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AUGUST 2013

Ennovate

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The newsletter of E Cell, IIFT

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AUGUST 2013

VOL. 1 ISSUE 1

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The Indian ethos is dominated by groupthink. We live, breathe and, most importantly, think as a community. For the most part, groupthink makes for well-adjusted families and strong social values. But look beyond the comforting veil of the community to the individual within, and your glance might reveal a less-than-rosy portrait. You see, communities protect and shelter their own, but being part of one also entails a cost. You have to play by the rules of the group. You can't go against its opinions and - this is crucial - you can't stand out.

Unfortunately for the society, being an entrepreneur often means defying those rules. And that's where all those million-dollar ideas are lost. Giving a tangible form to an idea requires effort because the world makes sure your path is littered with obstacles, whether they're legal hassles, red tape, or simply discouraging advice from someone who doesn't want you to make it.

In the inaugural issue of E-nnovation, we analyse the Indian mindset with respect to entrepreneurship. Our cover story explores why starting a business doesn't come naturally to us. One of our feature presentations is about the mindset of the incoming batch at IIFT regarding entrepreneurship, which has been covered by an extensive survey and its analysis. We are proud of the entrepreneurial nature displayed by the incoming batch and hope to nurture it with sincere efforts.

One of our other feature stories covers the difficulties faced in building businesses during turbulent times and tries to suggest solutions towards overcoming the same. We also are presenting a short discussion of the conflicts faced by innovators in becoming successful entrepreneurs; followed by a treatise of conflicting yet reasoned arguments, each supporting project based funding vs. people based funding

So go ahead, break those shackles of fear and march on ahead.

Happy Independence Day.

We would love to receive your feedback regarding our newsletter at [email protected].

EDITORIAL BOARD

SANJOLI JAIN

SHUBHAM GANDHI

SRINIDHI RAJSHEKHAR

SRINIVAS GADEPALLI

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An initiative by E-cell to gauge the incoming batch’s views regarding entrepreneurships

E-Survey 2013-15

SRINIVAS GADEPALLI

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To get to understand the incoming batch’s feel towards entrepreneurship better, we conducted a survey among the 2013-15 batch of students. We were intending to get to know the batch’s feel regarding starting up post education. Hence, we covered few questions about the relevant decisions one could take in that regard. We were able to cover around 48% of the incoming batch at IIFT Delhi.

The results showed that around 70% of the respondents were interested in starting up post MBA. Around 13% of the potential entrepreneurs are inclined at being the early birds and wish to start up within 2 years post MBA. Around 28% of these respondents suggested a late entry into entrepreneurship by taking a gap of more than 7 years in few cases, which brought the average time required to start-up to around 5 years.

Among the naysayers, the strongest reason put forth for not wanting to be an entrepreneur is the debt that the MBA degree brings along with it; with around 42% of the naysayers affirming it. Non-compelling reasons were difficulties faced in funding their ideas (12.5%) and working in other start-ups (8.33%).

The average timeline of 5 years among the potential entrepreneurs and the major reason among the naysayers being the repayment of educational loan suggests that the students are considering educational loan to be a major hurdle towards starting up as well as assuming that starting up would not provide enough compensation to keep repaying the debt of their education loan.

Among the potential entrepreneurs, the average age of starting up has been noted to be around 28 years, as can be seen in the below graph of sector-wise Average age of potential entrepreneurs (years) vs. Time required to start-up (months).

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It can be noted that the largest pool of candidates dream of opening up an E-commerce firm, with the next largest pools belonging to Trading and Educational Services. These pools plan to take enough time before venturing into the concerned sectors. An advantage these groups can leverage on is interaction among the interested candidates for possible funnelling/channelling of ideas. On the early birds that just are waiting for their education to finish in order to start-up are from the Event Management, Retailing, Health & Fitness, Third Party Logistics and the Durables sectors.

There are quite a few sectors with small pools, and some of these are niche segments, like Theatre and 3D Printing. These sectors could face a dearth of competition (and thereby, talent pool) and could also be relatively new to being managed. The major sectors coming across in the small pools like Social enterprises, Health & Fitness and BFSI are few tried and tested modes providing enough talent pool, competition and market size in the Indian market.

Over and above the preferred sector for entrepreneurship, respondents were asked to identify 5 sectors of possible opportunities or interest, whose results are as indicated below.

It can be seen that E-commerce (66%), Educational services (60%) and Restaurants (45%) come across as significantly strong choices among both preferred sector and opportunistic sector. Trade is a major choice among preferred sector (11% prefer it as a first choice), though only 10% respondents feel that it is opportunistic enough to venture into.

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E-commerce

Education

Restaurants

Health / Fitness

Consulting

Retail

3PL

Technology

Services

Energy

Food Processing

BFSI

Trade

M-Commerce

Others

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Sectors of Interest / Sectors having good opportunities(A max of 5 sectors identified by each respondent)

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It’s interesting! We all love Rancho in cinema halls for what he is and what he achieves in the end. But step out of the hall and we all get into our usual ways of idolising Chatur. Inherently every one of us moulds into Chatur and accepts it as the regular way of life even if he has not achieved anything of personal significance in his life. We see Rancho as a success and Chatur as a failure in 3 idiots but meanwhile in the real world; we all strive to be “successful” as defined by Chatur. India, certainly, is a land of contradictions.

Chatur did actually achieve success in his terms. Success to him comes in the form of a high paying job, and a Volkswagen; the kind of success our society yearns for. But who contributed to the feel good factor at the end of it all? It was Farhan who challenged the unsaid rule of getting a typical high paying job and following his passion.

Why is that we want isn’t always what we get? Why is that what we want we never work on it? Is it the fear of failure? It appears so.

Entrepreneurship is a lot about psychology and personal philosophies as it is about ideas and passions. What most of us do, today, is already done by lakhs of others and hence we know it works. We don’t have to be afraid because there is something which we can fall back upon. But is it all we are here for? Just to do what everybody seems to be doing?

There is no one way in Entrepreneurship. Well, that’s the beauty of it. You might have all the plans in place with backups ready or just get on with your dream and handle situation as it comes. We are so good in Jugaad yet our society is so averse to entrepreneurship. It’s a realm of contradictions. The essence of it is that one can dive into it without much complexities, head-butt the threats, persevere, make mistakes, learn, trip and fall, run again and just take things as it comes. But for any of failure. If we take this factor out of our minds, we let our mind focus more on what needs to be done rather than be mired in the abyss of uncertainty.

FREEDOM FROM FEAR

SRINIDHI RAJSHEKHAR

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One of the major reasons we fear before we take that plunge is our academic system and social prejudices. When it is all about financial security and social status, we stick to tried and tested school of thinking. When we, as a society, focus more on what a person has than what a person is, we are already faking it. When we set the status indicators as a 7 digit payscale, a 3 BHK in posh suburbs, a chauffeur driven car then who will map the road less travelled? Well the irony is that the same path can, infact, lead to all those social indicators and way beyond.

Most of the times, we suffer from ‘papa kehte hain bada naam karega’ syndrome. Many choices that we have made in our lives are the result of being told what to do. And that depends on what most others around us do. It’s a hurricane that’ll suck us into its belly. We fear going against their dictum as, now, there are no bindings on us. If we fail in anything, we know who to blame! That’s the extent of cowardice fear of failure pushes us into.

Romanticizing entrepreneurship is another reason which induces fear.

If we don’t look it as something which is terrifically different and most awesome, if we take it in a more humble way, if we take it as a part of our life, we might as well succeed in it?

Breaking free the boundaries comes to the rescue. Understanding what we want to do and doing so, very well knowing that we’d either fly or die requires a lot of courage. A rebel signifies the audacity to oppose the status quo and shatter the prejudices. May be we need to awaken that rebel in us in order to challenge the fear. It doesn’t matter if we succeed or fail, what matters is that we don’t regret and wail.

Succumbing to fear of today may lead to a tear or two tomorrow.

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Start-ups have become a thing of today’s era.

With a solid 1200-1500 start-ups coming up in

India each year, it provides an opportunity to us to

invest here and hence it becomes necessary to

assess and select where to invest. Few years back,

there was a huge, unexploited opportunity in start-

up funding. The opportunity is a lot less

unexploited now. Investors have poured into this

territory from both directions. Though a lot of

investors are entering this territory, there is still

room for more. You may see people investing

based on experience and mentoring of the team or

a new potential idea that may create a buzz in the

market or rely on the opinions of other investors.

There are a few established players who come up

with new ideas. When we look at the team/people

involved in the execution of the idea, we do need

to look at few qualities in them. Firstly,

determination is probably the most important

quality in start-up founders. Intelligence is

required, that is true...one certainly doesn’t want

the founders to be stupid. The world of start-ups is

so unpredictable that one needs to be able to

modify one’s dreams on the fly. They shouldn’t

however want the sort of determination implied

by phrases like "don't give up on your dreams”.

It’s just like “running back” in rugby game... even

though one is determined to reach the other end of

the field, but one has to be flexible enough to run

sideways or even backwards to get there. In a

start-up world, imagination is also important.

Intelligence also matters but along with ability to

solve predefined problems quickly, one must also

be able to come up with surprising new ideas. One

needs the kind of intelligence that produces ideas

with just the right level of craziness. A prime

example of this is www.airbnb.com.

While financing, one should also look at the

number of founding members, is it a single person

or more than one. It is kind of hard to start up with

just one founder, maybe because the members of

the team may have different skills, level of

commitment and passion. Moreover, the

data shows that big successes have had

teams of two or three with a strong

relationship between the founders. Like

Flipkart.com or Apple.

One thing that can be surmised is that

they succeed or fail based on the qualities

of the founders. Which means that what

matters is who you are, not when you do it.

If you're the right sort of person, you'll win

even in a bad economy. And if you're not,

even a good economy won't save you.

The success of a start-up is a function of

its founders. Who are these people who

you are about to give your hard-earned

cash to? When you are investing in a start-

up it’s not just the business you’re

investing in — you are actually investing

in the team. The people behind the

company are the most critical factor,

especially for early stage companies. This

is mainly due to the fact that products need

to be iterated several times until they are

able to find where they fit in the market.

Here you want to focus on their

background story (previous companies,

education, etc.) and what type of value

they bring to the table.

But it’s definitely the potential of the idea

that wins over anything else. Can a

successful team with all the above

mentioned points be successful with any

idea? I think not. Look at Google with its

failed products like Google Wave and

Google Buzz to name a few. An idea has

to have a unique proposition which will

make it stand apart from the rest and will

survive the market. We won’t invest

looking at the team but looking at the

business potential of the idea, because at

the end of the day it boils down to the

return that we will be getting on the hard-

earned money that we have invested after

carefully analysing the idea.

PROJECT BASED

FUNDING vs. PEOPLE

BASED FUNDING

PRATIK GODHANE

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If one has a business idea that you feel has

tremendous potential, the insight of which they

must have got by solving a problem, then assess if

it will be successful in the future...because most

successful companies today were created because

of this very insight. Like YouTube, the founders

developed the idea after they had experienced

difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a

dinner party. So one should weigh the business

potential of the idea with various parameters. The

fundamental business idea doesn’t need to be

original, but one needs to establish unique selling

points. The market should be sufficient to sustain

the offering. The team should see if the prices are

affordable, if they know the customer well, is the

idea profitable in near future etc.

The idea should cover a good sizeable market,

though it can start small. The value proposition

must be convincing enough for the business to

nurture and survive the initial phase. Again, only a

great idea with bad implementation is a recipe for

disaster. Agreed that today most of the founders

are self-motivated, proactive, ambitious and

entrepreneurial, but they also need to look at what

consumer really wants along with the capability of

the people to absorb and accept it. Technology

and software start-ups may need less finance

initially and these are the sectors in which changes

occur frequently, it becomes necessary to assess

the growth potential. Sites like

www.kickstarter.com & www.indiegogo.com

gives us freedom to venture into ideas, judge them,

assess the future potential and the worst case

scenarios and then finance them.

My view is that a start-up is a continuum of ideas.

The initial idea may bear some resemblance to the

idea at any future time, but the actual instantiation

of the idea can vary dramatically over time based

on the learning that happens along the way. And

so I would prefer Project Based Funding to be a

winning bet.

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“In any moment of decision, the best thing you

can do is the right thing and the next best thing is

the wrong thing--the worst thing you can do is

nothing.”--Theodore Roosevelt

As the RBI released the data on India’s external

front for 2012-13 last week, one was reminded of

the 1991 financial crisis. And these figures reveal

that we are in a gargantuan financial crisis.

Between 1970 and 2013, the

number of man-made

disasters nearly tripled while

the number of natural

disasters surged seven-fold.

These figures state that an

unfavourable situation can

crop up unexpectedly and

scar a company’s balance

sheet and future prospects.

These troubled waters, may,

arguably be just the right

time to start a new venture.

One of the main reasons that

support the concept of

starting a business during

turbulent times, is that large

companies are inflexible and

oppose adaptability. This

means that they tend to suffer more during

turbulent times than smaller companies. They

have a predetermined plan and model in place

which was giving them revenues, so the added

investment, according to them, is uncalled for. A

new company on the other hand can strategically

plan its business model in a way that would

enable maximum utilization of the market

scenario.

In an article titled ‘Building resilience and trust

and turbulent times’ in the Business

Standard dated March 12, 2013 it is stated that

‘the global financial crisis and questionable

behaviour of some companies have badly

damaged faith in institutions of every kind.

And this is impacting brand value and

performance. Nearly 37 per cent worry

that lack of trust in their industry could

endanger their company's growth.’

Consumer dissatisfaction with the existing

options makes them look for alternatives,

and give impetus to the budding enterprise.

The pointers for a new venture in a crisis

situation, which would leverage its

position are to stay committed to

innovation, in particular as competitors

might not be in the position to do the same.

During such times, acquiring intellectual

property on the cheap

is possible.

Unemployment results

in cheaper skilled and

unskilled labour.

Developing a business

model in strategic,

game-changing- ways,

makes it harder for

competitors to see,

copy or adapt new

business models. This

is the right time to

bargain and it is

profitable to the

company purchase

interesting innovative

companies. With come

their people, patents

and competitive

position too.

Emptying competitor’s talent pool, and

hiring talent at conditions, which are more

favourable is possible. A downturn offers

good opportunities to capture partnerships,

collaborations, and customer networks.

Economic crisis disrupts the status quo

and results in areas of ‘pain’. Utilizing

these and capitalizing on them should be

the goal of the new venture.

BUILDING BUSINESSES IN

TURBULENT TIMES

PRACHI KAPOOR

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In a research carried out by Lynda Applegate, a

professor at Harvard Business School titled

‘Building Businesses in Turbulent Times’ it is

stated that ‘An economic crisis is a charter for

business leaders to rewrite and rethink how they

do business’.

In 2012-2013 India ran a current account deficit

(total imports less exports) aggregating to $88

billion. On top of this we are likely to run a

current account deficit of approximately $100-120

billion for 2013-14. To fund this deficit we

necessarily needed capital inflows. The crisis is

actually an opportunity period, to rethink and not

just sit back but to contribute by creating

employment, trying to get valuable foreign

exchange. From the psychological point of view,

facing difficult situations and making difficult

decisions will lead to unity as well co-operation

among the workforce.

It is rightly said that “Necessity is the mother of

invention” and a new market for previously

unseen or unheard services may arise, when no

means are available. Exploring conventionally

untapped and under-utilized resources is the key.

Finding new market niches, creating innovative

new offerings, and structuring and positioning

would be beneficial. Opening up many more

sectors and areas to FDI on liberal terms needs

more than a policy framework or even changes

notified and implemented, because despite the

size of our market, most foreign investors are both

disappointed and wary of our lagging reforms

process.

Going on the unconventional path, these

companies continue to inspire with their success

stories

Microsoft: The recession of 1973 to 1975 saw a

Harvard dropout named Bill Gates start Microsoft.

MS-DOS, went on to power IBM computers.

Today, Microsoft Windows and Office products

are found on the majority of computers. That,

along with its many other products, results in

more than US$60 billion per year in revenue.

FedEx: FedEx was incorporated in 1971 as Federal Express, but didn't begin operations

until the 1973 recession. It was born from

a Yale term paper written by Frederick

Smith who believed that a company

devoted to fast delivery to cities of all

sizes was a valuable niche company. He

started with 14 aircrafts, deliveries to 25

cities and 389 employees. Today, FedEx

has 688 aircraft, over 90,000 delivery

vehicles and more than 300 employees.

General Electric: General Electric was

founded in the depression of 1873 by

inventor Thomas Edison, creator of the

incandescent light bulb. The depression

saw half of the nation's railroads declare

bankruptcy and half of the country's iron

furnaces shut down. Edison opened a

small laboratory in 1876 that would later

become General Electric. Today, GE has

more than 300,000 employees and a cash

flow of more than US$14 billion.

Revlon Cosmetics: Revlon, one of the

best-known cosmetic companies in the

world, was founded in 1932 during the

Great Depression. Brothers Charles and

Joseph Revlon introduced their opaque

nail enamel to the world, which sparked a

business that became a multi-million-

dollar enterprise in only six years.

Hyatt Hotels: When Jay Pritzker

purchased the Hyatt House motel next to

Los Angeles International Airport in 1957,

a high-end hotel seemed like an

impractical decision in the middle of

recession. That recession lasted two years.

Today, Hyatt Corporation operates 483

properties under nine different names and

employs about 50,000 employees directly

in addition to over 90,000 employed by

third-parties and franchises

With the right attitude, a clear strategy fuelled by passion, these examples show how unfavourable circumstances can be turned into opportunities, just like a lotus can bloom in a muddy pond.

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Innovation and Entrepreneurship are two terms

which now-a-days have been used together in

such frequencies that a common misconception of

the two terms having a similar meaning has arisen.

But, while Innovation on one hand means either

the introduction of something original and new or

an original and effective

modification, Entrepreneurship, on

the other hand, is the capacity and

willingness of a person to develop,

organize and manage a venture

along with its risks in order to

make profits. Entrepreneurship

does require the characteristics of

innovation but still it comprises to

be only a part of the whole and

there can be situations where the

entrepreneurs are not actually

innovators but adaptive imitators

and are called replicative innovators.

As already explained being an innovator is just

one of the characteristics of an entrepreneur and

still it, though, an important one, is not really

essential. Amongst the characteristics an

entrepreneur requires, one of the most important is

risk taking abilities as well as not losing one’s

nerves even in very turbulent times. It can

logically be concluded that the chances of a

person, who has patented a product, also has the

above mentioned capabilities is less. Also, for

many scientists and even for the other innovators

these milestones are reached when they are

middle-aged and have got family responsibilities

and the risks of leaving a steady job for an

uncertain field becomes a big deterrent. Also, with

age, the energy and appetite for risky ventures

further reduces the chances of a successful

promotion of a patent holder to a company owner.

Knowledge and skills related to forming and

running a company is another big requirement for

becoming an entrepreneur. These set of skills

include knowledge about the market, basic

financial understanding, good enough

social skills, soft skills, having the

capacity to integrate various parts of the

company and develop a sustainably

productive work environment. Besides,

though the person will certainly know

about the core product, it is not always

possible that he will be able to magnify the

scale of production to larger and

economical scales. The procurement of

raw materials is another

headache. Accepted, that

all of these skills are not

necessarily essential and

you can easily outsource or

hire people to do these jobs

but still a basic knowledge

about all these factors is

important or otherwise,

one has to hire a person

who has got it combined with the rare

characteristic of integrity. Again, many

businesses will not have enough capital or

perhaps even a large enough market to

support a big employee base, so the skill-

set of the patent holder becomes another

deterrent.

One very important factor that has stopped

patent holders from owning companies is

their lack of foresight, as many of them

end up selling the patent at minimal prices

compared to product capabilities. They

then end up blaming their fate once the

product becomes a sensation and starts

spinning money. One classic example of

such a deal was Bill Gates being able to

buy QDOS from an IBM programmer Tim

Paterson at only $50,000 a meagre sum

compared to the original capabilities of the

product.

Lack of passion for or attachment to one’s

INNOVATION vs.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

SOUMYA PRITISH

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product and an eye on financial benefits only, also

leads to innovators selling their patents to larger

companies. As the various technology related

companies are growing they are swallowing

various start-ups. So, in this case though the

innovators do become entrepreneurs they easily

sell their ventures.

Coming to the Indian context from a general view

and assuming that the patent holder has, through

one way or the other, been able to get past all

these hurdles and is ready to start a company but a

larger set of barriers is awaiting his arrival.

Availability of capital is one major obstacle that

they have to face, as the loans available from the

public banks are, though comparatively cheaper

but full of bottlenecks leading to longer time for

approvals, while the loans which are generally

readily available from the private banks are

available on higher interest rates. As, not many of

the patent holders have enough money a suitable

way to do that is finding a suitable investor,

seeing the Indian scenario finding which is

tougher and if available the terms might not be

very profitable to them.

Problems with availability of land to set up the

plant or office spaces at reasonable rates is

another big problem for a start-up. But the most

important of all problems is the government

bottlenecks due to the remnants of the License Raj

in starting up of the company. If you want to start

up a company you will have to take individual

licenses from a range of departments which fall

under the municipality or the municipal

corporations, state governments and the central

government. But it is not this number of

departments that is the only concern but the long

time taken to clear the process of obtaining

licenses or permissions due to the inefficiency of

the employees or the widespread corruption levels.

By the reports of World Bank, India ranked 132

amongst 185 countries on the criteria of

ease of doing business in the year 2012.

This data in itself tells a large part of the

story. Labour Union problems are there in

certain parts of the country; poor financial

status of the due to fiscal deficits, weaker

rupee; politicisation of various economic

processes; lack of political will and other

factors that affect the economy. The

volatile industry situation in the respective

sectors also affects the entrepreneurs and

as these people are not the experienced or

trained lot, the effect is much larger.

But still, though the problems are very big,

there are more than practical reasons to

believe that with the development of

economy, capital would be cheaper and

investors easier to find, the bottlenecks of

the system will reduce with reforms. The

impact of internet and the software sector

will lead to a

reduction in the

age of innovators

increasing the

probability of their

owning companies.

The increased integration of world

economy and perhaps a more balanced

inclination of education towards the

practical world will lead to inculcation of

various skills that innovators lack. Though

the road is tough, yet these developments

combined with inspiration, provided by a

set of successful entrepreneurs like Sachin

Bansal and Binny Bansal (Flipkart) or

Sanjeev Bikhchandani (naukri.com) may

lead to a whole new set of innovators

developing into entrepreneurs fuelling the

great Indian growth engine.

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The role of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country’s economy is well established. The sector contributes 8% to the country’s GDP, 45% to the manufactured output and 40% to the exports. The MSMEs provide employment to about 60 million people through 26 million enterprises producing over 6000 types of products. But the MSME sector in India is largely heterogeneous in terms of size of the enterprises, variety of products and services produced and the level of technology used. More than 94% of the MSMEs are unregistered, with a large number established in the informal and unorganized sector.

The recently concluded Innovation Summit 2013 organized by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry dealt with “Building Capacities in MSMEs through innovation”. It dealt with the challenges faced by the MSME sector. The sector suffers from a number of constraints and weaknesses.

A predominant number are in the unorganized sector, often located in non-conforming urban zones.

The sector is heterogeneous with pockets of high technology enterprises and majority suffering from low technology base resulting in low productivity and poor quality of products.

The units being small in size also have poor access to credit and equity.

The sector faces shortage of skilled manpower due to lack of paying capacities and managerial capabilities.

Absence of marketing channels and brand building capacity.

The absence of proper leadership in these enterprises.

A lack of education amongst the people involved in decision making makes further improvements difficult.

The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) facilitates the promotion and development of MSMEs. The major functions of the ministry include:

Assist the States in their efforts to promote growth and development of MSMEs.

Development of Khadi, village and coir industries.

Implementation of the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme.

Facilitate adequate flow of credit from financial institutions/ banks.

Provide support for technology upgradation and modernization.

Integrated infrastructural facilities Modern testing facilities and quality

certification. Support for product development,

design intervention and packaging. Welfare of artisans and workers. Assistance for better access to

domestic and export markets. Cluster-wide measures to promote

capacity building and empowerment of the units and their collectives.

Besides, there are many private sector units like SIDBI which

provides assistance in cash and kind to the MSMEs.

Nowadays many more MSMEs are trying to build capacities through innovation in the competitive environment.

Innovations that these enterprises indulge in can be of

two types:

(1) Incremental innovation wherein the pre-existing model is enhanced and

(2) Disruptive innovation where new categories of products, services or processes that serve the markets are brought forth.

In case of enterprises, innovation can also be categorized by the functional area it caters to, i.e.

(1) Product innovation wherein the capacity building or enhancements to the actual product takes place.

(2) Operational innovation in which the operating processes are made leaner and more efficient.

(3) Marketing innovation where new and innovative marketing techniques are developed to promote the product or service.

Finally, MSMEs should also leverage pre-existing ICTs like cloud computing. The road to innovation has already started for the MSMEs and now it is upto the society and governments to take it forward.

MSMEs: THE LITTLE THINGS

MAKING A BIG DIFFERENCE MIMANSA BAIRATHI

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EclipseCrossword.com

Across 3. College founded by Bunker Roy. 5. A term used to cover different methods for avoiding using the financial resources of external investors. 6. Indian company which started its own VC firm in 2006. 9. Act of behaving like an entrepreneur while working within a large organization. 11. Social games developing company. 12. A type of short-term finance that is expected to be repaid quickly. Down 1. Entrepreneur of the Year India 2012. 2. An interest or increased value in a property earned from labor toward upkeep or restoration. 4. An asset pledged as security for a loan. 7. Purchasing standard operational services from another business. 8. Father of the White Revolution. 10. Founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association.

Answer each of the following question by connecting the respective images.

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