The Making of a Success Entrepreneur

BUSINESS MANDATE

fountainhead of excellence

1 MAY 2022

BUSINESS MANDATE

fountainhead of excellence

53 MAY 2022

MMA in association with Madurai Management Association and Konrad‐Adenauer‐Stiftung ﴾KAS﴿ alongwith the support of like‐minded organisations organised an offline conclave on the theme, ‘The Making of a Successful Entrepreneur,’ at Hotel Taj, Madurai on 19 March 2022.

M

r

Shanmugasundaram,

Circular economy will help India

venture capitalists, PE fund owners

Madurai

to the tune of 40 Lakh crores by

and others are ready to fund them

Management Association

2030, he said. India is estimated to

now, but during the previous era,

delivered the welcome address. Mr

reach a net zero economy by 2070

funding was very restricted in view

Pankaj Madan, Deputy Head-India

by which time 50 million jobs are

of the risks involved in a starting an

Office and Head Programmes, KAS

going to be created. By 2030, there

enterprise, he noted.

delivered the opening remarks in

will be economic opportunities

which

worth 1 Tn $, he explained, quoting

President

he

highlighted

activities organised

of

and by

various

programmes KAS

worldwide

including the political dialogue programmes

and

programmes

organised in India. He requested the entrepreneurs to add a ‘Green Tag’ when looking at business plans and made a strong case for sustainable business

practices,

including

practising of ‘circular approach to production.’

54

MAY 2022

from published reports.

&

about

announced

various in

the

promote

startup

ecosystem,

Magistrate,

especially in Tier 2 cities. Three

Madurai, delivered a special address

startup hubs are planned in Erode,

on

‘Startup

Madurai and Tirunelveli, he said. He

Opportunities in Madurai and the

noted that the startup incubator cell

Support of Tamilnadu Government.’

in Thiagarajar Engineering College

Startups were there even during

is doing a good job and hoped that

earlier decades but now it has

investors will support startups

gained much importance. There are

coming up in Madurai.

the

District

measures

spoke

Tamilnadu government budget to

Dr S Aneesh Sekhar IAS, District Collector

He

theme,

many startup owners now, because BUSINESS MANDATE

fountainhead of excellence

Dr Asit K Barma, Director, Bharathidasan

Institute

Management

spoke

on

c) Leveraging existing natural

of

resources in the State and doing

the

value addition in Tamilnadu itself.

convention theme. He spoke about the massive shift from individual company-focussed business models to platform based models and about

d) Focussing on developing the ecosystem and skilling, upskilling, reskilling the State’s youth.

 The trade‐off between values and valuation is an important factor. More than mere valuation, the values that companies provide will ultimately matter.

how Amazons, Olas and Ubers and

Mr Peter Rimmele, Resident

Tech companies like Google share

Representative to India, KAS spoke

the

market

on ‘Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in

capitalization and how they have

Germany.’ He pointed out that

Thiagarajar Mills Pvt Ltd, the Chief

created

themselves.

German entrepreneurial ecosystem

Guest stated in his address that as

According to him, for India, to reach

has a huge impact on the European

the bank interest rates have come

1Tn$ economy by 2030 is a tall

entrepreneurial ecosystem.

down throughout the world post-

major

pie

values

of

for

order and to achieve this, we have to

grow

in

a

non-linear

way.

Traditional companies always were creating value using their internal resources whereas the Amazons create value by orchestrating their external

resources,

he

said.

Companies today must aim for Scale, Scope and Speed (3S) to achieve exponential growth, he argued.

Mr Peter Rimmele stated that there are six pillars that hold this entrepreneurial ecosystem, namely: the policies of the government / companies;

financial

system;

culture; the support system; the human capital and the market situation. These pillars are unique to each country and therefore, they cannot be copied, he remarked. He touched on the social projects

He predicted that today’s cold

undertaken by the companies in

war will be centered on data. For

Germany, which is slightly different

getting higher productivity from

from the CSR concept in India. He

existing

in

opined that in India, the system is

Tamilnadu, he suggested the below:

overregulated and under-governed.

factories,

especially

a) Marrying economic engine to ecological engine and making ESG a part of the organisation’s culture. b) Converting existing IT parks into digital parks

~ Mr K Hari Thigarajan

Covid, many investors try to put their funds in startups but this situation may soon change and the startup ecosystem may not be as hot as it was during the recent times. The trade-off between values and valuation is an important factor, he said. More than mere valuation, the values that companies provide will ultimately matter, he argued. Constant innovation, use of e-commerce and digital technology, conducting SWOT analysis and constant re-strategising are very important in this VUCA world, he said.

He pleaded that companies should

He explained many of the best

not just look at how much profits

practices followed by the founder of

they can make but also on how

Thiagarajar Mills. He talked about

much they can contribute to the

how he brought down the cash-to-

common good of the society.

cash cycle time, even without

Mr

K

Hari

Thigarajan,

BUSINESS MANDATE

fountainhead of excellence

ED,

knowing about such concepts or studying MBA.  55 MAY 2022