Mentees participated in the Business Guidance Camp

Speakers:

Moderator: Paula Mariwala, Seedfund

Amrita Singh, The Little Company

Manju Mary George, Intellecap

Pratibha Pilgaonkar, Rubicon Research Pvt. Ltd.

Session Highlights:

Paula Mariwala :

• Journey to scaling up must be anticipated as it would be full of challenges and obstacles we must be ready to face all challenges come as may.
• There are no limits to success. Growth is never-ending.
• Regarding HR- always make your team feel ownership in your business to retain your employees.

Pratibha Pilgaonkar :

• Teamwork is very important in making a business successful.
• Reliability over deliverance is important. Getting the sense of business is the 1st thing before thinking about scalability.
• Recruitment is the basic challenge in the beginning of business.
• Retention is the next challenge which can be overcome by
  1. Providing a family atmosphere to the employees.
  2. Always keeping in touch with them on a personal level.
  3. Institutionalizing training programmes at regular intervals for their constant development.
  4. Also maintaining people orientation to fulfil their needs.
• Reliability of your customer, sustainability and maintaining reputation of your brand are key points to scale up business.
• Systems and growth in business go hand-in-hand.
• Managing finance systematically and getting a capital for a new system should never felt to be a burden. You should be well-prepared before starting a new system.
• Your business grows automatically as you get acceptance from your customers and your business starts showing up numbers
• Each business has its own pace. It’s difficult to anticipate the times when to scale up your business.

Manju Mary George :

• Always plan your future beforehand. You must know what your aim is in exact numbers.
• Attracting people towards your scheme is most important.

• For retaining your employees

  1. Keep giving them financial extensions.
  2. Give them freedom and required exposure to experiment and develop.

  3. Assign higher responsibility to make them feel ownership.

  • Recruiting large number of employees helps in faster development who work independently.

  • Set up as many systems as possible so that all your customers receive equal and personalized services.

  • Recruiting large number of employees helps in faster development who work independently.

  • Set up as many systems as possible so that all your customers receive equal and personalized services.

·         While scaling up your business expand your team by getting people having same passion, reliability and dedication as yours.

·         Keep your finances well-planned and systematic. Keep raising funds even when you don’t need them urgently. It can always be useful for times in need.

·         Before scaling up your business

1.    know what you want to do.

2.    expand your team by adding more efficient employees.

3.    survey whether your product has credibility or not.

If all of these show positive results then you may be ready for scaling  up.

·         For early-stage business, consult mentors and business experts for scaling up.

·         Keep consulting people in same fields and business for a constant growth of your company



Amrita Singh :



- Contributed by Tejal Naik, Kitish Kakkar

Tags: Amrita Singh, journey to scaling up, Manju Mary George, paula mariwala, Pratibha Pilgaonkar

Speakers:

Preetha Reddy, Apollo Hospitals

Farzana Haque, Tata Consultancy Services

Session Highlights:

Preetha Reddy :

• Always care for your customers.

• Keep your business people-oriented.

• Be a people’s person. Always keep in mind your customer’s mindset.

• The More you give, the more you get.

• Sometimes you need to be intuitive and think from the heart.

• Put your company before yourself. Put aside your ego. Never hesitate to go to any length while working for your company’s betterment.

• The kind of powerful women leaders India has is very different as compared to others in terms of deliverance.

• Indian healthcare is highly developed and affordable at the same time.

• Confidence comes over time.

• Conviction must always be there.

• Belief is power.

• Chronic sense of fatigue and lack of nutrition are common problems with Indian women.

• You should take at least a 2-week break from your hectic schedules once a year.

• Health tips

1.    Do not fast. Daily nutrition is essential.

2.     Eat right.

3.    Exercise or follow yoga.

4.    Have check-ups at regular intervals.

Farzana Haque :

• Indian women are expected to be good daughters, sisters, wives, daughter-in-laws and mothers along with good business women all at the same time.

• Indian women must believe that they can they do it all with sheer excellence.

- Contributed by Tejal Naik, Dipen Ghetia, Kitish Kakkar

Tags: appolo hospitals, Farzana Haque, Indian women, people-oriented, Preetha Reddy, tcs

Speakers:
Moderated by Vinita Bali, Britannia
Shobhana Bhartia, HT Media

Session Highlights:

Vinita Bali:

• Courage, Commitment and Perseverance are the three key attributes

Shobhana Bhartia:

• Leaders come and go, it’s the brand that lives on…
• ‘Values’ of the company is the key to its sustenance.
• Why should you have the right to win?
• Companies working on ‘values’ not making business sense won’t last…
• Gender parity is important in organizations

- Contributed by Abhishek Chande & Avishek Neogi

Tags: britannia, business values, gender parity organisation, ht media, Shobhana Bhartia, tie stree sahkti, Vinita Bali

Speakers:

Moderated by: Purvi Sheth , Shilputsi Consultants
Anand Lunia, Seedfund | Investor’s perspective
Mohit Dubey, Carwale | Entrepreneur’s perspective
Jer Masani, Florista | Employee’s perspective

Session Highlights:

Anand Lunia:

• Questions posed by HR functions in entrepreneurial activities :-
  • Team
  • Motivation
  • Commitment
• Great verbal and visual appearance may not always be the right fit!

Mohit Dubey:

• In business, you are whom you HIRE!
• Ambiguity is sometimes preferred in an enterprise.
• In early years, commitment is more important than competence, but later on, it’s the right fit that matters.
• Carwale’s Hiring Mantra
  • Freedom
  • Fit
  • Fortune
  • Family
• Let more competent people take better decisions.

Jer Masani:

• Entrepreneurship style is purely individualistic, without any gender bias.

- Contributed by Tejal Naik, Abhishek Chande & Avishek Neogi

Tags: Anand Lunia, Building an organization, Jer Masani, Mohit Dubey, Purvi Sheth

Speakers:

Rajshree Pathy , Rajshree Sugars

Julie Desai, Mehul Vakharia & Associates

Session Highlights:
Rajshree Pathy :

• First milestone was to turn around the company.

• Path to success becomes easier when you enjoy the highs and survive the lows.

• Hard work, commitment and good team is the key to a successful business.

• To be able to touch people’s heart with your efforts gives you fulfilment in life.

• Balance sheet is gender neutral.

• You have to decide what you are going to give up to get what you want.

• Integrity is very important for entrepreneurs.

• Distribute all your problems with your partners and confront the biggest issues first and deal with the rest one by one.

• I break down all the problems into compartments, every day.

• I know I have to do it, I know I have to win, and I just do it. You must always aim to win.

• Do all it takes, ethically, to get what you want. Survival instinct is necessary.

• Be optimistic. Be a seeker and a survivor.

• For me, business is not about numbers,its about creativity.
• Keep exploring yourself. Do new things. Experiment.

• Take your business as a challenge and always love what you do.

• Enjoy your business.

-Contributed by Tejal Naik, Dipen Ghetia, Kitish Kakkar

Tags: Julie Desai, Rajshree Pathy, sridar iyengar

Speakers:
Moderated by Vinita Bali , Britannia
Meenakshi Madhvani, Spatial Access

Pushpita Gaur, Murcia

Smriti Dalvi , Florista

Session Highlights:

Vinita Bali :

• As far as you are delivering up to your customer’s expectations, he’ll stay happy.
• Deliver to expectations. Do not over specify and under deliver.
• First, identify your customer segments. Then decide your competencies for different levels.

Smriti Dalvi :

·         Identify your opportunities. There are plenty of them.

·         PR is necessary, you need that initial burst.

·         You have to move really fast and be innovative to beat competition.

Meenakshi Madhvani :

·         Social media is not about likes on facebook.

·         Social media and marketing are crucial. You constantly need to be on the minds of your customers.

·         A key input for business is PR. It helps you build your brand.

·         Your advertising stories must have credibility.

·         Each of us is a salesman of our respective brand.

Pushpita Gaur :

• Always have in mind your customer’s mindset while selling your product.

- Contributed by Tejal Naik, Kitish Kakkar

Session Highlights:

·         Be outward looking.

·         Invest in knowledge.

·         Have courage to be different and do what you want.

·         Always have

1.    optimistic attitude

2.    purpose in life

3.    faith in oneself

4.    perseverance

• Negativities will constantly be around you to discourage but you need to confront them bravely.

• Every individual, group, company, institution must make honest efforts to use new ideas and resources for the betterment of our country.

• You must always find time to contribute for our country’s future in the smallest way possible.

• Execute and scale.

- Contributed by Tejal Naik, Dipen Ghetia, Kitish Kakkar

Tags: Dreaming big, Swati Piramal

Session Highlights:

• Success is many a times a long process, it requires faith
• Malavika Performing: The Lord, the serpent of infinity, the Asuras and the Bhaktas
• The Woman who dared to dream. Her faith, struggle and leadership
• Dance is art, it is philosophy, and the cosmos at large

- Contributed by Abhishek Chande & Avishek Neogi

Performance Synopsis by Malavika Sarukkai:

Classical dance is a powerful non verbal language of communication. As the artist envisions , the space on the stage is sculpted ,designed and energized. Concepts, ideas and emotions are recreatedimpacting the audience. With imagination and technique the artist pushesthe boundaries of dance – reinventing.
The artist draws inspiration from life. Today I present excerpts from two ofmy choreographies – the first one, a contemporary story of Thimmakka( a village women of Karnataka) who dared to dream and the second oneSavyobhujasthe, which illustrates the subjectivity of our perceptions whichinfluences our comprehension.
Both the choreographies demand inventiveness in idea, techniqueand execution. They complement each other as they address differentapproaches of expanding an idea.
Thimmakka – unravels a linear narrative of a single character ; is a singlepersons dream which she translates into actuality; is about taking action andimplementing result; Thimmakka’s story represents a woman’s dream
Savyobhujasthe - explores a simultaneous viewing of three characters; emphasies the plurality of approach to a common stimulus acknowledging inthe process multiple ways of thinking; is about the state of the mind whichinfluences action; Savyobhujasthe represents our collective state of mind.

Both the dance choreographies pushed me to look creatively with a supplemind to repossess my tradition. In this way I expanded the repertoire ofBharata Natyam while keeping to the core values that define the style.
The creative process of dance choreography involves many steps.
(1) Dream the concept and envision it

(2) Draw from various sources of poetry or in the case of Thimmakka have specially commissioned poetry
(3) Discussions with the music composer explaining intent and reach
(4) Creative thinking and internalizing of the concept by the artist keeping in mind the music and dance input.
(5) Many hours spent by the artist alone in the dance studio working onthe actual creation of the composition
(6) Team work involving intense practice with the musicians after theconcept has been explained. Inspiring the musicians to touch  their own creative output.
(7) After sustained rehearsals over several weeks the dance choreography is ready to be presented.
I end with a quote by Vinita Bali in the magazine Leader to Leader,Spring 2011 ‘ In each of the stories there is a profound leadership insight. Thimmakka had no resources but she was resourceful and galvanized anentire village through a compelling sense of purpose and accomplishment. She lead by example, undaunted by her poverty and not letting anything getin the way of this dream for her village.’
Malavika Sarukkai.

Tags: entrepreneurship lessons from art, Malavika Sarukkai

Moderator: Shilpi Kapoor, Barrier Break Technologies
Vineet Rai, Intellecap

Gaurav Arora, ICICI Bank

Vineet Rai :

• The first and the foremost thing is to understand your business well. Equity capital can be raised without muchefforts if you know why you need it.

• Make the business plan for yourself, not for the investors.

• Investors must decide whether they want to invest in a risky business plan which may or may not flourish later or a stable business plan to ensure steady cash flow.

• Bad investors are those who invest their money in an entrepreneur’s plan with a belief that it will definitely work wonders while a good investor would invest his money in a plan without believing in it completely but constantly keeping a check on the entrepreneur’s moves and mistakes.

• Equity investors must be able to guide the entrepreneurs to avoid them from taking the wrong steps and must keep advising them with the betterment of the plan.

• Always have patience while raising funds.

• Always study what your investors need before approaching them. For example- an equity investor will always look in for the scale of your business before investing.

Gaurav Arora:

• Every business plan starts with an  equity.

• Before approaching a bank for a loan you should know what kind of loan is required for your business plan- long term or a working capital plan.

• The bank always checks your eligibility or repayment capacity before giving you the loan.

• For a bank loan, the entrepreneur must have-

  1. KYC (know your customer)

  2. Financial history of transactions.

  3. Current standing and future of your business.

  • Bank is a platform which not only provides you with the necessary funds but also guides and advises you on managing those funds, utilising the funds properly for the business plan and putting it to the best use.

  • You need to keep your banking history systematic.

  • Raising of funds must be pre-planned.

  • You must connect with the right bank which will co-operate, manage and suit your business plan the best.

  • You must know beforehand how much funds are required for a particular scheme before actually putting the scheme in practice.

  • Your products must have extra-ordinary qualities and X-factor if you are expecting more profit than you have already gained.

  • To increase your turnover

    1. Raise capacity

    2. Increase natural progression.

    • Project finance is based on expanding your current business efficiently.

    • Collateral is required if your business turnover is beyond 1Cr.

    • You must know before starting your business what kind of funds or equity and how much is required for your business. Also, you must know why you need it and how you are going to utilise it to the fullest.

  Shilpi Kapoor :

  You must know before starting your business what kind of funds or equity and how much is required for your business. Also, you must know why you need it and how you are going to utilise it to the fullest.

- Contributed by Khushboo Verma, Tejal Naik, Kitish Kakkar

Tags: Gaurav Arora, Raising and managing funds, Shilpi Kapoor, Vineet Rai