Thursday 17 November 2011

All We Need is to Dare


“The gale of creative destruction” has disrupted, created, innovated and revitalised businesses and societies across the globe. It is this dynamism in spirit that has led to the transformation of the world that we live in today. At the IIPM and Planman Group, we have always been inspired to dare, to think beyond. This spirit that we believe has led to transformations of businesses and societies. Innovative ideas, capital and manpower are not enough to create and transform businesses. While the most obvious definitions of entrepreneurship refer to starting of new businesses, which could even be spin-offs of existing businesses, we believe that real entrepreneurial spirit is in the dare, to think beyond, to disrupt, relook and overhaul inferior processes into superior innovations. It is this spirit that we celebrate in this journal. 

In today’s world, entrepreneurship cannot just be ‘for-profit’ business initiative. Entrepreneurial spirit has thankfully also spilled over into innovations for the society, to make the world a better place to live in. Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak’s initiative to offer Indians a dignified and humane way to relieve themselves is a positive transformation in the society. Creating Sulabh toilets required as much, maybe even more, of innovation, risk taking, enterprise and the spirit to think beyond. Dr. Mohammed Yunus’ initiative to offer micro-finance to the economically not-so-fortunate in Bangladesh transformed the society as it made finance available to women and led to unprecedented community development in the country. These are entrepreneurial initiatives which we celebrate as much as we would celebrate Dr. Narayanmurthy and his group of six other entrepreneurs who transformed their initial investment of Rs.10,000 into the global empire called Infosys, generating revenues of over $6.5 billion. And then there are people whose could dare with their initiatives to seemlessly merge the two. On an IIPM educational tour to the Nestle headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland, my group of students, colleagues and I were filled with pride when the Vice President of Nestle, addressing us on entrepreneurship lauded and set as a benchmark Dr. Verghese Kurien’s pioneering and unique concept of rural development that also led to the creation of one of the world’s largest milk brand, Amul.

As a country, India has been fortunate to witness yet another form of entrepreneurship, which again directly is not related to creation of economic goods and services. Mahatma Gandhi’s unique and world transforming non-violent revolution is again one person’s initiative to dare, to think beyond, and create a paradigm for revolutions that disrupted the very concept of revolutions as was known earlier. 

We would, in this quarterly journal, present to you thoughts and ideas, attitudes and personalities, trials and tribulations of entrepreneurs that have transformed businesses and societies in our country and across the globe. Cheers to the spirit…to dare, to think beyond!

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