EMBARK SEPT 2019

" If you're trying to create a company, it's like baking a cake.

You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion " - Elon Musk

EMBARK'19

DISCLAIMER The views and opinions expressed in Embark are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of team Embark, entrepreneurship development cell or department of management sciences (PUMBA), Savitribai Phule Pune University. Few images in this magazine are taken from the internet and are used purely for academic purpose without any intention of copyright infringement. Infographics are taken from internet.

EMBARK'19

Dr. Surbhi Jain Professor & HOD

Department of Management Sciences, University of Pune is an institution which bestows upon its student’s various opportunities to showcase their capabilities in different ways.

One must be able to work hard and manage expectations, while building and utilizing their skill set to grow in their careers. One of the ways by which students can learn these is through our biannual magazine ‘Embark’.

The cell members interview owners of prominent startups and draft the same, which helps all students to understand how they started, their thinking process, the difficulties faced and how they survived.

“You can always edit a bad page. But You can’t edit a blank page.” This quote shows the importance of writing.

Writing is a stage where students can exhibit their creativity and thought process. The students ponder, study and present their reports and articles on various topics through this magazine.

All of this helps the students in whetting their management skills before entering the corporate world. The sole purpose is to groom the students in the profession they choose and provide them with guidance for accomplishing their pursuits because our success lies in the success of our beloved students.

I would like to applaud the Entrepreneurship Development Cell for yet another successful release of EMBARK. I acknowledge the efforts of Dr. Rajesh Pahurkar - the Faculty Coordinator of the ED Cell.

I appreciate the scrupulous efforts of the Student Coordinators of the ED Cell who have made EMBARK successful through their co-ordination, contribution and diligent work. I wish the team all the best for their future endeavours.

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Dr. Rajesh Pahurkar Faculty Coordinator, ED Cell

In Indian environment, the basic purpose of the educational system is to create the manpower to fit in existing job market only. The majority of the students passing out of universities and colleges have the tendency to get a safe salaried job and very few students take decisions to start their own ventures. Basically, we cannot blame our students because of our existing educational system which does not have any major focus on creating more entrepreneurs. Universities need to be more innovative and entrepreneurial as against traditional way of teaching and research. Traditional universities focus on transfer of knowledge through education and advancement of knowledge through basic research. This traditional approach is leading to produce graduates with no any special inclination towards entrepreneurship. The output of university should not be measured only on the basis of the number of students enrolled and passed out with degree. The social and economic contribution of universities must be considered for its evaluation.

Universities must emphasize on those activities which will lead to economic and social development, while doing so there must be synchronization among university- industry- government such university can be called as an ‘Entrepreneurial university’.

Entrepreneurial universities have primary role in developing the human capital of the nation along with this it plays vital role in transfer of technology from academics to industry. The research work development may result into spin off ventures, It also supports existing business operations by offering its innovative research solutions to industrial problems. Entrepreneurial universities can undertake various entrepreneurial activities as below: Establishing technology park Protecting Intellectual Property Rights through patents Contract research Executive education/ Industry training courses teaching to be more entrepreneurial I would like to give my best wishes to start the entrepreneurial journey at PUMBA. All the very best!!!

EMBARK'19

Sourabh Salunkhe Coordinator, ED Cell

As a matter of priority, it gives me immense pleasure to congratulate Shreya and team for doing a commendable job for this Embark edition.

MBA, a career changer, a pathway to success, a gate pass to enter the business world, the definitions go on and on. MBA is indeed a PG Degree which is proof of your academic achievement but what I have realized is that it is just a pause or a break from your ongoing career life, where you get to know yourself better, you build up your professional network, you align with the friends that become your business partners as they have complementary skills but are inclined towards similar type of goals. So, it is rightly said by Rockefeller, “A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.”

We at ED Cell, believe that each and every one of us is having the capability to explore innovative things, to dig into oneself and bring out the hidden entrepreneurship skills and endorse it to recreate ourself, traverse along our own creative paths rather than follow the carved ones. ED cell at PUMBA to uphold this approach and attitude conducts few activities like E-Day, MAD- Pitch, Elevator Pitch, Kautilya’s Arthshastra, etc. ‘Embark’ is also one such pursuit, giving the nod to this attitude.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our Head of the Department, Dr. Surbhi Jain and our ED Cell Faculty Coordinator Dr. Rajesh Pahurkar for their constant support and guidance and my team who has made Embark successful through their coordination, contribution and hard work.

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Shreya Patel Editor, Embark'19

We are living in an ever-changing environment and surviving in this VUCA world is a challenge faced by many, including the entrepreneurs. VUCA is an acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. It is indicative of the world we are living in and the future as well. Be it economy, business, politics, environment, VUCA affects them all.

So, how does an entrepreneur be prepared for the unknown? Embark ’19 will help you grapple with this question, guide and motivate you to overcome any challenge that comes your way.

In this edition, we have set the trajectory to gander at some of the formidable personalities who have accomplished in attaining status quo of successful entrepreneurs in a wide spectrum of areas.

My sincere gratitude to our Head of the Department, Dr. Surbhi Jain and Faculty coordinator, Dr. Rajesh Pahurkar for giving us an opportunity to launch Embark'19 and giving us their valuable feedback time and again. I thank all the entrepreneurs for their time and for sharing their insights. It would not have been possible to publish this magazine without the efforts put in by all the ED-iots, the ED cell team.

I thank every single person who has directly or indirectly helped shape the magazine.

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CONTENTS INTERVIEWS Ather Energy.......................................................................................................1 CricChanakya.....................................................................................................4 CrisisCode...........................................................................................................7 Moonshine........................................................................................................10 Atyaasaa...........................................................................................................14

ARTICLES Amazon Forest Fire – A Burning Crisis............................................................17 Entrepreneurship in the VUCA world...............................................................19 The man who believed- VGSiddhartha............................................................21 VUCA Leadership.................................................................................................23 Drone delivery.....................................................................................................25 Reinventing Business Through Disruption......................................................27 Revolution by Innovation..................................................................................29 VUCA in Pharma Industry.................................................................................30

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INTERVIEWS

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TARUN MEHTA Co-Founder & CEO

Ather Energy

Tell us something about Ather Energy.

Ather is an electric vehicle company. We are based out of Bangalore. Ather started in October 2013. I and Swapnil started it. We originally wanted to build batteries for electric vehicles and do something in energy space.

We had an idea on battery packs, that got us very excited and as we spent more and more time knowing about electric vehicles, we realized that a lot of them weren’t a good replacement for petrol vehicles and that the Indian EV transition was going to be led by the consumers in accordance to government policies, which meant we had to make products that made sense to Indian consumers. So, either they would have to have a strong cost argument or a very strong product argument.

Clearly, the cost argument with previous emission vehicles wasn’t working out, so we believed that there is an opportunity to build a better product, which is why we decided to start building Ather energy batteries. We launched our products last year. We are right now shipping only in Bangalore. We see good strong demand. Looking at how the model works; we are planning at expanding to multiple cities.

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Being a former student president of entrepreneurship development cell of your college, did you always aspire to be an entrepreneur?

When I was in college, I quitted entrepreneurship with an MBA, which is a terrible analogy. I figured out that learning more about entrepreneurship is a good way to understand business models, finance and strategies and hence, a good way to get into consulting. According to me, nothing could be further apart from entrepreneurship then consulting in MBA. Unfortunately, that’s what I used to think.

So, I don’t think that helped, but the fact that I worked in the entrepreneurship cell, allowed me to connect with a lot of entrepreneurs. I ended up approaching and meeting a lot of them and this helped because it’s just the closeness and understanding from their quarters about how they think, how they started with the opportunities they had and that played a very important role. So, there are certain more tactical things that you learn when you are in an entrepreneurship cell, like knowing about venture capital. It is not a very standard thing to imagine that somebody will give you money upfront with no collateral, so basically, no debt per equity and you will use that capital to build something that will not be profitable for many years. That entire concept is very alien, but working in the entrepreneurship cell, I think I became very comfortable with this entire idea, otherwise it would have taken a long time for me to even imagine that this was a possibility.

It must be difficult to get engineers on board, given that fact that they are experienced and you are a startup.

I think it’s the other way round. I haven’t met an engineer for whom Ather won’t be a good option, at least in the electrical and

mechanical world. The industry also pays bad in most of these departments. So, it is easy to recruit these people. The hardest part is only to find good engineers. You would be surprised to know; these are people who are happy to anyway jump out and go for something else right. At this point, if the person is a strong engineer and you give him an option that he can skill himself, at the same pay scale or maybe even better scale but come in and do proper engineering, a lot of people would prefer jumping out and taking that chance as opposed to stopping their engineering career completely.

After facing a lot of rejections from various investors, how did you manage to get Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal to invest in your venture?

I think fundraising is just a game of numbers. If you stick by a pitch, you don’t change your pitch, it’s just a matter of reaching out enough number of people.

Sometimes, the space that you are in is extremely hot, extremely exciting and the connections you reach out to are the right ones and people find an investor in the first 5 pitches, more often than not it will take about 40-50 pitches before you find an investor, sometimes it takes 100. So, if your pitch is clear and you don’t change your pitch, fundraising is honestly just a numbers game.

I’ve also read that you are a day to day organization manager who turns into a board game wizard by night, which board game do you like the most?

I like playing Catan, Germanian, and Monopoly.

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What are the 5 traits that an entrepreneur must possess?

If you had one piece of advice to someone starting, what would it be?

An entrepreneur has got to be very optimistic. An entrepreneur must have a lot of clarity, he /she must be a great storyteller, extremely creative, a good problem solver, not the way our school education teaches us. The one parameter on which an entrepreneur keeps improving is on clarity. You think you have clarity when you start but a year into your start-up, as you get 3 people on board, you start getting distracted and then you get more clarity. 3 years into your start-up, you have raised some funds, you have shareholders to worry about and your original vision change very naive, seems very vague and broad, you distill it down further, you make it more precise, you focus on all these efforts and you get more clarity. So, I think clarity is that one single variable on which an entrepreneur can keep it going almost forever.

Never change your vision. Usually more people than not end up changing their vision to suit their investment needs, suit currently what’s hot in the market. I have seen start-ups dying at the hands of it. So, my advice would be never to change your vision.

Interviewed by

Shreya Patel

Can you tell us about the difficulties you faced in your journey to date and even the present challenges?

From our journey till now, I think fundraising is always hard, it ought to be, because if you are finding fundraising easier that means you’re not pitching in a beginner vision, so fundraising is supposed to be always difficult. Building an organization structure is one of the hardest things that we are doing, it’s even harder than fundraising. Understanding scale and how it works is our current challenge for the next one year.

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SHUBHAM AGRAWAL Founder

CricChanakya

Tell us something about CricChanakya.

CricChanakya is an upcoming fantasy cricket app. It gives power to the users and makes them feel secure about their cricketing knowledge so that can be awarded, rewarded and can get socially recognized. Every Cricket fan feels that he/she has a Cricket Chanakya within him/her, we want to give them a platform to showcase their talent. If you are the real CricChankya, come out here and play; and there is a potential job opportunity to it as well. If you are good in communication or good in anything related to cricket, e.g. If someone is a coach, we give them a platform to showcase their skills.

We would like to know about the story behind the name, ‘CricChanakya’.

The term CricChanakya is an amalgamation of Cricket and Chanakya. As we believe that every fan is a Chanakya in his own way, we wanted to make a brand name which is inclined towards the user’s perspective. We want to empower the users. They should feel that ‘I am CricChanakya!’

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EMBARK'19 As we know that there are many competitors in the industry having a similar platform, what is the USP of CricChankya over the other players? How is it different and what upper hand does it have over the other players?

It is a multiple category platform where we will be offering 7 different categories. 4 match categories and 3 tournament categories. So basically, we are solving 3 problems that the current users face. 1st being monotony. They don’t have many options. What is fantasy? Fantasy is something that’s in your mind, it is not real.

But when you are stuck with one fantasy, you don’t have the power of creativity. What we are trying to do here is we are creating variety of categories for people, we have one 11 player format that is already in the market for those users who want to stick to that particular format, we have one ‘Fantastic Five’ category which needs you to select a batsman, a bowler, a wicket keeper and another player of your choice. So, for users who do not want to be stuck with 11 player category, we have 6 other categories for them. That is how we are solving the problem of monotony. The second is transparency.

The people on other apps don’t think the top 3 winners are real winners, they mostly think that they are backdoor entries. We want to break that myth and we will be very transparent with our approach where every winner will be published on our social media website where we’ll be posting their profiles with their prior permission. The third is social recognition. It is not always about money because money can be earned from anywhere but it’s also about respect. So, if you are winning a sum of Rs. 1 lac on our platform, you deserve some social respect too. How would people know that you won?

Hence, we will be doing certain videos and posts on the winner so that they can get social recognition.

Students today want is a stable job and income. You too are managing a job as well as a startup.What do think about this perspective?

I think entrepreneurship is something that comes naturally to you. If you have that kind of mind, you sense it. There are 2 kinds of people- One with the entrepreneurial mindset and one with the ‘I need a stable job’ mindset. But I don’t want people to get stuck with any kind of feeling. Let me narrate my story- When I was in PUMBA, I used to do this small business where I’d go to FC road, have a small gaming contest. I’d set up a small stall on my Activa. The game was that you had to eat 6 Parle-G biscuits in a minute without any liquid. Many would stuff if and if you stuff it you can’t gulp it. And the rule was that you had to swallow everything at the end of 1 minute. For playing this, you must pay me 100 bucks. If you do it, I’ll pay you double. 95% of the people used to fail.

Now, if I would think that if I am doing MBA, should I do it or stay away from it, then I wouldn’t have achieved so much but for me being an entrepreneur or earning from selling anything is the most satisfying feeling. So that comes from within. The first thing is the high paying job is a myth.

You should not get stuck to a job which is high paying just because it is high paying. If it is something that interests you, then go for it but look for a job which is of your interest area. If you are not interested in the job and going just after the high salary, you would be like a plateau, you won’t see growth. If it is of your interest, go for it. If not, wait for the right opportunity. I don’t think it is easy to maintain a job and a business, but you should never say never.

You should always give it a try. I do consultancy for TCS and also have 2 businesses.

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EMBARK'19 Probably by next year at this time, I’ll be full time into CricChanakya. So, if I count the interns rightnow, our team for CricChanakya is 32. I have to manage the job, a wife and then 32 people. I recommend doing whatever you are doing but you have to understand your priorities because life takes a hit, it becomes tough to manage things but if you think from that perspective then you won’t be able to achieve anything.

If something does go wrong, do you have any plans for that?

I get satisfaction by selling something for Re.1 as well. So, if I can get satisfaction from selling Rs.4 Parle-G at Rs.200-300, should I be worried about it? You should always trust your capabilities while taking decisions.

unaware of the financial terms. I had a cousin. He is doing CA. I called him to discuss CricChanakya and he joined in.

Then Mayank, the Co-founder jumped in.

Then Snigdha, my wife, joined and then the technical team and so on. That’s how I build the team. By god’s grace, I have this convincing power which has helped me a lot and which should also help you if you develop communication and interpersonal skills, you’ll be able to get things done in the right way, right manner at minimal costs. In my situation, I could not afford an outside team or share a lot of equity with them but due to family, people who are good in their job, we can do it quite smoothly as of now.

Interviewed by

Do you think there is anything that can stop your business from succeeding?

Yes, Competition. Dream11 is a big player with about 5000 cr of valuation now. We are just starting out. In fact we are bootstrapping. So, I have to cut my expenses and put it in the company. Dream11 is surely a threat but the concepts that we have come up with are our own. We can develop new concepts if they are copied. Once we are in the market, I am sure we will give a good run to Dream11 for their money.

Shreya Patel

Gauri Lodha

What is the most exciting thing about working for CricChanakya?

Everything is exciting about CricChanakya because it’s like my baby from day negative infinity (if there exists such a word). I have played professional cricket during teenage but due to injury, I had to quit and so I always wanted to do something in Cricket. One day I came up with this idea. Also, 12 members of the 32 are my family members. I am a marketing guy and so was slightly

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DEEPAK GAIKWAD SHEKHAR SANKPAL Founders & CEO

CrisisCode What is Crisis Code?

CrisisCode is the FIRST medical ID in the world which provides medical information WITHOUT INTERNET. CrisisCode provides a rider/driver emergency with medical information such as his/her name, family contact details, address, blood group, health insurance, health issues or allergies of the rider and all these details are immediately displayed whenever the QR Code is scanned through any scanner app such as Paytm, CamScanner, Twitter, etc. Also, CrisisCode maintains PRIVACY about Female rider’s name and contact details. The main mission of CrisisCode is to make everyone's daily life safer by providing a safety solution which will ensure survival in case of a road accident.

How did it start?

CrisisCode is a small start-up by two entrepreneurs Deepak G and Shekhar S based out of Pune. Both the diehard bike fans studied in the same college from Pune BMCC. Being superbike fans, we always keep ourselves updated about the new bikes, safety gears, accessories, etc. Our parents were totally in opposition to biking due to the daily news of accidents caused by various reasons, though the rider is not always guilty.

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Later after understanding the reason for their opposition, we concluded that bikers don’t have any important proof that they carry with them during rides which could help them to reach out the emergency contact person. Knowing his blood group on the spot can be vital in case of emergencies. One night, Deepak came up with this idea of having self-identity with the bikers which should be efficient and concrete proof of information which shall be accessible quickly during the time of emergency. After brainstorming, we concluded that this is going to be a boon not only for pro super-bikers but all the people who travel on bikes and cars. We aim at saving the lives of people who travel daily and aim to minimize accidents and loss of lives.

This product not only gives out the required information after an accident, but it also builds trust in the minds of people related to the rider. It gives them a sense of confidence that someone will help him by scanning the CrisisCode sticker which would help them identify his blood group as well as other emergency details. This simple sticker is a very powerful and important product in a riders’ life.

How was the implementation done?

We started to know the importance of such kind of medical aid when we had talks with various biking groups. We came to know about its importance in making our roads safer. Our main focus was to get the right product ready, so we started looking for the best quality of sticker material and then carried out the colour test, scratch, and water test to identify the best material.

This process took approximately 6 to 7 months. After that, we focused on the selling platform, for which we decided to create our own website through which we can accept orders and take the required information from customers. Few selected information we finalised which could be asked from customers and which will be shown in case of an emergency through CrisisCode. Then we started finding best delivery service provider for which we took quotations from many courier service companies, but it was too expensive for us so we decided to deliver the product thro-ugh Indian Post which is cheap and reliable, also it provides tracking ID which can be easy for customers to track their package. Looking at the eligible weight for speed post we created special packages of high quality which gave a good impression. We always kept ‘customer satisfaction’ our priority and tried to give a high-quality product to the customers. And as all things were ready we came on the social media platform and started creating brand and product awareness with the help of social media influencers. We started our marketing through social media and it made us reach all over India and now we are having customers from the USA as well.

Difficulties faced?

1. The printer on which we chose to print CrisisCode sticker needed a minimum printable vinyl size which required minimum 50 stickers and it cannot print one or two stickers as per the order.

Solution: We decided to print the stickers in batch. For which we decided to wait for 8 days after we receive first order of the batch and once the required no. of sticker orders are received we printed them and dispatched which made our work and process more easy and simplified.

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2. In India, we don’t have internet connections at every location so it was difficult to scan CrisisCode and show the Emergency medical information imme-diately which required an internet connection to read and show the information.

Solution: We researched more about QR code and made CrisisCode through a unique software which shows the emergency information of the rider without an internet connection

Current and future plans?

Current plans are to create more awareness about the product with the help of state government, advertising through digital marketing, reach more people and educate them about road safety.

The future plan is to attract investors to make CrisisCode an international brand in providing safety medical ID to make riders safe.

Interviewed by

Gauri Lodha

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ROHAN REHANI & NITIN V Co-Founders

Moonshine Meadery How did moonshine come into existence?

R: The genesis of moonshine started three years ago. I and Nitin were childhood friends.

Our dads worked in the same company, so we got transferred together. Post 10th grade, Nitin went to his hometown to pursue engineering and I completed it in Pune. We finally reconnected in Bombay. We started to hang together when I moved to Bombay for work and our friendship continued. In 2014, while Nitin was working with McKinsey, he was flying from Munich to Brussel, and that is when he read about a meadery in London in a flight magazine. For a long time, we had been planning to make beer at home and now we had something fun to experiment with. He took a picture of the same and sent it to me. It looked very interesting because firstly, it has a lot of history; Mead is the oldest alcohol known to man and secondly, it has roots in our own culture; it has been mentioned in Rigveda. This was like history meets mystery. Not many people know about it plus it is very old, so why not give it a shot. So, we bought some honey and in 2014 we brewed our first batch (which was terrible!), but the next batch got better, and it improved further and then our friends started asking for few more bottles. That is how I started finding out the commercial viability of it.

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EMBARK'19 You had a well settled and bright career in McKinsey. How did you decide to give up on the job and move towards Entrepreneurship?

R: In my case, 80 percent craziness and 20 percent excel sheet.

N: I did the math and didn’t turn out very well, but I was double hatting. I use to travel to Pune over the weekends and even on weekdays, had meetings with the clients after office hours and after initial research, when moonshine was demanding more time for actual implementation, my job started to get impacted, but for leaving the job I needed a little push and Rohan and my wife gave me that push. Finally, I quit my job in January 2018. In my case, it was 70 percent calculation and 30 percent risk.

In your initial days, how did you bootstrap for investment?

R: We had friends and family who supported us. We took our initial batch to them and they liked it, so we pitched that we wanted to start moonshine, few of them believed in us and took the risk to invest in us.

Are you currently focusing on educating the customer about the product, before going into rapid expansion?

R: Yes. Mead is a new category. A lot of our conversations are synonymous to- “Ye beer nahi hai, ye wine nahi he, ye mead he” (This isn’t beer or wine, it is mead). Thus, the business can be seen in three stagesdiscovery, trial, and re-order. Re-order is the function of the product itself. So, we had to focus more on discovery and trial. Discovery can be done with the aid of marketing, branding, etc.while the trials are done in restaurants and events; we just ask people to try the product.

Did you already know how a business is run or was this your first time?

R: Broadly, we both were in consulting, so we have an idea but to implement it yourself is not the same thing. Consulting is not the same as manufacturing. The good thing is that in my previous role, I was running a manufacturing plant in Gujarat.

So, a lot of those learnings are applied to the production side of it. Nitin, in his previous role, was in a pharma company.

Pharma, FMCG, and alcohol sales are similar, to a large extent. So, his experience in that has helped us in the sales front of things. My experience in production has helped us in the production side of things.

So, again our past experiences have led us to this. People say that you both are mechanical engineers. What are you doing making alcohol? A lot of manufacturing processes are still applicable here. A lot of mechanical engineering systems are still applicable here. His consulting background gave us a lot of good insight into the things that we were doing wrong.

Before meads, what were your favourites?

N: ‘Doolally’ is like an all-time favourite but along with it, ‘Independence’. They keep trying different things. Doolally generally follows a standard style but hats off to them to keep it consistent and along with it, ‘Independence’.

This segment is new. So, are you sensing any competitors entering the market?

R: We know that people are working on the project, but I don’t think anyone is launching in the next 7-8 months. Its good to have competition because the market grows. The more money someone else spends on telling people what mead is, the lesser money we need to spend.

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EMBARK'19 What kind of marketing are you planning to have for the next 2-3 quarters?

N: You’ll see a lot of activation stuff.

Whenever you’ll enter a restaurant or retail store, if it is on our radar, there’ll be a person telling you about meads and pushing our product, especially on Saturdays and Sundays. We are targeting people who are into the independent music series. We are already decently represented at the space called, ‘The Habitat’. So, we sponsor the ram and there are 3-4 of indie gigs that happen, which we sponsor. So, we are slowly and steadily trying to get deeper into the Indie music and the art spree and along with that activation is going to be the key. So, you will keep seeing someone or the other coming and asking you to try the mead.

R: As I said earlier, there is discovery, there is trial and then the order. So, we are just focusing on the discovery and the trial part.

Firstly, we’ll educate people that our product exists and then make them try it.

Most of your investors are either your friends or family. Are there any angel investors or venture capitalists?

R: No VCs. We have a few angels on board. In fact, now it’s mostly angel investors. Most of our angel investors also came because we didn’t ask them for money, we asked them for advice. There is an old saying that goes like, ‘if you ask for advice, you get money but if you ask for money, you get advice’. So, we asked for advice to a bunch of people and all those people have now become angels in some sort.

Regarding entrepreneurship, some students want to start away right after graduation or post-graduation, do you think it is a good idea or should they take 23 years of work experience and then start their business?

N: If you want to start immediately, start immediately. What you require is not experience, what you require is the keeda, Last year, the UN declared the official beer the zeal and an open mind to learning. of the year as ‘Bira’, which is an Indian R: You will need advice. Get a mentor, or I company. So, do you see yourself would suggest, get 5 or 6 mentors, people thereafter about 5 years? you can bounce ideas to. You don’t have to N: 5 years is too long. If we want to pull out follow their advice but listen to people. something like that, we better figure it out in There are a lot of entrepreneurs who are 3 yrs. like, “Ok, this is the way I am going to do it, R: Once we have 51 million dollars, yes that is the only way I want to do it”. Have the definitely. So, we are always open to kind of keeda but also be open to new ideas. working all things together and as N: You will hustle a lot. That is something sustainably as we can. It shouldn’t be like a that must come to you naturally. The only pure publicity campaign. Everything that we piece of advice I’d like to give is that there are trying to do is for the long run. We are are a lot of angel investors for whom a major not from a business background, we are factor to decide on whether they would trying to create a sustainable company; invest in your business is, “Is it a single when I say sustainable, I don’t say entrepreneur business or is it 2?”. Generally, sustainable from an ecological perspective, 2 is advisable if you look at the trend in that is one but also a company that sustains Silicon Valley or in India. itself over a long period. So, our business objectives need to be aligned with our marketing plans and vice versa. So, yes, we will do it only if is sustainable for us.

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EMBARK'19 With any business with 2 entrepreneurs starting it, have a higher probability of success and higher probability to go through difficult patches. It works well as a pair. But you got to find that person whom you want to start it with because you got to have 100% faith in him/her. Sometimes, even more than your spouse. Because there is a lot of shit that you guys are going to go through.

Whenever you do, find a co-founder to work with, that’s the first fundamental that you do not have to sit to choose him/her because he/she brings that specific skill set to your business. That you can hire always. What you can’t hire is trust.

R: And whenever the relationship starts, don’t have egos. Egos are the death of any relationship. Egos will lead to the death of partnership as well. And honestly, a cofounder relationship is way more intense than a marriage relationship.

If you had one piece of advice to someone starting, what would it be?

N: It is not going to be an easy journey for sure. What is needed is perseverance, belief in your idea and belief in your co-founder’s abilities. There is one line that I have used in the past and I continue using it- “Kar denge to ho jaega”, that works. This is something that I learnt from a civil contractor long ago.

R: Always be hustling. Even right now we have employees on the field but yesterday he was out there doing fieldwork. I am going to go next week to do the fieldwork. So that should never stop. You should never be so used to an AC office that you are not getting out and actually seeing what the reality on the ground is.

Interviewed by

There must have been times when you wanted to quit. What kept you going?

R: The other person. Many a time he has called at 12’o clock at night saying the numbers are not working.

N: I have even called him once when he was about to walk into an excise office for possibly a very pivotal meeting saying, “Yaar, I don’t think this is going to make sense, please don’t step in.” I’ve woke him at 3 in the morning saying, “Wake up! I don’t see these numbers adding up”. So, I’ve made phone calls to him at ridiculous hours saying, “Nai karna hai ye”.

R: And the other person would be like, “Let me have a look”. Then you take the ownership and look at things that the other person has missed. Here is where the advice comes in handy, especially when you are starting something new, you don’t know how the market is. When you take advice, you will get a better idea of what skills you need to offer.

Kunal Chithore

Shreya Patel

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NIKET KARAJAGI Founder Director & CEO

Atyaasaa Consulting Pvt Ltd

How Atyaasa got started?

Atyaasa started because of two things1) My exposure to behavioural sciences.

2) Sheer frustration of corporate life.

We start questioning if it was even worth it.

When you look back you tend to feel that you achieved a lot in life but sometimes, we question whether it was worth it. There are lots of idea clashes and conflicts amongst managers and entrepreneurs thinking. Ultimately life brings you to a point where you say, “That’s enough”. But the decision is difficult to comprehend because you are used to drawing a salary and from drawing a salary to creating one, requires a lot of shift.

You have an open policy for employees.

So, the ones who leave can always come back. Did it backfire sometime?

The philosophy behind this is that the ones who are yours will stay with you. We have such a robust process in an organization that work cannot stop. Most of the organizations are moving towards a jobless economy. The thinking is that if a person quits, do we have the technology to replace that person. A lot of customers get overwhelmed by our technologies. We have an application available which reduces time and iterations.

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EMBARK'19 What is the one philosophy that Atyaasa has been practicing?

Be brutally honest about everything in the company, even when you are in a loss. It increases trust. We allow people to look into our tally systems to see for themselves that this is us. We don’t do differential pricing. The main thing that we focus on is to reinvent constantly.

What are the qualities that youngsters should inculcate in themselves to be successful?

Spirituality is a part of the journey of an entrepreneur. When I started my journey, the journey of seeking also began. I experimented with metaphysics a lot and conducted some workshops on it. There is simple principle of 'cause and effect'. Whatever is happening to you today is your creation. It is also called the ‘Theory of Karma’ where your actions define the reaction. For entrepreneurs, certain parameters and behaviours should remain constant like the path of personal mastery and extreme authenticity.

Is service marketing in India growing?

All unicorn companies except two or three haven’t done anything disruptive, because disruption is expensive and lead time is also high. Disruptions feed the ego. Creating disruption requires a lot of R&D and deep pockets and it will bleed. If the market accepts it, it will be phenomenal and if it doesn’t then it is ahead of its time and eventually, an entrepreneur runs out of money and quits.

If we take the example of Flipkart, even after making losses, investors still invest in it? Why so?

Financial analysis is pure logic. You can prove that it is possible to make a profit and vice versa. Flipkart’s lead time is very high. In Flipkart venture capitalist usually funds particular projects in stages. It is better to invest in a decent idea done by the authentic person than in a breakthrough idea done by an unauthentic guy. A person reflects his idea. It depends on what kind of a person you are. We should nurture business together, VCs as well as entrepreneurs. Also, we have been through massive ups and downs. Then we have to sit and think that’s when I implemented design thinking and the company became extremely agile.

What entrepreneurs should do is that they should constantly learn and be students always.

By implementing design thinking we are understanding when the downfall will happen and how we will tackle it. The downturn is easier to manage than upstream because it becomes difficult to grasp the market speed.

Do ethical practices go hand in hand in this era?

We are living in a digital world. Digital footprints are everywhere. Any person who is doing malpractice can be caught by leaving digital footprints. It’s called a Doppelgangers effect. Lacking ethics may lead to negative brand perception. Any person who is doing business with you looks at you first, you are the representative. Company is just an entity, the status and reputation are created by the entrepreneur, also credibility is important.

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How is the environment for start-ups in India?

There has never been a more correct time in this country to become an entrepreneur.

Your generation is very lucky to have this opportunity. But the USA is making more ‘billion-dollar’ companies than India because spiritually we are attuned to selfdevelopment but not to make money.

Sourabh Salunkhe

Kunal Chithore

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ARTICLES

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Amazon Forest Fire – A Burning Crisis

By Kushal Kotwal

As the global environmental crisis is becoming a concern of the present and not just a “Bogeyman” of the future, the news about the forest fires in the Amazon rainforest has become a pinnacle of the debate of development versus conservation.

While in the minds of level-headed individuals there is no doubt about the grave consequences of this unfortunate incident, it has always been assumed that development and environment cannot co-exist with the latter always taking a backseat throughout history.

As managers of tomorrow, we need to challenge this notion as any corporation in today’s economy cannot continue to function without incorporating sustainable development in their strategies. This is a critical requirement to thrive in the VUCA world, companies that are flexible to adapt to the changing preferences of the market are the only ones that survive. The industrial revolution brought the world into an era of efficiency and topnotch production and supply mechanisms but gone are the days when the impact of the operations on the society was not a parameter of performance. This is the reason why such crises are gaining so much traction, it is reflective of the transition of preferences of the customers and the stakeholders. The newer generations of Millennials and Gen-Z are more environmentally responsible, and they demand the same from the corporations and would gladly switch to eco-friendly alternatives.

The fires currently consuming Brazil’s Amazon rainforest seem a world away from the trade war of the US and China. In truth, they are more closely connected than you might suspect. One of Beijing’s main acts of retaliation in the fight has been to freeze purchases of the American soya beans it imports each year. Brazil is trying to bridge this gap.

Chinese imports from Brazil in the 12 months through April came to 71 million tons, about as much as it imported from the entire world in 2014.

The trouble is, Brazil has a finite amount of land and if you squeeze the balloon in one place, it risks popping out in another. As it is, the agriculture lobby is eyeing deforestation to make that land arable and are suspected to be behind the fires.

A recent study estimates the value of Amazon rainforest at $8.2 billion if it is left standing. The $8.2 Billion includes the economic benefit of sustainable industries that currently function in the rainforest, such as Brazil nut farming and rubber tree timber.

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Tearing down the forest would reduce rainfall so significantly that it would generate a $422 million annual loss to agriculture, defeating the benefits of having more land to farm on.

Moreover, there is a possibility that this reckless attitude would jeopardize a deal between Brazil and the EU, affecting agricultural exports of Brazil. Focusing on a short-term boom, while ignoring the long-term effects is a classic mistake in the VUCA world.

To conclude, the words of E. O. Wilson seem very relevant to this incident, “Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal�

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Entrepreneurship in the VUCA world: Things to keep in mind to mitigate stress

By Deven Mudholkar

Some people today feel the world is becoming increasingly stressful and difficult to grasp and cope with, both privately and in business. They see the world getting more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) and experience a constant pressure to perform.

For entrepreneurs, this is a challenge. They need to constantly keep up with what is going on in their markets and the broader environment. But they also need to keep their cool and follow their own path. After all, they can't respond to everything happening around them, can't allow themselves to fully stress out and need to be the confident leader that their companies require.

How do they do this? How do entrepreneurs deal with the stressful environment they face today? Because even as the situation stands as tough as it is, people are finding innovative ways to not only safeguard but to boost their businesses and are achieving their targets incredulously.

The World Economic Forum, WEF identifies 10 skills needed by 2020 to survive the Fourth Industrial Revolution 4.0. These are cognitive flexibility, negotiation, emotional intelligence, creativity, service orientation, judgment/decision making, coordinating with others, people management, critical thinking and complex problem-solving.

Forbes has also come up with certain observations of inherent qualities that some of the successful entrepreneurs share. They are: Accept that things can be uncertain and overwhelming. There is no point in denying this or pretending you are always in control. Also, accept that you get stressed and that you can't solve everything. Adjust your expectations. Realize that feeling stuck or that things are uncertain and out of control is just as much a product of what you expected beforehand as of how things really are. Adjust your picture and aspirations so that they are more in line with reality.

Stay alert, adapt and act fast. Be like a firefighter, always be prepared to act instantly in case something unexpected—good or bad—happens. Monitor things closely and have a plan B ready in case plan A might not work.

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Focus on something else. When feeling stuck in one project or with one problem, leave it for a while. Work on something else or let your mind rest for a moment.

Be your true and whole self. Stay authentic, don't pretend and don't do things that are supposedly right or healthy but that don't fit you. Don't put a lid on your feelings of stress. Your team will notice it anyway when you pretend. And start liking yourself for who you are.

Put yourself in other people's shoes. Ask yourself how others would respond. This could be someone in the company or outside, but also your three-year-old daughter or the company mascot. This changes perspective and it also helps you be more emphatic to how others experience something.

Create an organization that functions without you. Even though it can be very hard to delegate and let things go, create a team and organization that doesn't need you. This reduces your stress level and it also reduces the impact that your stress has on the company.

These are valuable lessons, for entrepreneurs and for others too. A final thing that these entrepreneurs showed was the importance of balance and self-consciousness. Yes, focusing on something else can be very effective, but not if you use it as an escape—then it only creates more stress. And being your true and whole self is generally good advice, but as the entrepreneurs remarked, there also is a limit to this because however you feel and whatever you do affects the team. So, the main advice: don't follow these bits of advice blindly, but apply them wisely.

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The man who believed- VG Siddhartha

By Shamli Telrandhe

Peter Ducker said, “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” What is a business without decisions? The outcome of a decision can be good or catastrophic. An example of this is the case of Café Coffee Day, commonly known as CCD. In July 2019, VG Siddhartha, the founder of CCD committed suicide breaking dreams of young entrepreneurs all over the world who looked upon him. He became a perfect example of how decisions taken quickly can sometimes go wrong.

After completing his post-graduation in Economics, VG Siddhartha had the option of joining his family business who had 300-acres of coffee beans farms. But instead, he wanted to start his own business. His father gave him a seed investment of 5 lakhs, out of which 3 lakhs he used to buy land and he went to Mumbai with the remaining amount.

He started his career by studying the uncertainty and volatility of the market by interning in JM Financials. Gaining enough confidence from this experience, he started his own brokerage and trading company, Sivan Securities. Simultaneously, he also carried his family business forward of producing coffee beans and then exporting it outside.

With little prior knowledge, he tried to gain more insights and saw how the international market is earning thrice the amount from coffee retailing as compared to that in India, which had predominantly been a tea-drinking market. He figured out the problem was due to the coffee board and hence pitched the idea of liberalizing the board to the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh and the response was positive. Now coffee producers could sell coffee on their own terms in the both domestic and international market. So, he started his own coffee company in 1996, becoming the first entrepreneur in Karnataka to set up a café and a company which not only produces but also procures, processes and roasts beans and retails them everywhere in the country and outside.

Inspired by the owner of Tchibo, a German coffee chain, he made India familiar to coffee which supposedly, was popular only amongst the upper class and elite section of society.

Within 2 years, the company became so famous that it expanded in the entire Bangalore and Chennai region. And now, it has around 1700 outlets in India.

Café Coffee Day also became famous due to its concept of providing free Wi-Fi for the first one hour to their customers. This attracted youth and additionally, it became a meeting spot for many business clients. Their tagline “A lot can happen over coffee” justified the atmosphere that CCD had created in its outlets.

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But with such great expansion in a very short period of time, came great investments.

Also, the business model was majorly debt centric. The company went public in 2015. He became the largest shareholder of Mindtree. But with the large investments he made in building the coffee chain, he had to sell 20.41% of stake to L&T to repay his debt. This helped him pay a majority of his debt. However, things got worse when the Income Tax department raided around 20 locations and found an unaccounted income of 362 crore rupees. This led to decreased trust amongst the shareholders, due to which they started demanding buyback of shares and left VG Siddhartha in a spot. With such a complex and ambiguous situation, he could think of nothing but taking his own life.

In his last letter, he had written, “I’d failed as an entrepreneur.” I don’t think he failed as an entrepreneur. He was an epitome of hard work, hope, creativity, and determination.

VG Siddhartha started Cafe Coffee Day when there was no demand for coffee. He created the need for it and subsequently the coffee market boomed. Even when Starbucks was entering the Indian market, CCD kept developing itself to keep its customers satisfied. It set an example for a successful marketing strategy, a business model which till date is discussed in Management institutes and will continue in years to come. The love for coffee amongst Indians began with CCD. Starbucks might be your first salaried coffee, but CCD will remain the cafe where you had your first date. Because you believed when they said 'A lot can happen over coffee'.

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VUCA LEADERSHIP - DESIRE TO LEARN, HUMILITY TO UNLEARN & URGENCY TO RELEARN

By Bhumika Pillai

In a world that is constantly changing and becoming unstable each day, changes are more rapid. Plan for investment, development and growth are nearly impossible due to high uncertainty. Problems are more complex than before and their consequences are much harder to understand.The increase in volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity means that you and your business must seek a new orientation to management. The VUCA world provokes you to be more concerned with humans and their changing needs. In short, these rapid-fire changes are putting extreme pressure on business leaders to lead in ways not seen before. ADAPTING CHANGES -In order to deal with intricate challenges that VUCA presents today, organizations need to embrace 'change', rather than try to impose rigid controls & management practices that are unlikely to work. Successful organizations will adopt ‘okay to fail’ approach, where failure is accepted as a learning process, rather than seen as a trigger for blame.Former US President, Abraham Lincoln once quoted, " As we live in turbulent times, so we must think anew and act anew." Occasional failure is inevitable, but it is the speed of recovery and the lessons learned that make all the difference.

Strategy for a steady leadership in a VUCA world: There are number of techniques that leaders can utilise to make sensible decisions in a VUCA environmentVOLATILITY ~ VISION Leaders with a clear vision of where they want their organisations to be in six months, a year, in 3-5 years’ time, can better deal with volatile environmental changes, by making business decisions to counter the turbulence while keeping the organisations vision in mind.

UNCERTAINTY ~ UNDERSTANDING To be effective in a VUCA environment, leaders must also learn to reach beyond their functional areas of expertise. They should communicate effectively with all levels of employees in their organisation for a better understanding of the ongoing situation.

COMPLEXITY ~ CLARITY In a VUCA environment, complexity is all around us. Leaders who can clearly tune into all the precision associated with complexity and understand what is happening, can make smarter business decisions.

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AMBIGUITY ~ AGILITY The ability to communicate across the organisation and adapt quickly to deliver new solutions to changing scenarios play an important role in organisational success.Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility are the elements that are inherit in VUCA ready eaders. In today's highly competitive VUCA world, standing still is not an option. Progress requires a mindset that is adaptive to changes. In developing the leadership skills, a proper plan for VUCA environment is essential, as change is inevitable.

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The future of logistics is here: drone delivery

By Pranav Suryawanshi

How often have you ordered a product online and got it the same week? I assume it happens almost every time. With services like prime delivery we get our delivery within two days. But what if you got those shoes you wanted to wear for a special occasion within hours of placing the order? Seems unlikely right? Well its time you brace yourself for it. Amazon is preparing to spoil you with such rapid delivery perks. And not just Amazon but other e-commerce giants will implement it too as the basic rule of business states that it has to adapt to the changing environment in order to survive.

So what can you expect? Well for starters maybe you could try to google Prime Air and see for yourself. But I will save you the efforts here. Well Prime Air is Amazon's drone delivery service which is expected to start this year in selected cities and claims to deliver your order within 30 mins of placing it. Looks like the pizza business is going to have a hard time. Okay now let us dive in a bit deeper. Drone delivery is not only limited to getting your orders from e-commerce giants but has a very farther reach. For starters did you know there are various types of drones that operate in several industries? A lot of drone usage is carried out while constructing architectural wonders like the Burj Khalifa that has stood like a mighty mountain withstanding the extreme weather conditions of Dubai. Drones are used to carry out the site surveys of these high rise buildings. Drones are also used for land surveillance, for military spying and the most obvious photography. There are drones that can land attacks and carry ammunition with them.

But then let us just stick to the delivery aspect of it for now.

Zomato recently acquired drone startup TechEagle in order to start drone tests to deliver food. According to Deepinder Goyal (CEO of Zomato) current delivery times using bike fleet round up to about 30.5 mins which can come down to 15 mins only by taking the aerial route. See how companies are waging a war for saving every minute? And a minute saved in operations is equivalent to gold. These drones are capable of carrying a payload of 5kgs and can fly at a speed of 80kmph so ordering your pizza just a couple of minutes before the match wont be a big deal. If you are wondering how this is even possible then ask yourself the question whether you would have believed that self driving cars could exist some decades ago. But I will explain you how companies plan to do it. These things need clearances from the aviation authority and the government before starting operations. They also need to build a network for flying these drones similar to how flights take a specific route. So it might take some more time to be implemented here in India but wont take long in developed economies.

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Uber eats will soon start its drone delivery in San Diego in partnership with McDonalds.

This is how it will happen: After you place an order via Uber Eats the restaurant will load the order on the drone which will fly close to your location but will land on a remote Uber vehicle that will have a landing pad. These vehicles will operate several such drones. The drones will fly according to their programmed routes avoiding all obstacles thanks to the advanced anti collision sensors. From there the order will be hand delivered to you. But this is just the first step and just like smart phones went from having huge bezels to bezel less these drones will soon deliver to your door step. Who else is in this race?

Well Tata Sons are seeking to gain certification from the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) in order to conduct drone tests. Swiggy already wants a bite of the pie and DHL is one player that might put others out of business.

But before dwelling into the future let us take a moment to appreciate the $1.2 Billion drone company that ignited the fire of drone delivery – Zipline. Its mission is to provide every human on Earth with instant access to vital medical supplies. As of today the company has delivered more than 19000 packages of emergency blood supply via its drones to hospitals in Rwanda and the number goes on increasing every hour. These drones help to overcome difficult terrains, bad roads and traffic conditions and are a perfect solution to medical services. The company also started its operations in Ghana this year and plans to enter India soon and with its expertise in drone delivery I guess investors would line up for a share in it. I wouldn’t be able to do justice to the level of impact Zipline brought to Africa with its life saving deliveries in this small article so I urge you read about them online.

In the end I just want to say that with the development of hyperloop, electric cars, 5g and other upcoming tech drone deliveries are just a building block for a better future.

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Reinventing Business Through Disruption

By Swapnil Salve

“Start-up is not an idea; it is about making that idea happen.”

- Scott Belsky

One can look at the unmatched changes that are disrupting the world of business and technology. The business world is changing dramatically with time; some business firms are changing their forms, and some are disappearing completely. That is what is happening in the world of business today. It is a VUCA (Volatility | Uncertainty | Complexity | Ambiguity) world where the rules of survival remain the same - Evolve or Fall.

So, what exactly businesses should do to stay in the competition? Knowing about the competitors and customers’ needs if one can differentiate the product from the other competitors, step up in the new market, expand the offer with new products, and also look to the future. Getting to know these things and updating the business as per demand is nothing but constant innovation that modernizes the product or service offering.

Ritesh Agarwal – OYO ROOMS OWNER The OYO rooms story is not about the dream that Ritesh Agarwal had in his life. But it was his desire to complete the vision that motivated him to take a step forward. With one single push, a teenage boy was able to run a successful chain of hotels that have 360 Crore turnover. His picture may make people feel that he is a guy with no special skills or guts to fly high. But he managed to achieve everything against all the odds only by knowing that “customer satisfaction is the key to success”. Such innovations can be brought about either independently or by working closely with customers to create new products and the services which carry more relevance to costumers.

To stay ahead in the competition, an organization need not just adopt a culture of innovation; they also need to implant the new technology into the company no matter which sector it is in. An entrepreneur has to keep in mind parameters like innovation, adaptability, evaluation, and implementation to stay in competition in this VUCA age.

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Today, the business reality is that ninety out of a hundred entrepreneurs who start their business fails. This is a 90% failure rate and this high rate of business failure is because of entrepreneurs moving away from the ‘business-as-usual’ approach and reinventing oneself in every few years. But this long-term strategy does not serve as a final road map anymore. Today’s strategy has to be constantly aligned with reality, reflective of the changing market trends and customer needs.

Entrepreneurs are leading the way with disruptive and attractive models that push established businesses to reduce their time in the market to stay competitive. In the VUCA world, businesses that don’t handle the step of disruption risk are becoming unprofitable and eventually non-survivors.

Finally, an organization needs to adopt an entrepreneurial culture and entrepreneurs must scale-up the entrepreneurial ventures, mitigate VUCA challenges and adopt the duality of the new business world. i.e. to chase growth versus profitability, short term versus a long time, speed versus tough fullness, and adaptability versus consistency.

In the VUCA world, change is only constant. No matter which business you are starting up, chances of failure will always remain high. Those who successfully face the problems and learn from the failures are the ones who achieve success in their business. Start small, nail it and then make it big!

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Revolution by Innovation

By Shreya Vairagkar

As the Chandrayaan II launches into the space hoping for a soft landing to unravel the unexplored parts of the moon in search of water or ice, we Indians bow our heads in respect and admiration for ISRO scientists. The Chandrayaan II consisted of Lunar orbiter, a lander and Pragyan rover launched through a GSLV Mk III (all made in India) which was only possible because of the revolutionary invention of a Rocket by our forefathers.

Who would have thought that man could traverse the space! The first ones to bring up this idea would be mocked at first for their stupidity, but such radical thinkers make the difference.

Elon Musk is one such visionary who perseveres a path towards self-preservation of mankind by developing clean energy on one hand and feels that humanity needs a planet B on earth’s doomsday. Can you imagine the floral waste from the Ganga river which would end up in a dump yard could create a business opportunity and provide a livelihood to hundreds of women? Ankit Agarwal and Karan Rastogi, in their late twenties, left their MNC jobs devasted at the sight of heaps of floral waste in and near the river and turned it into a business plan by producing soaps, incense sticks, organic fertilizers and Styrofoam (biodegradable) from the waste.

Have you ever imagined how much you harm the environment when you dispose the single use plastic containers you get from online food delivery agencies? R. Nambilakshmi of IIT Bombay and Prathmesh Deshmukh of IIT Kharagpur, have invented an ecofriendly, recyclable, leak-proof and economical takeaway containers; replacing the plastic packaging used in food parcels, a small step towards a better earth. What if cars could run on water and air without polluting the air we breathe? Seems too ambitious,right? Akshay Singhal and Kartik Hateja, founders of the company called Log9 Materials, have devised a metal-air car-battery made up of graphene and aluminum that could make this happen.

The battery gives out no emissions and is eco-friendly. Log9 plans to launch the power back-up as a substitute to diesel generators and eventually run heavy vehicles.

These are just some of the examples of the ways through which people are innovatively trying to solve the same problem and creating a revolution. It is said that entrepreneurship is finding solutions to problems in society and implementing those solutions in a way that would help you make money. We need more of such breakthrough ideas that take us towards a sustainable future making it a win-win situation for society and the business. So, keep looking for problems that need solving and let your creative and enterprising spirit be alive!

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VUCA in Pharma Industry

By Manish Gidwani

Newly incepted by the U.S. Army War College in 1987, the term VUCA has been progressively adopted by the business world to refer to the instability and unpredictability of the modern business world. Shifting company boundaries, accelerating technological change the rapid globalization of customer and labour markets, and the increasing complexity of stakeholder networks have left many pharma executives struggling to optimize organizational effectiveness. VUCA is defined as Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity each letter represents the challenge which the majority of businesses face in the everchanging scenario of the corporate world.

Volatility means an unexpected circumstance which has an unknown and unprecedented time frame, however, the information regarding this situation is readily available (usually) and the cost occurred is high in terms of innovation and expanding outreach to customers. Another potent issue is the Uncertainty, which hinders the ability to predict events and issues which potentially pose a threat to the changing business environment.

Uncertainty can be due to numerous reasons few of which can be observed as an advent of digital technologies, changing competitive landscape and evolving consumer mindsets.

These reasons can have a huge impact on the pharma industry as a lack of data can delay the responsiveness and commercialization of the upcoming advancements in the healthcare system as a whole.

Complexity introduces multi variable problems with interrelated sequences which are due to diverse environmental challenges that pharma companies have to face in the business scenario today. In my opinion, Ambiguity and Complexity are two sides of the same coin as a dearth of information and uninformed results of the strategies employed may have multiple possible interpretations thus causing disruption of reality in the context of the problem and the consequences associated with it. How do they do this? How do entrepreneurs deal with the stressful environment they face today? Because even as the situation stands as tough as it is, people are finding innovative ways to not only safeguard but to boost their businesses and are achieving their targets incredulously.

In order to stay within the game and deliver effectiveness, most companies are adopting and showing signs of agility which in case of large organizations was a difficult scenario in the past times. Thus, with advancement and adoption of digital technologies coupled with generation and access to information openly, pharma companies are able to reform themselves and provide better service to all their stakeholders and consumers.

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EMBARK'19 The most basic of solutions that may offer a competitive advantage in VUCA landscape of the business are: Increasing focus on new drugs, investing in research and development of the new products to launch globally thus reaping greater profits for the successful introduction of complex therapy.

Pharma companies are often the slower ones to adopt new technologies, thus with increased openness to embracing new technologies and modifying them for effective marketing to the end-consumer may help in gaining an edge over other competitors.

Mergers and Acquisitions have always been an inorganic growth strategy, in the global arena, this strategy may help in increasing market access and strengthen the precise position of a company in a certain country.

As healthcare is moving towards a more value-based system it is imperative for the companies to establish redefinition in three areas of the competitive landscape – Agility, Capability and Value systems.

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Design Credits:

Deepak Gaikwad Design Head

Department Of Management Sciences (PUMBA) Savitribai Phule Pune University