprising investor or banking institution - the latter is the route of the west.
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| Vijay Anand |
Time and time again when you meet the tycoons of India, and when you trace back the story of how it all began, it probably started off with mortgaging the family house, property or jewelery to start a business. Those who managed the cash flows, margins and had an acumen to evolve to the needs of their customers soon grew to satisfy more customers. This is not a story you would hear in the west — by most entrepreneurs. But its common place in most of India.
In every decision in life, which leads to something extra ordinary, takes a stance of extremity to reach that point. And when you do, you run the risk of either gaining high or losing everything. Wisdom also says that, in order to win whats beyond the reach of the norm, one has to be willing to bet everything at some point or the other. An extra ordinary life also demands an extra ordinary act by someone involved in the value creation process.
Every story of entrepreneurship in this country has not one but probably have several such incidents where everything was risked on the table - be it the growth, direction or strategy of the company. If there is an entrepreneur who is willing to bet that high on it, there are also equal number of those who stand tall to prove that guts. The support of those they love, and intuition goes a long way - not to say its all on assumptions though, these folks have keen observing skills to spot an opportunity and insight that most simply overlook
Its crucial to understand this, because this is a core of how enterprises are built in India. An understanding of this makes the difference between how we function in normal life, the goals we set for ourselves and for the companies we build, most of all the company we keep-especially as we elect our board of directors.
None of these decisions are made by the entrepreneur alone - the chill on one’s spine is way too much for most. This is where the structure of a company makes all the difference. Today, it is said that there are anywhere between 26-32 million SMEs in the country and about 5 million of them are considered to be of small and medium, quite a bit of the rest are micro enterprises. About 96 per cent of these companies are proprietary and partnership firms, and like they say in the world of design, form follows function. The fact that there is not any significant growth in the SME segment, even when its quite functional and significantly contributing to the GDP of the country. This is because of the lack of such abnormal and daring decisions.
Life is constantly a war between one and the other — one that we hold, and the drive to achieve the other, and the greed to want to hold on to both. Companies that are grown are not grown by holding onto control, but by vision and by the ability to attract people who can share that vision and taking that support to ramp up what you do best. Most of all the factor that matters is the audacity of one, to make the leap from one to the other.
If you are an entrepreneur, and are running a business, its time to ask yourself that question - when was the last time you made that daring move? If it has been a while, its time to start looking into avenues to do that before the rust catches up with you and complacency sets in.
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Vijay Anand is a serial entrepreneur, the founder of Proto.in, and the Vice President (Incubation) at IIT's RTBI. He tweets at @vijayanands. To write to the author, please send an email to dare@cybermedia.co.in with the subject line 'Vijay Anand'. The views expressed here are that of the author and do not represent the magazine's.
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