Entrepreneurship is the way of living that has caught attention in the fashion circles recently.
WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN???
Let us try to decode that. Entrepreneur is a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. (as per dictionary.com). So, its not difficult to understand that the art of taking initiative and risk to earn money by managing a business or enterprise may be called ENTREPRENEURSHIP.
Now, if it is simply managing one’s own business enterprise, then why do I call it a way of living. If we travel some time back in time, then government jobs was the path everyone wanted to tread, as there was nothing more secure than that. When this sector got saturated, then came in the IT outsourcing industry to fill the gap, and then came the big giants looking for MBA grads. But how many of the billion people could be entertained by these few sectors. Entrepreneurship had always existed, but it never dared to raise its head due to the risk factor involved. India always had the largest market share covered by local retailers rather than the big giants. These people were no other than our own entrepreneurs. After agriculture, this was the largest sector which fed almost a quarter of India. This is why I called it a WAY OF LIVING.
With the recession hitting everyone hard, especially the bigger players, we saw that no one could feel secure in any kind of job. The safest of the sectors saw companies sinking faster than the Titanic, and the ones which managed to stay afloat were spitting out employees faster then World War II death rates. Where could everyone take cover with the pink slip venom free-flowing everywhere. This is exactly when someone realized that our own retail market had almost no effect of the recession, and he cried out loud that he had found the solution to epidemic like cancer named recession. This is how this sector got everyone’s ATTENTION.
With insecurity prowling free in all industries, everyone’s best bet was the confidence on one’s own skills. This is how this undergrowth like sector started growing into a tree, which would support a majority of India in the coming years. Now that this tree has started bearing fruits, everyone wants a share of this fruit. Today even an IIM grad has no qualms in doing the same retail business which our neighbourhood grocery store had been doing for years. The only difference they are trying to bring in is a global face to this age old art. Every second grad from the elite IITs and IIMs now wishes to be an entrepreneur, as if it were a FASHION.
Now that you have understood the first statement clearly, I can discuss the highs and pitfalls of it.
Good things that will happen:
- India will learn to become more independent, rather than depending on the outsourcing by the west.
- India’s best talents will be engaged in-house rather than leaving the shores.
- They will compensate for the lack of innovation in our government enterprises and industry giants.
- Government wont have to spend a large share of revenue on employment schemes.
Bad things that are waiting to happen:
- Not all seedlings would grow into trees, a lot of them would either be wiped out or taken over by other trees.
- Fashion is a very volatile activity. Entrepreneurs who do not check their premises before taking the dive would be out-fashioned very quickly.
- With so many mushroom companies everywhere, financial security would become a big issue for loan providers to these companies.
Let me now introduce to you some of the real activists of this fashion industry. Introducing to our readers – the E-Cell from IIT Kharagpur.
E-Cell in its mission to promote entrepreneurship, not only within confines of IIT Kharagpur campus, but also across the whole nation, conducted the Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive (EAD). E-Cell undertook this massive initiative to promote and encourage students to embrace the concept of starting one’s own enterprise. EAD was launched on 29th September, in the presence of Rashmi Bansal, author of the bestseller Stay Hungry Stay Foolish. Starting from Chandigarh on 29th September, E-Cell conducted Entrepreunership Awareness Camp (EAC) in ten cities in a time span of 10 days. Each EAC featured a successful entrepreneur as the speaker. Some of the speakers were:
- Mr. K.D. Singh, Founder CEO, Alchemist Group
- Mr. Arbind Singh, Social Entrepreneur of the year 2008
- Mr. Pramod Rao, Co-founder, Elitwit
- Mr. Gerard J. Rego, Founder CEO, Vayugrid (Charter member – TiE)
- Mr. Gaurav Ahuja, COO, Red Ginger Hospitality
- Mr. George Anand, Founder CEO, Semantics Learning
- Mr. Pravin Shekhar, Co-founder, Dexterity Ltd.
- Mr. Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder, Bharatmatrimony.com
- Ms. Rama Devi, Founder Chairman, Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of Andhra Pradesh
This post has been published in collaboration with www.orangified.com, another budding enterprise from IIT Kharagpur.
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